etoy wins VIDA AWARD 2007 with MISSION ETERNITY SARCOPHAGUS

etoy wins first prize in the VIDA AWARDS created by Fundación Telefónica (Spain) to foster artistic creation based on new technologies and artificial life.

The Mission Eternity Project – which was publicly unveiled at 01SJ 2006 – is on one hand about respect for the human longing to survive in some way after death, and on the other a sense of irony about dated sci-fi fantasies we contrive to satisfy that desire. The Sarcophagus is one materialization of this project. It is a mobile sepulcher that holds and displays portraits of those who wish to have their informational remains cross over into a digital afterlife. The size of a standard cargo container that can travel to any location in the world, the Sarcophagus has an immersive LED screen covering its walls, ceiling and floor. There, interactive digital portraits can be summoned via mobile phone or web browser from virtual capsules that are stored in the shared memory of thousands of networked electronic devices of Mission Eternity Angels (people who contribute a small part of their personal storage capacity to the mission, currently 765 of them; to date, 2 volunteers have been accepted for encapsulation).

The data spectres that populate this tenuous memorial space are composed of details of lives lived, in visual, audio and text fragments. But when they are summoned in lo-res pixellated form in the Sarcophagus, they resemble one merged personality. The massing of details that we find in archives and records that keep the dead with us has a similar compositing effect, yet the Sarcophagus is also very unlike those. It gives us access to a novel social world generated among networked computer users who have a common goal of keeping something alive, which can invoke intense feelings such as care and wonder.

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Neighborhood Public Radio, a 01SJ project, selected for 2008 Whitney Biennial

Neighborhood Public Radio is an independent, artist-run radio project committed to providing an alternative media platform for artists, activists, musicians, and community members.

Their motto is: If it’s in the neighborhood and it makes noise…we hope to put it on the air.

Neighborhood Public Radio has been named “Best Super Local Radio Station” by San Francisco magazine and has been featured in Punk Planet, Artforum, and the Chicago Reader. As a traveling band of guerilla broadcasters, folks from NPR have hosted thematic broadcasts far and wide, including both Artist’s Television Access and Southern Exposure Gallery in San Francisco’s Mission District, Chicago’s Version 5 Festival, and a recent trip to collaborate with the neighborly media folks of kuda.org in Novi Sad, Serbia (a trip made possible by a grant from CEC Artslink).

Use the jukebox to hear NPR’s adventures from the storefront at Artist’s Television Access in San Francisco’s Mission District, or in Hamburg, Germany in July, or in San Jose for the ISEA/ZeroOne festival last August.

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Artist Binh Dahn of Space 47, a 01SJ partner, wins Eureka Fellowship

Twelve Bay Area visual artists will receive a Eureka Fellowship, the largest cash prize for individual artists in the Bay Area, sponsored by the Fleishhacker Foundation. This round’s Fellowship recipients includes San Jose artist Binh Dahn, who co-runs Space 47 – an independent project space that aims to foster new ideas and experience, support artistic change and development, and inspire a larger community of cultural entrepreneurs.

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Craig Walsh, ZER01 commissioned artist, selected as People’s Choice Award Winner

World-renowned Australian artist Craig Walsh, who will create the third San Jose City Hall Rotunda lighting project for ZERO1, has recently won the People’s Choice Award for his project at the Nuit Blanche Toronto event.

Interested in hybrid / site-specific projects and the exploration of alternative contexts for contemporary art, Walsh often utilizes projection in response to existing environments. He works across a range of art forms including theater, architecture, public works, gallery exhibitions, and festivals.

His work has been selected for major survey exhibitions, commissions, and residencies both nationally and internationally, including: the Yokohama International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Japan, Fuji Rock Festival, Japan, Under the radar, Liverpool, England, The National Sculpture Prize & Exhibition, National Gallery of Australia, Havana Biennale, Cuba,
Experimenta Vanishing Point, Melbourne, the Anne Landa Award, AGNSW, Sydney, the Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, AGSA, Adelaide, 2004: Australian culture now, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, Institute of Modern Art Brisbane, and Ssamsie space, Seoul, Korea. This will be his first work in the United States.

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