Artist Marc Ngui recently returned to his A Thousand Plateaus drawing project, in which he visually interpretats the famous text by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Ngui had previously only illustrated the first two chapters, but he is now working his way through the rest of the book and uploading his work to a Tumblr.

The above image is from the original series, created as an illustration of chapter 1, paragraph 6, which includes some rather key statements: "Any point of a rhi­zome can be connected to anything other, and must be;" and, "A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sci­ences, and social struggles." 

[H/T: Kenyatta Cheese]

READ ON »

Screenshot of DISimages.com, 2011-2012 Rhizome Commission

Rhizome is now accepting proposals for the Rhizome Commissions 2013-2014 cycle. Each year, the program supports emerging artists by providing grants for the creation of significant works of new media art. This year, Rhizome places a focus on promoting emerging artists based in New York City. Grants will not be restricted to New York based artists, but made a priority. This cycle, we also have a specific focus on one project that addresses social issues and/or promotes individual advancement through education or participation. Rhizome will award up to six grants for the creation of new works of digital and new media art. Five awards will be determined by a jury of experts and one award will be determined by Rhizome's membership in an open vote. Rhizome Commissions awards generally range from $1,000 to $5,000.

This year, Rhizome has also partnered with Tumblr to offer an additional strand to the commissioning program: The Rhizome | Tumblr Internet Art Grant. The Internet Art Grant expands upon Rhizome's existing Commissions program to specifically target Tumblr's significant artistic community. The Internet Art Grant will make three commissioning awards with a special focus on projects from artists engaged with Tumblr.

The commissions award will be determined by a jury of experts: Laurie Anderson, noted experimental performance artist and musician; Massimiliano Gioni, Associate Director and Director of Exhibitions at the New Museum and Artistic Director of the 55th Venice Biennale; Renny Gleeson, Global Director at Wieden + Kennedy; and Zoë Salditch, Rhizome's Program Director. For the Rhizome | Tumblr Internet Art Grant, jurors include Gioni, Anderson, Salditch and additionally, artist Jon Rafman and Topherchris, Tumblr Editorial Director.

The Rhizome Commissions program is supported, in part, by funds from Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, the Jerome Foundation ...

MORE »

We are pleased to announce the appointment of New York-based writer and curator Michael Connor to the new position of Editor & Curator. This senior appointment will significantly shape the overall artistic direction of Rhizome, through its public programs and online publishing.

Connor's work focuses on artists' responses to cinema and new technologies. His past solo and collaborativeprojects as curator include: ‘Street Digital,’ comprising gallery installation work by artist duo JODI;‘Wild Sky,’ which explored contemporary perceptual regimes through artists' images of the sun and cosmos; 'Screen Worlds,' a permanent exhibition at ACMI in Melbourne, Australia; ‘Essential Cinema,' the opening exhibition at the Toronto Film Festival's new venue; and 'The New Normal,' a touring exhibition of artworks that used private information as raw material and subject matter. Connor previously worked as Curator at FACT, Liverpool and Head of Exhibitions at BFI Southbank in London. While at the BFI, he oversaw the development of an interactive moving image archive designed by Adjaye/Associates as well as a gallery dedicated to artists' film, video, and new media.

We are thrilled to welcome Michael to the organization, and to see how he will lead the program. He will start in the position in April 2013.

MORE »

Rhizome and HTC® are pleased to announce Rhizome’s Seven on Seven Conference, an annual event that brings together figures at the forefront of art and technology to create innovative new ideas. Over the course of a single day, seven teams, each comprised of a foremost artist and a leading technologist, are challenged to develop a new idea, concept, or prototype to premiere at the conference. Now in its fourth year, and to accommodate the demand for a larger audience, the conference will move from its former location at the New Museum and will take place at the Tishman Auditorium at the New School in New York on Saturday April 20, 2013, from 12–6 p.m.

Rhizome is pleased to announce the following participants:

Technologists: Tara Tiger Brown (LA Makerspace), Dalton Caldwell (App.net, PicPlz), Dennis Crowley (Foursquare), Harper Reed (Threadless, Obama for America 2012), and Julie Uhrman (Ouya).

Artists: Paul Pfeiffer, Jeremy Bailey, Fatima Al Qadiri, Jill Magid, Cameron Martin, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Matthew Ritchie.

The full lineup of participants will be released by March 14, 2013. For more information about the upcoming and past conferences visit rhizome.org/sevenonseven

Early Bird tickets are now available for a limited time at sevenonseven.eventbrite.com

MORE »

Happy New Year from all at Rhizome. The new year starts with a new push encouraging you to donate to our annual fundraising campaign, and you'll be seeing things ramp up around here during its final two weeks. The amount we're raising is crucial to our programs in 2013, and will further Rhizome's mission to examine technology culture and its social, political and aesthetic implications, from the perspective of contemporary art. If you value Rhizome's work — if you read the site, share links to our articles, use it to find out about new artists, come to our exhibitions and events, or interact with the organization in any number of ways since 1996 — donate today.

Arts organizations like ours survive on the support of the publics they serve, and Rhizome has a particularly strong community around it. With under two weeks left, now is the time to express your support.

MORE »

We're pleased to announce that Rhizome is now on Tumblr! Over the last 16 years, Rhizome has amassed an incredible collection of images, videos, and more from memebers of our community. On RHIZOME DOT ORG we we'll bring to light this great content and more right to your dashboard.

MORE »

Today, the Rhizome staff is pleased to announce Heather Corcoran as Rhizome's new Executive Director. Corcoran succeeds Lauren Cornell who has served the organization for the past seven years and will continue to be involved by joining the Rhizome Board.

The staff is very excited to have Heather on board and look forward to working with her! It goes without saying that we will miss Lauren, but know her presence and support will still be felt through her participation on the Board of Directors and her continued work in the field!

MORE »

Last Thursday, Ben and I took a field trip to check out Rhizome's physical archive. Tara Hart, the New Museum's Digital Archivist, showed us where the Rhizome files are stored in the museum's archive located next door at 231. We had about an hour before we needed to get back to work, so we took couple of boxes and dug right in. This was fun departure from the usual day to day activities around the office. Here are some gems we found from our trip:

In a binder labeled "Rhizome Ads", a record of advertisements from various art and technology publications.

(from Leonardo, Vol. 33 Number 2, 2000)

I love the selling points here. Starrynight search interface -- Amazing!

We also found a bunch of folders labeled by month and year which held articles about various artists involved with Rhizome, new media art calls, opening invitations and other ephemera. Flipping through, I came across this great hand written postcard from Mouchette.

(Found in a folder labeled October 2001)

In another folder, I found this Xeroxed announcement for Cory Arcangel's Whitney Artport commission.

(circa 2002)

There are over twenty-something boxes to go through, who knows what we'll find next. I promise to keep you updated!

MORE »

Today I am pleased to announce the publication of a paper that documents the past, present, and future preservation practices of Rhizome's archive, the ArtBase. This paper is the synthesis of years of research conducted by Rhizome and other leaders of digital preservation, in and outside of art institutions. What follows is an attempt to summarize a few key points. The paper in its entirety is available here: Sustainable Preservation Practices and the Rhizome ArtBase

"…if nobody sees a museum piece, what’s the point of having it or keeping it? Museums exist for a social purpose, for us humans."
Bruce Sterling, keynote address at “Preserving the Immaterial: A Conference on Variable Media,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2001.

JODI – Globalmove.us

What happens when an institution acquires a digital work of art? How does one preserve and ensure the longevity of an art object that is inextricably tied to infrastructure built and controlled by neither artist nor institution? How can a work that exists in a social space, or makes use of real-time external data sources, be documented? These questions have long plagued collectors, conservators, and collecting institutions, as well as artists themselves. At Rhizome we face these challenges daily in our effort to preserve and ensure access to a multi generational practice and legacy of work produced by the communities we are built upon. The first line of Rhizome's mission statement reads: "Rhizome is dedicated to the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology." Of these tenets, one that perhaps occupies the least public awareness, yet constitutes a significant portion of our labors ispreservation. It is at the core of Rhizome's mission of support.

Since it's inception in 1999, the ArtBase has undergone numerous stages of evolution. What began as a simple place for sharing links has grown into a comprehensive archive adherent to international archival standards, containing over 2,500 works. Parallel to the archive's evolution, we have witnessed the aging of these works, some dating to 1994. From broken links to obsolete plugins, we have seen it all. Slowly but surely we are migrating works to host on our servers so that we may provide stable URLs, understand the digital objects that a work is composed of, and create stable versions of works that will remain unharmed by technological innovation. We are on a deep level working to ensure true longevity for these works, that 30 years from now they will be accessible and functional. Rhizome is 100% committed to providing permanent, free, public access to this collection and its cultural context...

READ ON »