Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on October 30, 2008 – 12:34 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Some things shouldn’t be explained. I don’t know what this is except that it is titled “Man in the Dark” and was made by Miltos Manetas and Aaron Russ Clinger and that this Man has been floating around since 2004. Just check it out. Its hypnotic…
Tip: click the screen and move mouse around.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on September 22, 2008 – 2:57 pm
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Belgian artist Jan Leenders seems to have more tricks up his sleeve than just his recently introduced Twit2art project, which Ernst-Jan wrote about. He has set up the website AuctionArt.be, where his new painted creations will be put up for auction, always opening at 1€.
Today, he painted his dog.
Bidding is done by e-mail, and the auction ends after exactly 5 days since the last bid is made (the buyer does have to confirm the sale by e-mail within another 24 hours). Every new painting put up for auction will be announced with a blog post, and the time of publication is the starting point for the 5-day window. There’s a handy ticking clock at the bottom of each post to keep you informed of the timeframe.
You can track auctions via Twitter, Flickr, RSS feed and/or by subscribing to an e-mail list.
Written on August 1, 2008 – 6:19 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
The Saatchi-Gallery is probably one of the biggest sites you have never heard of, they are one of the most trafficked sites in the UK, with 70 million hits a day and are ranked the 253 in the world. And for those wondering what all the fuss is about they reached these traffic levels almost overnight.
What is interesting is that the Saatchi-Gallery was almost an instant hit when they launched their new social network last year, then the traffic peaked when they announced their first competition. Competitions are extremely attractive to artists who are looking for opportunities to make a name for themselves. The Saatchi-Gallery hit the nerve when they launched and then took the market by storm.
But according to Compete the appeal of the Saatchi-Gallery is falling off fast, leaving the door open for other contenders who do it right. Evidently the art market is ripe for the taking and the game is not over just yet!
Enter MYartSPACE which has just turned 2 years old and is slowly grooming itself into the Myspace for artists. MYartSPACE is a social networking forum where artists have their profile, can upload images and videos for others to comment on, network with others, and enter competitions. They are not alone in this space, with a few other contenders they are fighting it out to gain traction and build the premier network of artists.
So what can MYartSPACE learn from the giant Myspace who still dominates the No1 position for most trafficked site online?
Some constructive suggestions from my initial usage of the site.
- Given these are expressive destinations the first and most important improvement that MYartSPACE could implement IMHO is allowing users to have much greater control over their personal profile spaces, like Myspace, allowing users to embed Flash widgets would be a major step forward and an easy technical addition.
- Allowing the use of personal CSS to be incorporated, giving users control over the look and feel of their personal pages.
- From a SEM perspective they are loosing a ton of potential traffic from Google as the profile pages are not optimized correctly.
- Improving the value of their competitions, not in a monetary sense but in terms of connections, profile, prestigiousness and acclaim they can shower upon winners would help increase the participation of current users, also attracting new artists.
The social networking space for artists is a tough cookie to crack but rich rewards await the winners. With a few further additions MYartSPACE would have a fair chance at swiping traffic from the giant who dominated this space early on. It will be interesting to see how the race for traffic and user participation turns out, but one thing is for sure, the gap between the rich and the poor amongst these players is huge and if the smaller contestants are to have any chance they will need to use every bit of magic they can conjure.
Written on July 8, 2008 – 12:12 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Belgian artist Jan Leenders is one of those artists who uses new technology to create an exciting art project. He started @twit2art, an idea that revolves around people sending him messages, which he turns into a 18 x 12 cm art piece. Like this one:
That’s an interesting idea, but it’s getting more exciting - as Leenders rewards the people who reacted the fastest, have to pay less. He writes:
“If you’re fast, it’s cheap. The first twit (thus the first painting) costs € 1. The second € 2, the third € 3 and so on. The price includes everything. Material, packaging, shipping, taxes. Everything.
So the people who made Twitter big - the ones who have the guts and the curiosity to try new things - are the ones who have the opportunity to buy a real Leenders for an affordable price. The piece featured in this article for example, was sold for 11 euros. And this one for only 1 euro.
Eventually, Leenders will make some money out of the project. Making him, says Paul Bradshaw, a true punk capitalist. More and more D.I.Y entrepreneurs find new and unconventional ways of making money, some even by making beautiful things.
Here’s my Twit2art. Update: Leenders has sent me a confirmation, it will cost me 45 euros.
Written on June 13, 2008 – 11:13 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
A friend once told me that one day we will define the 20th century (and the first part of the 21st too, apparently) as the century we still had to wait for our computers.
What did we look at while we waited for our computers? The watch icon, ofcourse. An icon so recognizable it made the leap from the virtual world to physical world and is now for sale in the prestigious MoMA in New York for only $75.00.
With a nod to the era of 8-bit computer graphics, the face of this watch is shaped like a computer icon. Made of an ABS and stainless steel body with a polyurethane band.
Written on May 26, 2008 – 7:40 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Artist Erik Nordenankar came up with a brilliant idea: make the worlds largest drawing.
He built a GPS tracker suitcase and sent it, via DHL, around the world. The GPS device recorded its location every few minutes and when the suitcase made it back after 55 days Erik plotted it on a world map. The drawing is 110664 kilometers long and stretches over 6 continents and 62 countries.
The result: (Click for a bigger picture)
The suitcase:
The movie:
UPDATED: Turns out the whole things is a fake. Thanks Roy!
Written on April 18, 2008 – 8:03 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
AI, for Artificial Intelligence still seems like something from the distant future. But Artificial Creativity is here! It’s name is ABSOLUT MACHINES.
Two artists, Jeff Lieberman and Dan Paluska, sponsored by Absolut (with money, not wodka), have been given the opportunity to experiment with the concept of Artificial Creativity. Right now there are two installations that can be played with and watched live on the web. The result is very exciting. I played with it for almost 15 minutes and than kept the music running in the background for another hour or so.
As seen in the beginning of this video, a visitor (could be you) enters a melody on their computer keyboard. The machine then uses this melody to generate a unique 2.5 minute piece of music. And you can watch the result live in your browser and from different angles too. The site isn’t very popular so you can dive right in and compose your own masterpiece and watch it being performed.
You can also visit the machine if you happen to be in New York. It is on display at 186 Orchard st (between Stanton and Houston) NY NY 10002 until April 25th, 2008.
Visit absolutmachines.com to interact with the machine every day between 9am-11pm EST or see how it works here:
More information at http://bea.st/sight/absolutQuartet/
Written on April 10, 2008 – 4:12 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Although everybody seems to be raving about video on Flickr, I just like to bring something totally different - yet photo-related - subject under your attention. It’s a really interesting photo project by Jonathan Harris called The Whale Hunt. For some of you, this might be old news as it’s published six months ago, but I don’t want to risk that other people miss this incredible photo series. Moreover, I think that some media art doesn’t hurt this blog. After all, our main purpose is to inspire you.
Eleven months ago, Harris traveled to the Inupiat Eskimos in Barrow, Alaska, to see how they hunt on whales. Before you ask, his project is not a political statement whatsoever, he just wanted to cover a ritual that has been going on for ages.
His photos series of the whale hunt is quite special, since it’s a new way of human storytelling:
The photographs are presented in a framework that tells the moment-to-moment story of the whale hunt. The full sequence of images is represented as a medical heartbeat graph along the bottom edge of the screen, its magnitude at each point indicating the photographic frequency (and thus the level of excitement) at that moment in time. A series of filters can be used to restrict this heartbeat timeline, isolating the many sub stories occurring within the larger narrative (the story of blood, the story of the captain, the story of the arctic ocean, etc.).
He collected the photos by making one pic every five minutes, even when he was asleep. The result looks something like this:
I think Harris discovered a new interesting way of telling a story. Imagine how this would look like when you cover a soccer match. You can tell by the heartbeat when the match turns interesting. Or a political debate. I hope to see some examples of that. Or do you know one already?
Written on March 27, 2008 – 3:27 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
This is a guest post by Dagan Cohen, he’s the curator of PRE
Lets face it: we live in a fast economy, where the hunger for the ‘next big thing’ is so strong web entrepreneurs tend to minimize risk by copying and mashing up proved concepts. Although we wouldn’t like to admit it, the pressure of the marketplace narrows our vision and makes it hard for the industry to come with truly new ideas.
So, where to look for fresh ideas? Arguably the best place to start is where creative people can develop their ideas away from pressure of the market. Places like universities, art schools, small-scale research labs and small companies committed to creative experiment.
PRE shows a selection of projects by Dutch students and young artists who are driven by the new possibilities of the web and the digital realm. PRE celebrates the phase before an idea becomes a business concept. In this ‘green phase’ ideas are rough and vulnerable. They can be easily killed when the rules of the market are applied too rigidly.
Though some ideas immediately show a market potential – they just need a little push, others are more ambivalent and need to be looked at by different people from different angles to reveal their true purpose. That purpose is not necessarily a marketable product or service. It can be an autonomous art piece which purpose it is to make us think and reflect. It can be a conversation starter, or a stepping-stone for another idea.
The great thing about rough, ambivalent ideas is that they trigger us to finish or alter them. To add or change something so they’ll become better. At least in our minds. That’s why it’s important to get those ideas out of ‘the greenery’ into the open. And what place is more suitable for that purpose than the Next Web Conference?
Attendees of the conference can be inspired by the ‘premonitions’ of artist and students; the young creatives can profit from the knowledge and wisdom of industry professionals. After all: there’s no ‘Next’ without ‘Pre’. PRE is hosted by Draftfcb. (more…)
Written on March 26, 2008 – 10:23 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
You probably know the Amazon Mechanical Turk. It’s a crowdsourcing marketplace that makes up for the inabilities of computer programs. You can buy some human intelligence for prices of a few cents. Oh, and human intelligence might sound good, but most of the tasks are repetitive and boring. Combine that with the low prices and you understand why some critics call the Mechanical Turk a ‘virtual sweatshop‘.
Let’s face it, new working technologies and labor systems often arouse negative feelings. We don’t like things to change. News about outsourcing journalistic work frightens us since it doesn’t match with our beliefs about the profession of journalism.
Artist Aaron Koblin finds his inspiration in trends and changes in this information age. According to his website, the San Francisco- based artist ‘playfully turns lots of data into lots of information’ in order to raise questions.
On Wired I’ve noticed a video about his latest project The Sheep Market. He asked the ‘providers’ of The Mechanical Turk to ‘draw a sheep facing to the left’ for 2 dollar cents. He received 10,000 sheeps and combined them into one art piece. From far away, it looks like a some sort of bar code, but when you come closer you notice the small drawings: data turns into info.
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
