Microblogging platform Tumblr and arts commission Electric Objects have come together to develop a materialized version of the online ‘art club’ Electric Objects has maintained, amassing nearly $50,000 in commissioned work by Ai Wei Wei, Bjork and others. The Soho location is sufficiently chic enough (and surely pricey enough) to make it all feel real and validated.
But, frankly, it’s time for digital art to materialize in a ‘real’ way, and get some chic locale for validation as a ‘real medium’. Sometimes it’s the apparently superfluous details that make it all feel more official. Digital art has certainly had a positive reception, it seemed natural in the progression of the whole of art, but exactly how to get digital art ‘right’ in the real world has been challenging. Electric Objects seems to be the nearest thing to practical digital representation of art. Electric Objects has conceived the EO1, which is an Internet-connected display designed from the ground up for discovering and enjoying digital art and ideally will be the ‘go-to’ display medium for art of this nature in the future.
Catch the gallery and see the EO1 in action in downtown NYC at 72 Spring Street or at the New Museum Shop on Bowery.