Commission Program

Christian Marclay, Screen Play, 2005

Moving Image Commission

Eyebeam's Moving Image Commission program seeks to expand the field of contemporary dynamic media art by supporting ambitious new work utilizing computer graphics from a diverse group of international artists. The program does not offer a cash award, but rather a grant of technical post production services that allows artists to expand their practice in the digital field unimpeded by the prohibitive cost of commercial post production. Provided services include digital modeling, animation, compositing, special effects and motion graphic work. Studio staff work with commissioned artists to explain how to integrate digital post into their work flow, assisting with pre-production story boarding, animatics, and production preparation.

The Commission Program is geared toward mid-career artists with a noteworthy international exhibition history who would benefit from digital post production services. The award is presented up to two artists annually. Applications are by invitation only. Projects are chosen by Eyebeam's Moving Image Selection Committee, consisting of: Tania Blanich, Kathy Brew, Melanie Crean, Chrissie Iles and Benjamin Weil. The request for proposals are sent out annually in May. Project work begins in October and is completed the following August. Artists provide one copy of the created work to Eyebeam for exhibition, education, archival purposes, present one public talk, and give at least one critique to other artists working in the Moving Image Studio.

2005: Christian Marclay's Screen Play −

Christian Marclay's Screen Play is a new work consisting of a projected video score to be interpreted by three musical ensembles performing live on November 11th, 2005. The projected element of Screen Play is a combination of found film footage overlaid with computer animation. Marclay chose footage suggesting certain visual rhythms and emotions, which he then worked to accentuate or underscore elements with overlapping computer graphics. The resulting video- reminiscent at moments of a silent film and at others of a flight simulator- becomes the visual score for musicians to interpret live.

The video score of Screen Play was produced in Eyebeam's Production Studios for the 2005 Moving Image Commission. Eyebeam and PERFORMA05 are co-presenting this premiere performance.

Christian Marclay is a New York based visual artist and composer whose innovative work explores the juxtaposition between sound and vision. Since 1979, Marclay has been experimenting with sampling both visual and audio elements, experimenting with composing and performing to create his unique “theatre of found sound.” He has shown extensively nationally and internationally including solo shows at the Tate Modern, the Hirshhorn Museum and the Venice Biennial.

2004: Shirin Neshat's Mahdohkt +

2003: Isaac Julien's Baltimore +

2003: Fred Wilson's September Dream +

2002: Mariko Mori's Wave UFO +

Production Commission

2006: Trevor Paglen −

Trevor Paglen is a Berkeley-based artist, writer and experimental geographer. His work, Negative Space, will make visible, and audible, the overt infrastructures of hidden military installations. Paglen has begun to develop a technique of “televideography” based on astrophotography specifically for this project; with Eyebeam’s help he will extend two-dimensional, long-distance imaging into the temporal realm to create a three-channel video installation about the ghostly existence of a secret military base near Groom Lake, Nevada. http://www.paglen.com/

2006: Media Shed/Mongrel +

2005: Liisa Roberts +

Social Sculpture Commission

The Social Sculpture Commission was created to support interdisciplinary, socially engaged art works that feature creative practitioners working collaboratively with the community. The program, running annually from October through August, provides a grant of production services at Eyebeam's studios (including moving image, sound production, programming and systems design), public exhibition support from LMCC and a stipend of up to $17,000 for producing and presenting the work.

The concept of Social Sculpture was coined in the 1970's by Joseph Beuys to refer to creative acts that engage with the community and respond to the world around them. Thinking of the artistic practice as participatory, these ideas were rooted in the belief in the collective versus the individual and the engagement of a larger community into the creation and presentation of the work. Eyebeam and LMCC conceived of this commission to explore how contemporary artists/ collectives are exploring and translating this concept through contemporary technologies and means of communication.

2005: Preemptive Media −

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and Eyebeam announce the arts collaborative Preemptive Media as recipients of the 2005 Social Sculpture Commission (SSC). Through the upcoming year, Preemptive Media will prototype portable air quality measurement kits and work with the community to build and deploy the kits, monitor various air pollutants in Lower Manhattan, as well as create data visualizations of their findings. This project and the SSC are intended to develop a new process oriented, socially based artwork that integrates the community into the creation and presentation of the work and affects the world around them. This is the inaugural Social Sculpture Commission, offered jointly by LMCC and Eyebeam.

From 2001-2002, the Environmental Protection Agency collected extensive environmental data from the World Trade Center site and nearby areas in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey. The EPA no longer publishes daily summaries. For their Social Sculpture Commission, Preemptive Media, a collective of artists, activists, and technologists, will develop portable AIR (Area’s Immediate Reading) kits designed to measure and record exposure to pollutants over the course of a day. These kits will collect data on major pollutants in the area such as carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitrogen dioxide, lead and noise. The resulting data and creative visualizations will be accessible and free to the public through a website and visitor center in Lower Manhattan. Preemptive Media’s AIR kits, and resulting website and visitor center, will be an alternative and self-monitoring system created to be maintained and used by the people who live, work and visit the area.

Preemptive Media is a group of artists, activist and technologists interested in utilizing emerging policies and technologies to create new opportunities for public discussion and alternative outcomes. Consisting of Beatriz da Costa, Jamie Schulte and Brooke Singer, Preemptive Media has an ongoing interest in developing discussion and awareness around the relationship of the individual to emerging technologies and data. In prior projects Preemptive Media has created devices and kits as well as hosted workshops and community events. Ongoing and prior projects include: Zapped! (with Heidi Kumao), Swipe and Moport. Zapped! investigates new technology used for product tracking and border control; Swipe exposes information encoded on drivers' licenses and shared without consent; and Moport is an online tool for generating and sharing mobile phone reports.

Preemptive Media, AIR prototype