Winners of Visual Design Competition Selected

First Place: 

“Clockwork Cat Vs. Battery Mouse” by Matt Canning of Bartley, Great Britain

Medium: pen and mac

Written Statement:  The world of the future should be all about renewable energy. In the metaphorical battle that rages on in my future vision, our mechanical feline hero has clearly won. Hooray!

Second Place:

“Wall City” by Vasileios Kiousis, Athens, Greece

Medium: Autocad, Bryce, Photoshop

Written Statement: The ‘Wall City’ suggests a possibility for a more sustainable town. Sited strategically at an intersection of routes on the edge of dock, sea, lake and park – western part of Rotterdam’s port also known as Maasvlakte – the design of the new city (max. 40.000 people), is based on a cross plan scheme of typical suburban Dutch houses with garden placed on top of each other using the idea of ‘maximum vertical growth – having the minimum impact on land’.

A new compact community is proposed within rows of huge vertical Walls that contain the city’s infrastructure, maximize the potential creativity for different architects to exploit the space given in-between and provide the ability of cultivation on them. The Wall City is a city of Garden Walls, vertical rotating hydroponic tulip farms, where everyone has a view + a garden + a generous vertical space.

Third Place:

“The Pix-rate City” by Toshifumi Kawaguchi, Tokyo, Japan

Medium: Digital

Written Statement:  The Pix-rate City is a imaginary world visualizing the artist’s brain map.  It is a metaphor for the rate exchanging ideas to expressions.  In this visualization, bits means information, knowledge and sources for art work. The smaller colorful bits describe a concentration for arranging and rearranging concept of art work. The larger bits are storages for idea.  Whirling and moving on the left side of map is sprouting buds of idea to build up unique world.  The Pix-rate City will tell us that artwork must be created by relaxation and　tension of brain activities.

Congratulations Matt, Vasileios, and Toshifumi.  And thank you to everyone who participated, especially our illustrious jury; we appreciate your time and attention.

~Doniece

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Volunteers help pave the way

We’re a small operation – a total of 4 staffers and one new and amazing social media intern (Danielle).  Without the help of volunteers, we’d never accomplish all that we need to so I wanted to do a quick shout out to our newest volunteer, Carol Somer. 

Carol found us at the SubZERO Festival – she actually won the VIP tickets to San Jose Jazz Fest.  A PR expert who specializes in the health and IT industries, she helped us put together a bang-up SEO release for our Knight Foundation grant announcement.  Without her help, our PR efforts would still be stuck in the 20th century.  Thanks, Carol!

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Knight Foundation awards ZER01 $975K over 3 Years

I am very proud to announce that the Knight Foundation has awarded ZER01 $975k over 3 years to strengthen organizational capacity to focus on stability, execution of the 01SJ Biennial and to enable growth and opportunities to ensure fiscal self-sufficiency.  The commitment from the Knight Foundation recognizes the significance of ZER01 as a catalyst and platform for shaping a recognizable cultural identity for Silicon Valley that mirrors its global reputation as a center for technology innovation.   Along with other core foundation and corporate partners we are definitely a path fundamental to achieving this ambition.

The Knight Foundation award requires matching funds and is intended to stimulate further investment in ZER01.  Clearly, there remains much to accomplish on the development side to meet the goal of organizationally stability which directly impact our capacity to delivery on the ambitions for the 01SJ Biennial in 2010.  ZER01 is definitely picking up some major steam and hopefully the Knight Foundation award will serve as a strong indicator to other funders of just how real this is becoming.

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A Big Boost from Knight

There does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel.  ZER01 recently secured a $975k grant over 3-years from the Knight Foundation.  No small feat in these challenging times.  We take it to mean two things 1) that ZER01’s place-making vision (our goal to be the catalyst that propels San Jose/Silicon Valley onto the international cultural map) is being embraced by other visionary organizations who see the potential, and 2) that maybe the worst of these challenging economic times are behind us.  That translates into happiness all around from our perspective!  – Doniece

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The Big Shift

The post Obama frenzy is slowing to reveal that change, real change, is the result of a multi-layered entailment of social, political and economic challenges.  Identifying and understanding those challenges is hard work, for the condition in which we find ourselves in has been long in the making and clarity about why things are they way they are or what to do about it remains elusive. 

It would seem every decision point, every action, has its’ implications – good and bad. Never-the-less, there is something of a general perception, perhaps even global consensus, that things have in fact changed.  At question is whether some sort of major shift in sensibility has occurred that is serving to re-shape our understanding of the challenges that lie ahead.  I’d like to think this is the case.  For if true, it opens the door of possibilities for the leveraging of partnerships and collaborations, social media and networks, new distribution models, content generation and hybrid forms of cultural production.

I have to say what an amazing opportunity it is to lead an arts organization that is attempting to be both responsive and responsible to this shift.  In a world increasingly shaped by digital infrastructure,  ZER01 is acutely positioned to contribute both conceptually and critically to an artistic discourse that informs and is informed by creativity and innovation.  As the Executive Director for ZER01,  I take very seriously the idea that ZER01 is a catalyst and platform for this expression.  Exactly what that means and what the enactment will look like… is to be determined.

No comment on the CIA reference.

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ZER01 ED joins blogging ranks

Sometimes you realize that you’ve been traveling down the wrong path and that a change in direction is vital.  So it is with this blog.  It’s become increasingly obvious that we’ve been using it as a marketing tool rather than a way to create dialog with our community.  Our apologies.

To correct that error, Joel Slayton, ZER01’s executive director, will become the primary blogger on this site.  He’ll be sharing his insights and experience’s as he grows the organization.   It should be illuminating.

For those of you unfamilair with Joel, not only was he instrumental in creating one of the world’s foremost new media labs (CADRE), but he is himself a world-class new media artist who has won presitgious awards and whose work as been showcased at illustrious galleries and museums around the world.  Joel also has an incredible sense of humor and irony.  It’s been rumored that he applied to the CIA – took and passed the exam and was asked to interview – all on a lark.  Go figure.

His posts will begin tommorrow. Enjoy and talk back!

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ZER01 partners with Banff New Media Institute and Sundance

There are good days and then there are great days.  It’s definitely a great day when you can announce a partnership with two illustrious organizations.  ZER01 is teaming up with the Banff New Media Institute at The Banff Centre and Sundance Institute’s New Frontier iniative on a Locative Cinema Commission.  Not only will the selected artist enjoy a residency at Banff but their work will be presented at the 2010 01SJ Biennial, the 2011 edition of New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and the 2011 Banff Summer Arts Festival.  Not bad. Not bad at all!

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