Eyebeam, recognized for generating visionary work by artists and technologists together with the community, announced today that 30 artists in nearly a dozen countries and on nearly every continent have been selected as recipients of “Rapid Response for a Better Digital Future,” a new, artist-led initiative to build a better digital world free, as Shoshana Zuboff warns, “of a ubiquitous digital architecture, a ‘big other.’” A diversity of recipients across race, ethnicity, disability status, gender, immigration status, sexual orientation, age, and geography have been awarded with a fast moving, transdisciplinary platform to develop and contribute responsive, potentially groundbreaking ideas in approximately 90 days. By October, a select number will be awarded up to $25,000 to take their research to action. Each of the 30 artists and collectives will receive $5,000, expert consultation, skill sharing, and group critique in a supportive, radical community of like- minded, adventurous, and radical artists, makers, thinkers, and technologists, and their proposals will be presented in a dynamic convening in New York City in 2021. The recipients have been selected by Eyebeam and a distinguished panel based on projects that demonstrate purpose, action, and societal impact.
The participating international artists are active and engaged in variety of milieu, movements, and contexts and their proposals range in focus from free and widely available artificial intelligence that supports Black health and healing, to addressing the devasting financial consequences of the surveillance of safe and consensual online sex workers during Covid-19.
