miscellaneous
Under “miscellaneous” we have included a number of websites that cannot be included in any of the other categories but that cover a broad range of interests and fields. For example, here you learn about a directory of artists of the last millennium, a graffiti related web site with photographs from all over the world, a university’s historical records describing various aspects of everyday life through the centuries, the sites of international organizations preserving and disseminating indigenous cultures, the sites of art events or art conferences and many more. Share your links and contribute to the creation of a wide and continuously expanded unique directory.
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VoicePrints
“Art is you” –this could have been this web site’s subtitle and it would refer to the visual recreation of the visitor’s voice’s aural imprint. Now, whether a graph can be considered art is a whole different story but what cant denied is that it is unique; no visualization can be identical to another since all voices differ from each other but of course one can see common elements. To have their graphs made, Interested visitors can send an audio file with their voice which can contain anything from a word to a complete phrase; the fewer the syllables, the most discernible the final result will be.
In the web site, visitors can see samples of art works in different colors and shades; prices for the paintings start from $89 and reach $459 depending on the work’s dimensions and the material on which it is going to be printed on (paper or canvas). Before making their final choice, visitors can see a preview of the work by uploading the audio file; the web site will create the graph and the potential customer will have an approximation of the final result or, if they are not pleased, they can try different phrases or words.
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Project HOPE Art
Project HOPE Art is a charity organization founded in January 2010 which aims to employ art to better the quality of life of children in underdeveloped countries. The organization’s educational programs for children are carried out in hospitals, orphanages, schools and local communities and they all use art as a vehicle to help children develop their critical thought and express their creative talents. Most of the organization’s missions have been to Haiti, they are dispatched quarterly and on average they last for one month.
Interested parties can contribute financially in the organization’s goals through various programs; their contribution can be in the form of money, clothing items, food or painting materials (money contributions go directly to the web site whereas for everything else a postal address is provided). Also, the web site offers visitors information about the organization’s various projects and each project’s goals, photographic material from the missions classified by each year and read a blog containing testimonials from artists who participate in the missions.
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More Europe
More Europe is an organization aiming to promote and support the role culture plays in the international relations between the European Union member-states; it was founded in 2011 in Brussels which is also the home of the European Parliament. Modern diplomacy demands for a new way of thinking regarding how international challenges are faced and the organization attempts to contribute towards the advancement of this new way of thinking by promoting fundamental values such as dialogue and the recognition of the crucial role the society plays in strengthening the relations between countries. Through organizing discourses in various European capitals, More Europe tries to bring together artists, citizens and top level policy makers.
In More Europe’s web site, visitors can see the cultural organizations that were its founding members, the profiles of various distinguished speakers from the various conferences it has organized, a listing of the events scheduled and the agenda for the discourse in each one, a section with texts analyzing the organization’s positions as well as an archive with audio and visual material from the events themselves.
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Billboard Art Project
In 2005, the Lamar Advertising agency set up an LED ad billboard at the roadside of a highway passing near Richmond, Virginia. In the day the company’s engineers were there testing the billboard, David Morisson happened to pass by and he was surprised to see how similar the pictures displayed on the billboard were to various wallpapers he had installed in his personal computer. This is how he came up with the idea to buy some advertising time and display on the billboard images and messages that had nothing to do with ads; with time, more people with artistic sensibilities became involved in the project as well.
In the project’s web site visitors can find an archive with all the imagery that has been displayed on various billboards all over the United States; there is plenty of visual material, both in still photography and video as well as a listing of all the artists that have participated in each city and links for their personal web sites (for some artists available are also filmed interviews where they discuss how they view the project and their participation in it). Finally, visitors can find out how they can also be a part of the Billboard Art Project either through their own art or by sponsoring the works of others.
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Ask a curator
What is the most unusual object in your museum? Where do your collections come from? What was the building’s original function before it became a museum? Why galleries invite artists to talk with the public? How is a day in the life of a curator? An attempt to answer these questions and others along similar lines can be found in “Ask a curator” where curators from various museums and galleries give their replies through videos; these specialists describe their jobs and share their knowledge giving visitors a pretty good idea about how museums work. The web site is a private enterprise created by the company Sumo that offers marketing services to cultural institutions.
The videos are classified by subject including history, people, future, artists etc. and by museum featuring museums from various countries such as Great Britain, Spain, USA, Japan etc. Although its last renewal was in 2011, it is still interesting since the subjects touched remain current and offer a taste of museums’ “backstage” areas.
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Great Masters Gallery
Topofart is a web site selling reproductions of works by famous artists; it is unique in that besides the usual methods of reproduction of art works (i.e. various types of printing) visitors have also the opportunity to purchase copies created by hand by artists who collaborate with the company. Naturally, the price of a handmade copy is almost ten times up the price of a print but this is only to be expected.
The web site offers reproductions of works by hundreds of artists classified according to name and period; for every art work there is information available regarding which museum the original is placed in as well as the dimensions available for the copies. Handmade copies are created on demand; that is after the interested party purchases them and their reproduction can take from three to ten weeks which is indicative of the quality of the work done. Topofart also has a YouTube channel where visitors can see video from the re-creation of the art works.
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Phila Place
Phila Place is a project created by the Historical Society of Philadelphia that attempts to connect stories to places across time in Philadelphia’s various areas. Its aim is to intertwine stories of ordinary people of all backgrounds with historical records and present an full picture of the history, culture, and architecture of the city’s neighborhoods; this it does through various formats including text, pictures, audio and video clips, and podcasts so visitors can map their own stories in place and time. Aside from the web site, PhilaPlace includes ongoing community programs and publications, from workshops for teachers, to trolley tours, and exhibits.
The central navigational tool for the web site is a map on which visitors can see spots for which content is available; by pressing those spots, a small panel appears which contains the historical element for which some information, visual material or links to other related web sites are available. (The locations on the map can be filtered by area or interest) Also, visitors can find a photographic archive with every picture being related to some of the stories available on the web site as well as a blog with articles about the organization’s operation.
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Bloomberg New Contemporaries
New Contemporaries is an organization working to support up-and-coming artists in the beginning of their careers offering them the opportunity to present their work to the broader public through a variety of platforms among which is an annual exhibition. Artists, who can still be students or recently graduated, have the opportunity to obtain professional experience besides their academic one. The organization was founded in 1949 with the name “Young Contemporaries” and the first twenty years of its operation the art works exhibited in the annual event were chosen by renowned artists and art specialists whereas from 1969 afterwards the participants themselves would be the ones to choose.
In the web site, visitors can see an archive with the participating entries for each year although this archive goes up until 1989; the years from 1989 to 2005 are lacking in information. For every year from 2006 onwards a profile for each artist is available, complete with information regarding the locations they have exposed their work. Also, the web site contains a section with the organization’s publications i.e. the annual catalogues containing information about participating works and the artists who have created them.
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Inside Out
JR is a French artist who works with photography and graffiti. In 2011, he won the $100,000 TED Prize; a prize which the winner must use to create an art work that aspires to change the world and the Inside Out Project is his attempt to do exactly this. The participants in the project take pictures of themselves and upload them on the web site and then the artist makes 90X132 prints of them and returns them back; on several occasions interested parties can form groups and participate with group projects more broadly themed.
The web site has significant navigation problems; it is probably among the most user-unfriendly we have seen (a result of the extensive use of HTML 5) and it appears it hasn’t been finished yet. Still, the most patient visitors will be rewarded with plenty of content since, according to the administrators more than 78,000 individuals from more than 9,500 locations have participated submitting more than 4,400 projects.
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The missing peace
Missing peace is an initiative in which artists are invited to create a work using the 14th Dalai Lama as their inspiration; the project already involves 88 renowned artists from 30 countries and the works they have created are exhibited in a special event. The initiative is a collaboration between the “Committee of 100 for Tibet” and the “Dalai Lama Foundation”, the exhibition’s curator is Randy Jayne Rosenberg, director of the “Art Works for Change” foundation and among the artists whose works are included are Marina Abramovic, Richard Avedon, Phil Borges, Rosemary Rawcliffe and Bill Viola.
In the project’s web site, visitors can see a small resume for each participating artist, the museums that have hosted the exhibitions of the creations, writings about the relationship between art and peace which was also the incentive for this initiative, educational material aimed to high school teachers and a virtual tour of a 10,000 square feet space where the art works have been exhibited.
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