PitchTV to launch The Interactive Playground
PitchTV.com and the American Museum of the Moving Image (AMMI) have partnered to create The Interactive Playground, an online virtual museum for interactive entertainment. The museum will premiere on PitchTV (http://www.PitchTV.com) in the month of October, and will feature what its creators deem to be the best iShorts on the Internet. The exhibit will bring together the works of 15-20 artists, and is sponsored by Compaq Computer.
The Interactive Playground is built around the idea that over the past five years a new generation of artists has evolved. These artists use rich media tools to push the definition of online entertainment. The exhibits creators feel that the results of this work are often whimsical, surprising and even mesmerizing works of art.
"What is great about this work is that it owes little to previous art movements or current trends in the traditional arts," commented PitchTV partner S.D. Katz. The idea of iShorts as art is growing in popularity this year, as the Whitney is including iShorts in their biennial exhibit. In addition, PBS online is featuring iShorts in one of their online exhibits, and they have been profiled as design in ID Magazine.
"Unlike the derivative streaming video and passive animation, these short bursts of interactivity are a form of experience unique to the computer and digital networks, and may offer insight into the future of online entertainment, art, and communications," added Carl Goodman, curator of digital media at the AMMI.
In a related note, The American Museum of the Moving Image has put together a streaming presidential history lesson on its website http://www.ammi.org. The exhibition, The Living Room Candidate, includes nearly 200 presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to the present and offers a timely and fascinating journey through recent history.
In 1952 Adlai Stevenson refused to appear in commercials declaring that the "idea that you can merchandise candidates like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.'' His opponent Dwight Eisenhower appeared in a serious of 20-second spots, and the rest is history.