FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2002
Rhizome.org Launches Revamped Web Site
Announces New Features and Enhanced Functionality
NEW YORK, NY, June 26, 2002 Rhizome.org, an online community focused on
new media art, announced today that it has redesigned its web site and
added several new web site features, including a global new media art
Calendar, Opportunity Listings, and a Community Directory.
The redesign and expansion are intended to make the site easier to navigate
and more useful to Rhizome.org members. Informed by two member surveys and
a focus group, the revamped site is part of Rhizome.org's strategic plan to
achieve long-term sustainability through community growth, community-based
revenue and scalable efficiency.
Highlights of the new site:
Calendar: http://rhizome.org/calendar
A significant percentage of the world's new media art events are already
announced on Rhizome.org's email lists. This new feature makes these
announcements accessible on the web via a familiar calendar interface and
allows members to post events via email or a web-based form.
Opportunity Listings: http://rhizome.org/opportunities
Similar to the Calendar, members can now both post and access new media art
opportunities – such as jobs, grants, residencies, commissions, festivals,
conferences, and calls for papers – on the Rhizome.org web site.
Opportunities are organized chronologically.
Community Directory
Each Rhizome.org member can now create a page on the Rhizome.org web site
that includes, at the member's discretion, contact information, a
biographical statement, an image and a resume. The Community Directory also
displays a list of members who are currently logged on to the web site.
Alphabetical lists of all members and member search functions are in
development.
"The new web site will be much more useful for our members around the world
and an essential resource for the new media art community," said Mark
Tribe, Founder and Executive Director of Rhizome.org. "For example, a
Korean museum curator could use our existing ArtBase to find Spanish
artists for an exhibition in Seoul, look up the artists' email addresses in
the Community Directory, and announce the opening reception in the Calendar."
Rhizome.org is a New York nonprofit organization that provides an online
platform for the global new media art community. Founded in 1996,
Rhizome.org serves as a grass-roots community center for new media artists,
curators, students, educators, writers and enthusiasts. Rhizome.org's
programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of
contemporary art that engages new technologies in significant ways.
Rhizome.org takes its name from the botanical term for an underground stem
that connects plants into living networks, a metaphor for the
organization's non-hierarchical structure. Widely considered to be the
world's leading online resource for and about new media artists and their
work, Rhizome.org connects, supports, and educates the new media art
community and the public through cost-free programs including email-based
discussion groups and publications, online archives for new media art works
and writings, a new media calendar and opportunity listings, a community
directory, a new media art commissioning program, outreach events, and an
international internship program.
Rhizome.org has 12,500 members in 118 countries. The Rhizome.org web site
receives six million hits each month, representing 50,000 unique visitors.
The Rhizome.org text archive (TextBase) contains 2,500 articles, while its
art archive (ArtBase) contains 650 works of new media art.
CONTACT:
Mark Tribe, Executive Director
115 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012
Email: mark@rhizome.org
Tel: 212.625.3191
Fax: 212-625.9508
URL: http://rhizome.org
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