Rhizome.org is pleased to announce that five artists/groups have been
awarded commissions to assist them in creating original works of net art
through our new Commissioning Program.

We received 135 proposals by the February 15, 2002 deadline, many of
which were very strong. A panel of five jurors–Steve Dietz of The
Walker Art Center, Alex Galloway of Rhizome.org, Ken Goldberg of U.C.
Berkeley, Christiane Paul of The Whitney Museum of American Art, and
Mark Tribe of Rhizome.org–selected the winners.

Christopher Fahey, the Institute for Applied Autonomy
(IAA)/Hactivist.com, and John Klima were will receive awards of $5,000
each. Additional commissions of $2,500 will be awarded to Nungu and Lisa
Jevbratt. Ten proposals have been awarded Honorable Mention.

You can read more about the process and the proposals at
http://rhizome.org/commissions

This program is made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation,
the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Challenge
Program, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional
support was provided by the Rockefeller Foundation and by members of the
Rhizome community.

The chosen projects will be publicly exhibited on the Rhizome.org web
site starting October 2002. They will also be preserved in the Rhizome
ArtBase archive, and presented at a public event in New York City.


**$5000 Awards:**

RHIZOMEBOT
by Christopher Fahey (Brooklyn/New York/US)
http://www.graphpaper.com/rhizomebot/

Using instant messenger channels, Rhizomebot will be a unique new
virtual/artificial personality that will provide an alternative gateway
to the Rhizome ArtBase, Rhizome's online database of art.

Christopher Fahey has been making computer games and graphics since
childhood, and he continues to experiment with new ideas in computer art
and design. He is the creative force behind the art and design
laboratories graphpaper.com and askrom.com. Christopher is a founding
partner of Behavior, a New York-based interaction design firm, where he
serves as the Information Architecture practice lead.

MAPTIVIST 2.0
by Institute for Applied Autonomy and Hactivist.com
(Troy&Brooklyn/NY/US)
http://www.hactivist.com/proposals/proposal_rhizome.html

Maptivist 2.0 is a shared mapping application that will enable political
activists using wireless Internet devices to share information about
surveillance and police activities in real time.

The Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA) was founded in 1998 as a
technological research and development organization concerned with
individual and collective self-determination. Their mission is to study
the forces and structures which effect self-determination; to create
cultural artifacts which address these forces; and to develop
technologies which serve social and human needs.

Hactivist.com is a collective of media artists, technologists, activists
and critical theorists working to explore the intersection between
radical theory, traditional activism, and technology subversion through
the creation of tactical media projects utilizing communication system
technologies primarily.

CONTEXT BREEDER
by John Klima (New York/NY/US)
http://www.cityarts.com/rhizome/

Context Breeder is a browser-based Java applet and standalone java
application for the collection and dynamic display of Artbase objects on
the viewer's home computer.

Circa 1978, Brooklyn-based Klima (b. 1965) attempted to code a 3D maze
on a TRS-80 with 4k RAM and failed miserably. He has been obsessed with
3D ever since. Fascinated by the first primitive flight simulators and
CAD programs, he began to build 3D graphics environments, and to write
source code. Since 1998, he has consistently exhibited in major
institutions both nationally and internationally.


**$2,500 Awards:**

TELEMATIC SURVEILLANCE
by Nungu (Bombay & London/Maharashtra/India & UK)
http://www.nungu.com/[mrs.%20jeevam%20jham]/proposal.html

The project proposes an exploration of forms of 'hypercontrol' present
in societies infused with communication and information technology
networks through an investigation of the logic and aesthetics of
telematic surveillance.

Currently based in Bombay India, Nungu is a fluid collective of national
and international media artists working together towards the creation of
networked art.

TROIKA
by Lisa Jevbratt (San Jose/CA/US)
http://cadre.sjsu.edu/jevbratt/troika/

The Troika interfaces display each object in the Rhizome database as one
pixel, accessible by clicking on the pixel. The pixel's color represents
keywords associated with the object and people that have requested it.

Lisa Jevbratt is a systems/network artist working primarily with the
Internet. Her work has been exhibited and presented in venues such as
The New Museum, SFMOMA, The Walker Art Center, Ars Electronica,
Transmediale and the 2002 Whitney Biennial. She is a member of the
Silicon Valley collaboration/corporation C5, and a board member of the
New Langton Arts Gallery in San Francisco where she is curating the Net
Work program. She currently teaches at the digital media program (former
CADRE) at San Jose State University.


**Honorable Mention:**

Bubble Browser
by Golan Levin & Jonathan Feinberg
http://www.flong.com/bubba/

Common Reference Point
by Mark Daggett and Jonah Brucker-Cohen
http://www.flavoredthunder.com/dev/crp/

Common Sense
by Brian Gillette [Hexstream Media]
http://www.hexstream.com/rhizome/

Grayspace
by MULTIPOLY (Paul Biedrzycki, Keith Riley)
http://www.neutralcoastline.com/rhizome/

Groundnut as Butter
by Keith & Mendi Obadike

PDPal
by Marina Zurkow + Scott Paterson
http://www.sgp-7.net/proj/pr/index.shtm

Pick
by Kurt Baumann
http://www.artware-software.com/1/rhizome/submission.html

Relate
by Lucas Kuzma
http://www.machinatus.net/rhizome/iface/

Sociotopic
by Boris Mueller
http://www.esono.com/sociotopic/