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Wired Art Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT 2008's Best Contest Photos You Never Saw, Part 2 : With an average of over 500 submissions for each of our twice-monthly photo contests in 2008, a lot of great photos got overlooked. In celebration of the year coming to a close, we've gone back and pulled out some of our favorite contest photos that just didn't get the votes we think they deserved. Click through the gallery to see these resurrected gems. This is the second installment of missed photos. If you missed the first one, check it out here. Left: From Black-and-White contest Coldplay Rock by Jeff Kazansky Photographer's comment: "Silhouette of Coldplay's lead singer in a concert in Phoenix, Arizona, during the summer of 2006." : Reflections by Andrew Lynch Photographer's comment: "Midtown Manhattan reflected in the U.N." : Dark City by Kim Erlandsen Photographer's comment: "NYC shot from Hotel Kensington." : Double Moonbow in Lower Yosemite Falls by Jeff Sullivan Photographer's comment: "This is a night shot of a double rainbow created by the light of the full moon in the mist at the bottom of Lower Yosemite Falls. I got soaked taking this picture. The waterfall creates its own strong gusts of wind that carry mist straight at you. I'm surprised that the shot wasn't ruined by water on the lens." : Pinto Bean by D. Weisbrod Photographer's comment: "Photographed on glass above a black velvet background. I grew it for a week and photographed it every day." : Contemplating by Kamila Wysocka Photographer's comment: "All dolled up." : What?? by Fernando Martinho Photographer's comment: "Analogic photography." : Like a Kid Again by Joseph A. Sims : Stop Children by Leafar Photographer's comment: "Shot in London on a rainy day. Yellow means help." : Busted by Jane Photographer's comment: "Kemah Boardwalk." : Bananas on a Truck by Jacob Maentz Photographer's comment: "Bananas on a truck, ready to eat. jacobimages.com." : Oh, Lucy! by Mari Lowery Photographer's comment: "You got some 'splaining to do!" : Aymara by Grafton Reed Photographer's comment: "Andes Mountains, 1998." Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT 2008's Best Contest Photos You Never Saw : A lot of great photos were overlooked in 2008 in the slew images we received (an average of more than 500 submissions) for each of our twice-monthly photo contests. In celebration of the year coming to a close, we've gone back and pulled out some of our favorite contest photos that just didn't get the votes they deserved. Click through the gallery to see these resurrected gems. This is the first of a two-part series. Check back next week for more great photos. Left: Black-and-White contest Home Sweet Home by DSzwak Photographer's comment: "A view from the back patio of my childhood home outside of Limerick, Pennsylvania." : New Slang by Ron Coloma Photographer's comment: "A neighbor's child looks on as my family arrives in my mother's hometown of Sison, Philippines." : Dust Bunny Thief by Nick Wilson Photographer's comment: "Hey! That fly stole my dust bunny!" : Cupcakes by Kim Hino Photographer's comment: "A sweet, afternoon delight!" : Summer Pastime by Robby Petrullo (toolo on flickr) Photographer's comment: "Taken on June 5th, the big game when moustache Giambi crushed my dreams." : Moonrise in St. Kitts by Leon L. Sandall Photographer's comment: "Moonrise while the sun sank. April '06." : JiaoZi by MAB Photographer's comment: "Steamy JiaoZi served on every street corner." : Laying down parking-space lines on rue du roi de Sicile by David Henry Photographer's comment: "Workers in Paris lay down those yellow lines, indicating that a parking spot in front of the restaurant Le Jardin du Marais is in fact a delivery zone." : Cow by Meus McIntoshi Photographer's comment: "Hasselblad 503 CWD + Distagon CFi 4/50mm. 1/125s, f/4, ISO 100." : Boy at the Fort: Amber, India by Grant Olsen Photographer's comment: "I was traveling through India with my sister, when we came to the city of Amber. It was one of the most amazing places I've ever been. At the top of the city is a majestic fortress. We were walking through it when this boy called out to us and said hello. This is the only shot I took of him. There was no posing or anything." Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT 'Art of Participation' Connects Viewers, Artists : Photo: Brita d'Agostino/Wired.com SAN FRANCISCO — The new S.F. Museum of Modern Art exhibit The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now turns the typically quiet gallery walk into a hands-on interactive experience. The pieces in the retrospective exhibit show how artists have dabbled in two-way communication with viewers over the past 60 years. The refreshingly self-reflexive exhibition draws on a rich history and examines the relationships among museums, artists and the public. The show explores "how the public relates to the museum and vice versa," says Rudolf Frieling, the museum's curator of media arts. "Art frames you as a participant and art is framed by the museum." Click though the slideshow to sample the historic and contemporary work in the show, along with visitors' interactive reactions to the exhibition or interactive art. The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now runs through Feb. 8 at SFMOMA. Left: Museum visitors examine a contemporary version of German artist Hans Haacke's News, first shown in 1969. Haacke's original used a telex machine to print a news stream from German press agency DPA. In the updated work, a printer in the gallery spews out news reports obtained from RSS feeds of several online news sources, bringing events of the outside world into the gallery in real time. The printed news spills onto the gallery floor, creating a sculptural representation of virtual information — a tangible material archive of global news — throughout the duration of the exhibition. : Photo: Brita d'Agostino/Wired.com Amber Isbilen and Kevin Johnson, both of San Francisco, use their breath to create abstract, colorful images on a television set in this 1998 version of Nam June Paik's Participation TV. Known as the "founding father of video art," Paik designed a series of these manipulated televisions in the 1960s to be "played like instruments." "It's like bringing a microorganism to life," Isbilen said. : This image is a video still of American composer John Cage surrounded by onlookers in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as he performs what became his most famous and controversial conceptual composition, 4'33". The piece consists of four minutes and 33 seconds during which no notes are played. With the absence of music coming from the perceived performer, the ambient sound created by audience members and the environment becomes the music. First performed in 1952 by pianist David Tudor at the Benefit Artists Welfare Fund concert in Woodstock, New York, the piece initially angered audience members who expected a conventional concert. "They haven't forgotten it 30 years later," Cage said. "They're still angry." You can catch a live performance of this seminal work live at SFMOMA as part of the Art of Participation exhibition. Bring your sense of humor. Image: Video still from Nam June Paik's A Tribute to John Cage (1973, 1976)/Courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Camille W. and William S. Broadbent Fund : Another example of re-creating a historically innovative work, American artists Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz's black-and-white video projection Hole-in-Space uses documentary footage of their 1980 "public communication sculpture." The original, unannounced public event utilized satellite technology to connect pedestrians at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City with pedestrians at Century City Shopping Center in Los Angeles for two hours each day from Nov. 11 to 14, 1980. People at each location could see and converse with pedestrians on the other side of the country in real time. Once word got out, friends and family members from the two cities were able to arrange meetings with loved ones on the opposite coast. In the museum installation, footage from the two locations is projected on two separate, parallel walls that face one another — "a formal reference to the windows at the original sites" that displayed the projections, according to the artists. Photo courtesy Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz : Photo: Brita d'Agostino/Wired.com Californians Diana Meehan (left) of Napa and Jann Nunn of Oakland eyeball each other in a re-creation of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark's Diálogo: Oculos, or "Dialogue: Goggles," originally created in 1968. One of Clark's "propositions," the piece invites viewers to try on goggles that have been modified with mirrors to alter perception. Meant to be shared with a partner, the goal is to rediscover the meaning of a routine gesture. Other "propositions" by Clark featured in The Art of Participation include: Diálogo de Mãos or "Hand Dialogue," Rede de Elástico or "Elastic Net," and Máscaras Sensoriais or "Sensorial Masks." : For Life2 (2006), San Francisco Bay Area artist Lynn Hershman Leeson worked with the Stanford Humanities Lab to create a virtual archive of her historic project The Dante Hotel that can be explored and altered by avatars in Second Life. Hershman Leeson's historic project, which Life2 revisits, existed in a residence hotel room in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. For a period of nine months from 1973 to1974, visitors could get a key from the front desk any time and check in on the fictional occupants. The hotel room is re-created in Life2, along with artifacts from the original installation. Life2 can be viewed in the museum using pre-existing avatars on two different computers, and from your own computer. Screenshot courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art : In Ant Farm Media Van v.08 (Time Capsule), a 1972 Chevy C-10 displays video and collects a digital archive of random media from visitors who share images, videos and music files from their personal electronic devices. The viewers' files, uploaded through a console called the media hookah, will become part of a digital time capsule available for access in 2030. Chip Lord and Curtis Schreier of historic multimedia-art collective Ant Farm teamed up with Bruce Tomb to create the piece, which was commissioned by the museum. The piece is based on a 1971 journey that Ant Farm took across the United States in a van customized with media equipment, interacting with the public along the way. The video displayed in Ant Farm Media Van v.08 (Time Capsule) is documentation from the 1971 Media Van project. Photo: Ian Reeves/Courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art : Photo: Brita d'Agostino/Wired.com Pauline Andrie of Boston tries out Edwin Wurm's Keep a Cool Head, modeling her pose on the artist's instructional drawing. Wurm's One-Minute Sculptures, several of which are featured in The Art of Participation, invite the viewer to "perform" a temporary sculpture by following the artist's often-absurd instructions on how to use everyday objects — in this case, a modified refrigerator. For Andrie, this piece was "all in the name of fun." Of the overall show, she said: "I've never seen anything like this before." : Photo: Brita d'Agostino/Wired.com Tomo Saito of Japan and Adrien Segal from Oakland, California, attempt large-scale origami using two sheets from Felix Gonzalez-Torres' mass-produced, poster-size prints stacked on the gallery floor (Untitled 1992-1993). The stack of prints is replenished by the museum as often as necessary, and visitors are welcome to take them home. In the background is John Baldessari's painting Terms Most Useful in Describing Creative Works of Art (1966-68). Commenting on the unconventional dynamics of The Art of Participation, Saito said the "audience has more power than the artist." : Like Edwin Wurm, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer also asks museum visitors to perform. His interactive installation Microphones (2008) uses modified 1930s Shure microphones that contain hidden speakers and circuit boards connected to a network of computers invisible to the participant. A participant who speaks into the microphone is illuminated and audio-recorded. Immediately afterward, the microphone plays a recording of a previous participant. Photo: Ian Reeves/Courtesy SFMOMA : Photo: Brita d'Agostino/Wired.com Gallery attendant Francisco Montero rocks the mike in Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's installation Microphones. An artist himself, Montero said he likes to encourage visitors who are timid to participate with show's interactive pieces. : Set up on a computer in the gallery and accessible from anywhere you can get online, Communimage is a web-based piece by c a l c (the pan-European collective casquiero atlantico labortorio cultural). The work encourages participants to upload an image of their choice along with basic meta-information to a grid system to create a "virtual, collective sculpture." Communimage was created in 1999, before the explosion of sites like Flickr and YouTube that thrive on user-generated content. Screenshot courtesy c a l c and Johannes Gees : Recognize your picture in this detail from Communimage? Communimage and Life2 aren't the only internet-based works featured in the show: SFMOMA's website has a full list of online artwork from The Art of Participation. If you are artistically inclined and itching to exhibit at SFMOMA, you can bid on eBay for the chance to exhibit in a designated room in the museum as a part of the 1st Public White Cube, conceived by artists Blank & Jeron and Gerrit Gohlke. Reflecting the collaborative spirit of The Art of Participation, you must contend with an artist's work that is already set up in the gallery. The next auction starts Jan. 1. Screenshot courtesy c a l c and Johannes Gees : In his piece The Gift, German conceptual artist Jochen Gerz utilizes the museum as both exhibition space and production studio. His work invites the public to sit, with an open expression, for a digital photographic portrait taken by a young artist. The portraits are then printed and framed in the museum and displayed in rotation along a wall in the gallery. The whole creative process is on view: the subjects, the production (including the printing and framing), the exhibition and finally the distribution of the work. The portraits can also be viewed online at The Examiner. The studio is open Mondays, and Thursday through Saturday. Screenshot: The Examiner : On the last day of the show, the artist will randomly redistribute portraits from The Gift to participants. The expectation is that the portrait each participant receives, most likely of a stranger, will be exhibited as a work of art "on permanent loan" from the museum. This image is from the end of a previous installation of the piece at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporain in Tourcoing, France. "Reality is a great teacher," artist Jochen Gerz said in an interview. "Art should distribute itself.... The artist should disappear." Photo courtesy Gerz Studio --- For more information on the show, check out the excellent book The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now that accompanies the SFMOMA show. The exhibit runs through Feb. 8, 2009. Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT Wired.com Photo Contest: Animals This week we want to see your best animal photo. Whether they be furry, feathery or freaky, we want to see what the animal kingdom has to offer. Use the Reddit widget below to submit your best animal photo and vote for your favorite among the other submissions. The 10 highest-ranked photos will appear in a gallery on the Wired.com homepage. Show us giraffes walking down city streets, panda bears with parasols, arctic sled dogs, swarms of squirrels and cheeky monkeys. Sure, pets are cute and we love ours too, but show us something we've never seen. If you do, we'll give you a treat ... The photo must be your own, and by submitting it you are giving us permission to use it on Wired.com and in Wired magazine. Please submit images that are relatively large, the ideal size being 800 to 1200 pixels or larger on the longest side. Please include a description of your photo, which may include exposure information, equipment used, etc. We don't host the photos, so you'll have to upload it somewhere else and submit a link to it. If you're using Flickr, Picasa or another photo-sharing site to host your image, please provide a link to the image directly and not just to the photo page where it's displayed. Using an online photo service that requires that you log in will not work. If your photo doesn't show up, it's because the URL you have entered is incorrect. Check it and make sure it ends with the image file name (XXXXXX.jpg). Please bookmark this page and check back periodically over the next two weeks to vote on new submissions! Also, check out the winner's galleries from our previous contests: Fall, Holga, Red, Self-Portrait, Night, Macro, Transportation, and Black and White. Vote on animal photos submitted by other readers. Show entries that are: hot | new | top-rated. Submit your animal photo. Submit your animal photo. (No more than one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.) Back to top Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT Gallery: Top 10 Wired.com Heat Photos, Decided by You : After weeks of sweaty submissions in our heat photo contest, we're ready for a frosty winter to cool us down. Here are the 10 highest reader-voted submissions. Steve Dahlgren takes home the gold with his photo "Stairway to Hell" at left. Mr. Dahlgren will be receiving a subscription to Wired magazine and a digital picture frame for his desk. Since we had so many great photos that we thought should've received more votes, and because we love to anger readers with our selections, we've also compiled a Wired.com Editor's Choice Heat Photo Gallery. Our next twice-monthly photo contest theme is animals. We want to see your craziest, scariest and funniest photos of the animal kingdom. Check out the contest page for more information. Left: Stairway to Hell Submitted by Steve Dahlgren Photographer's comment: "Firefighters ascend a stairway.” : Vibrations Submitted by mr_magoo_icu Photographer's comment: "A crazed fire-twirling junkie unleashes his skills inside an old red brick storm-water tunnel." : Fire Submitted by pixie Photographer's comment: "Shot with a canon EOS 5D in the summer of 2007." : Drink for the Devil Submitted by Rob Heath Photographer's comment: "A pic I took when I first got my new Nikon D50 camera a few years back." : Painting With Fire Submitted by Derek H Photographer's comment: "Painting with fire in White Lake, Ontario, Canada. Shot with a Sony DSC-W1 on a 30 sec. exposure." : Festa Mayor — Terrassa, Spain Submitted by ryan opaz Photographer's comment: "Dancing with the devil in a Catalan Festa Mayor." : Let the Sparks Fly Submitted by Josh V Photographer's comment: "Taken with a cheap point-and-shoot Fuji Finepix A350 set to 'Night' mode." : Fahrenheit 451 Submitted by Bye by Tan Photographer's comment: "'The number "451" refers to the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which the books burn when the "firemen" burn them "for the good of humanity." Written in the early years of the Cold War, the novel is a critique of what Ray Bradbury saw as an increasingly dysfunctional American society.' (Wikipedia) Photo was made with Canon EOS 300D." : Fanning the Flames of the Great Debate Submitted by fotomy Photographer's comment: "I hope Earth won't end up like Mars." : Mammoth Hot Springs Submitted by Rubin Photographer's comment: "A cold day at a very hot pool, Yellowstone National Park." Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT