Over the summer of 2011, The Creators Project partnered with Eyebeam in NYC to host a series of meetups, workshops, and talks around the theme of “Designing for Participation.” The program culminated in a weekend-long hackathon—the original impetus for the program in the first place. Called Art Hack Weekend, it was an important hackathon that focused not on making a marketable product or hatching the next big start-up or app idea, but rather on utilizing technology to dream up “new artistic experiences”—which in the end became the theme of the weekend.

The hackathon arose out of a desire to channel and support the immense creative energy present in both The Creators Project and Eyebeam communities. The partner organizations brought together creatives from diverse backgrounds and skillsets—developers, fine artists, graphic designers, game developers, dancers—and gave them a lab space where they could collaboratively explore their wildest ideas. At the culmination of the collaborative program, the partner organizations created a platform for showcasing and supporting emerging artists and creative technologists—those bedroom hackers with a day job who burn the midnight oil toiling on some idea simply for the pleasure of creation and self-expression.

Some 60+ participants attended, forming 15 teams and developing 16 project prototypes over the course of the 36-hour hacking sprint. At the close of the weekend, they presented these final works to a crowd of friends, family members and a panel of jurors who awarded two of the teams, Antagonistic Applications and Team Dis-Kinect, with development stipends and an opportunity to exhibit their finished pieces at our Creators Project NY event in DUMBO two months later. (Read more about the other projects here.)