As a museum technologist and someone who works daily harnessing technology to help make collection objects and exhibitions more accessible and open, I found this article to be a bit skewed. Granted, the thrust was on personal collecting habits of those in the tech sector, but I find the arts/tech community to be vibrant, passionate and invested.

Just my 2 cents from the inside.

I absolutely agree - for those that are in the realm it's a great time to be involved. I'd also argue that the intersection of art + tech is still, very much, a hyper-niche in the larger tech world (which is largely what this article is portraying, for better or worse). It's unfortunate that so much of "art" is conflated with "high-net-worth individuals being told what art to buy from dealers" which is a minute aspect of the art world to focus on.

As a video game developer in NYC (I also participated in Art Hack Day: God Mode that you mentioned above, I dug your project!), I agree with you that "art" is being conflated with "high-net-worth individuals being told what art to buy from dealers."

I also agree with everyone that there are many technologists very interested in art, and maybe even a good percentage who understand this specific art world that the article talks about and how it works. The problem, however, is that the ones who are most likely to understand and perhaps even appreciate this art world are also the least likely to have any money--they are more akin to fellow "starving artists" running around Bushwick.

Though most programmers I know say they aren't in it for the money, and mostly I think this is true, in the Art-Tech intersection specifically there are many who can hack who don't actually make that much money from it.

Absolutely! We do this daily as well. Perhaps we all just need to make ourselves more well known to the tech community?

I'm a designer, but I've never been into traditional art because I grew up knowing that digital pieces could be so much more than traditional media. I think a lot of techies probably feel the same way; they're waiting for artists to better familiarize themselves with the tools we use because that's where the impressive stuff happens.

Not sure if any of these fit into your definition of art+tech, but I'm a huge fan of the stuff shown on Creative Applications (http://www.creativeapplications.net/). Joanie Lemercier's work also falls under this category (http://tumblr.joanielemercier.com/). Branden Hall is also doing a lot of interactive art pieces lately (https://vimeo.com/waxpraxis), and Manny Tan is doing some great visual stuff with various technologies as well (http://www.uncontrol.com/).

And since the individual post about it didn't get any love here the other day, the Flat Surface Shader project (http://wagerfield.github.com/flat-surface-shader/) is a great example of open-source pieces that others can fork and build off of that I hope we see a lot more of (in addition to designers and developers working on these types of projects together to begin with).

To that point, Chrome Experiments (http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/) and Creative JS's tutorials (http://creativejs.com/tutorials/) are great introductions to what is possible for those wishing to delve into technical art. Nylllon (http://nylllon.com/) also does a good job of curating some great art+tech projects from time-to-time.

You hit the nail on the head. Many new artists go hand in hand with the tech world. I buy lots of unique pieces/prints. But I have yet to step foot into an established art gallery. I really can't stand that crowd.

Hi John,

I loved this article, especially “I want to meet the artists and hear their stories about why they make what they make. I don’t want to go to the parties.”

I started Gertrude (www.gertrude.co) a few months ago in NYC exactly on this thought. Instead of using technology to commodify art via an online marketplace, I am more interested in using technology to match collectors and artists so they can meet at intimate, real life one-hour events (we call them Salons, like one by Gertrude Stein).

It would be cool to meet, we are in Brooklyn too! Kenneth (twitter @kschlenker)

Very cool, sounds interesting! I'll touch base!

I'll append Rhizome to this list (thought they were mentioned in the article as they're doing 7on7). They've been at the forefront 'art/tech', 'new media art', 'digital art' et al since 1996. http://rhizome.org

The Ukiyo-e link is good. Should have imagined that a community will arise around pretty much anything created by mankind.

I am a photographer in my spare time and I find the blend of the rigors of programming and the flow of wandering the streets just shooting randomly so opposite and yet so similar.

Thank you! I agree that art + tech can serve as good complements to each other. They definitely exercise both sides of your brain, which I appreciate!

There's also the NY Arts & Tech meetup run by Julia Kagansky with over 3000 members.

http://www.meetup.com/Arts-Culture-and-Technology/

What role is deviantART [1] playing in tech+art in NYC and elsewhere? Is it considered significant by either party?

[1] http://deviantart.com

I don't really get the impression that it has any impact in the contemporary art world, although I would love to be proven wrong.

The closest thing I can think of was the recent Tumblr Art Symposium: http://hyperallergic.com/tumblrart/

deviantART has a reputation for being the most lowbrow of the popular art sharing sites on the Internet. It's all comics, bad photography, and fanart. No serious artist would put their work up there. Flickr is slightly more respected. Tumblr has the most respect among "real artists". Good coverage on the intersection between art and tech happens at http://rhizome.org/ & http://we-make-money-not-art.com/.

this is definitely not true, although the focus is definitely on illustration/concept art/comics. there are some fantastic artists on deviant art.

(OT) Ukiyo-e site is really impressive, I wasn't aware that there were so many pieces available online, let alone collected and organized so nicely on one place. Thanks a lot for your work!

Did you go see the Gutai exhibit at the Guggenheim? It's really worth your time. I don't know a whole lot about abstract expressionism, but I really, really enjoyed it.