i-D: daata editions and digital art’s commercial future

iD

Felix Petty 28 January, 2016

We speak to David Gryn of Daata Editions about creating a viable vehicle for selling art online, as the platform releases its newest collection of artworks to the public.

http://i-d.vice.com/en_gb/article/daata-editions-and-digital-arts-commercial-future

Ed Fornieles, Sitting

–

The art market can easily feel over blown, over hyped, over saturated, stuffed full of money, and of course that’s partly true, though not if you’re an artist or gallery dealing in digital work. As a recent exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, Electronic Superhighway, shows, computer and internet technology has been having an impact on the art world since the mid 60s, but critical acclaim and visionary work doesn’t always open up the high end art of the market, if it finds a market at all.

This is where Daata Editions come in, an online platform featuring the work of 18 artists, with work commissioned specifically for sale over the internet. The first series of works features artists as diverse, talented and striking as Ilit Azoulay, David Blandy, Ed Fornieles, Jon Rafman, Amalia Ulman, Takeshi Murata, Hannah Perry and Chloe Wise. Existing somewhere between eCommerce platform and online gallery, Daata is a new solution to a problems as old as the internet itself ; how to commodify the intangible and create a distribution model that helps artists get paid for the work they do.

Amalia Ulman, White Flag Emoji

What made you want to start Daata?
What we’re trying to do is make Daata as a model for selling digital art, not the model. I wanted Daata to be about how the internet works, how you go into a website and look at art. If you go to an art fair there are 250 galleries. They don’t operate in identical ways but they all do something very similar. They sell art, they show art, and often they represent the artists really well. We aren’t a gallery, we don’t represent artists, but we function somewhat similarly. Daata grew from the logic of a market place for digital forms of artwork, we want to commission artists to make artwork so that artists can get paid.

We need lots of galleries to have a market place. You need thousands of artists to have an art world, you need lots of museums, but when it’s digital everyone wants to be the dominant model, to have the next .com sensation. Daata is simply a model that allows us commission artists to produce work and actually pay them for it. It’s a niche entity, we aren’t trying to be all things too all people.

I want it to be easy. For me the internet seems to be an easy solution not a complicated problem, but I don’t think most of the art world has arrived there yet. The art world still seems to want to resist it because it seems quite complicated.

David Blandy, Moon

Why do you think the art world has been so resistant to the digital art market?
Well I think it’s resistant because in contemporary art there’s a traditional process to things. We know how to buy and sell a good and therefore, we want to carry on buying and selling a good — that makes sense. But if things are online, suddenly a gallery or an artist feels they have less control. To me digital is just another medium, I don’t see it as being any different to oil paintings, or sculptures. But people seem to want to know how it all works or how you fit it into the techno-modern age. But this is the age we’re in, I think the art world’s coming round to it. The digital is a real, natural language now amongst almost everybody making art. But I think the marketplace has to take it seriously, and they struggle with that, because it doesn’t hit the high prices yet. You know you can sell a painting for a million pounds, but digital work sells for a few hundred.

Hannah Perry, The Worse You Feel The Better I Look

What draws you to the artists you work with?
Many of the artists when I was commissioning them, I said I want you to feel that you can experiment and do what you will with the platform, but at least experiment as best as you can. But partly it’s about working with artists who get it. Jon Rafman and Ed Fornieles are two artists who actually gave us a lot of advice when we were setting Daata up, and we commissioned works from them. Chloe Wise is a really passionate advocate of it, she’s up for promoting herself, her work, those artists to me are very special. Not all artists can be and are like that but it’s very helpful. And many artists have to gone on to use the work we commissioned in their future projects and exhibitions.

Chloe Wise, Should I Add An Emoji?

Is it about finding a piece of work that can exist beyond the digital?
To be honest, I kind of go to the artist as opposed to the artwork. We commissioned artists who we trust. The only brief was that it couldn’t be more than three minutes long. But not every artist I know would be right for it and some artists have different ways of working — some artists don’t want their work to be sold, some artists don’t want to make money, some artists do. I wanted to go to people who are rated as artists first.

Florian Meisenberg, Rghwori

What do you think the future of Daata will end up being?
The future is indeterminable, which is nice, because we are evolving. I mean my aim is that this becomes sort of a service a bit like Netflix or Spotify. However, within its own niche, there are other ways to make money out of those things, maybe it’s sponsored? Maybe it’s supported by philanthropy? Maybe it’s connected to museums? We want the work to be available to everybody, not just those who can buy it. I think the digital world is becoming just part of our natural consciousness.

Takeshi Murata, Pumpjack Popeye

Do you think that will only increase as young people, who’ve grown up using computers, become larger parts or the art world and art market?
There are artists who just work using digital as some artists might use paint. There are artists, like Rachel Rose or Ian Cheng, who just treat is as a natural language and medium and I think that’s when it starts looking like artwork, you start believing in it as art, as opposed to you just being wowed by the technical mastery the artist possesses.

I still feel that there’s a resistance though, and I’ve seen it in quite a few art schools where you have video artists being encouraged by their art departments to put their videos into sculptural installations to give it some kind of marketable commodity and I think that’s disappointing. It feels like saying ‘let’s make the work look more complicated and buyable by making it into a sculpture’ than actually just saying, ‘well that work was good enough.’

The fourth set of Season One artworks are released 28 January and can be purchased online at daata-editions.com

CreditsText Felix Petty
All images courtesy the artists and Daata Editions

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5 Questions with Daata Editions – Elephant Magazine

Charles Richardson – Extra

5 Questions with Daata Editions

http://www.elephantmag.com/5-questions-with-daata-editions/

Text by Emily Steer

Daata Editions is an online platform that commissions digital artists’ editions—mostly video-, sound- and web-based. Season One brought together eighteen artists, who each created six pieces of work, last month joining two different collections in completion; Germany’s Julia Stoschek Collection and LA’s Hammer Museum.

Season One featured the work of; Ilit Azoulay, Helen Benigson, David Blandy, Matt Copson, Ed Fornieles, Leo Gabin, Daniel Keller & Martti Kalliala, Lina Lapelyte, Rachel Maclean, Florian Meisenberg, Takeshi Murata, Hannah Perry, Jon Rafman, Charles Richardson, Amalia Ulman, Stephen Vitiello and Chloe Wise.

Here, five of the artists discuss the purpose of digital platforms in the present art world and the future of art online.

When did you start work with Daata Editions, and what do you feel online platforms can offer to digital artists?

Chloe Wise: I began working with Daata Editions for their first iteration–or season of artists I suppose–about a year ago now. For an emerging artist, especially for an artist working with digital media, it can be hard to find viewership, a consumer market, a collector base, the funds with which to produce work, and a comprehensive placement within the art world for oneself. Working with Daata Editions not only enabled the artists, including myself, to create work that otherwise may not have been made, but to circulate this work in the context of art fairs, screenings both indoors and outdoors, in a gallery setting as well as online and placing the works into great collections and institutions. This visibility and accessibility is imperative to digital work, which is in a state of growth and change, and is so easily dismissed in the constant flow of images and videos on the internet.

As a digital artist, do you consider the fit of your work on the market, or is this a secondary concern? 

Florian Meisenberg: When creating either a digital or analogue art work, I don’t start by thinking about it fitting into the market. Generally, my motivation to create art is not dependent on its degree of ‘fitability’ with anything. Although sometimes I feel embarrassed that I can’t sign my videos.

Have you felt the reception towards digital work change in any way since you began your practice?  

David Blandy: When I started exhibiting, the digital world of computing, gaming and the Internet were marginal cultural interests, the preserve of geeks like me. The Internet was dial up, computer games were making their first experiments in 3D graphics, and VHS was the standard exhibition format for video. So my work thinking about and using digital culture, using backgrounds from video games and performances inside virtual spaces, were seen as pretty alien from mainstream culture and were probably pretty mystifying to an artworld that was largely computer illiterate. Now the digital is central to our everyday visual culture–CGI on tv, adverts, films, every photo is computer manipulated, only occasional heads unbowed at train stations, contemplating the sky rather than their phone.

Do you feel that your work exists in accordance with the technology it was created for? Or is the material something that could be transferred to different tech over the years?

Matt Copson: My work exists in accordance but is not enslaved by current technology. I’m sure things would change radically with any contextual shifts, be they technological, political or financial but hopefully my work isn’t just a symptom of its time. Most of the more digital aspects of my work and installations are basic or quite a primitive use of more complex programs. I don’t care for professionalising my skills, rather I enjoy being an enthusiastic amateur with a level of distance from the technology I’m using. I like the idea of using photoshop in the same way I’d carve a sculpture with a chainsaw and sledgehammer. I see no reason why works couldn’t be transferred to different technology over the years. But my principal concern, of course, is in how they are shown/heard in the present.

What do you see being the biggest driver of digital art in the future?

Helen Benigson: I am sure the continuous and accelerating trend of the public giving up personal data to big companies will lead to some very interesting work being made. However, I also feel that as the body becomes even more exploited through medical and visceral mediation online, artists will necessarily need to drive a new concept of what intimacy, privacy and the corporeal looks like. I don’t think there has ever been more of a crucial time to bring art and technology together, than the current climate we are living in. There is increasingly a general blurring of boundaries and a development of terms such as the ‘creative’ or ‘cultural producer’, via the recruitment of artists into the technology industry which has a more general emphasis on the idea of creativity at work across many different industry sectors. Many of the concepts that have shaped the working culture in the tech industry (such as ‘play’, live-work, loft spaces and temporary contracts) are derived from artists’ working habits, like Second Home and its relationship to the Serpentine Pavilion. It is essential to understand these messy overlaps in order to try to decipher how and where art will move to as artists move away from big cities and increasingly have to work more online in order to survive.

All works: 2015, Courtesy Daata Editions

Collecting on the Cloud, a digital exchange with David Gryn of Daata by Sylvia Wu, SCREEN

photo: David Gryn by Jane Bustin

Sylvia Wu’s conversation with David Gryn, director of Daata Editions, On New Models of Selling Digital Art, is now live on SCREEN, a New York-based bilingual platform aiming to redefine media art.

http://www.onscreentoday.com/conversation/art-collecting-in-the-air

With the fall coming up, the relatively quiet holiday season will burst into a kaleidoscope of exhibitions and events. Alongside the physical world, several online sales platforms are also making their voices heard. Daata Editions, created by Art Basel’s Curator of Film, David Gryn, and collector Anita Zabludowicz, is among the most active. Launched in May this year, Daata Editions has made some great sales of its artist commissioned video, sound and web art editions, and perhaps more importantly, it has established a fresh model for selling and buying digital art. On its website, Daata Editions has currently two releases from “Season 1” of artist commissioned works including a collaboration between Martti Kalliala and Daniel Keller, and videos by Takeshi Murata. To figure out more about Daata’s language and concepts, SCREEN was in conversation with David Gryn, who previously said “We need to believe that, in the same way we easily buy music and films online via the likes of iTunes or Amazon, we can buy art via digital files and not have to [physically] possess an object to give a work its validation”1

SCREEN: We know that you curate Art Basel’s film sector where you can observe the market for digital art. But how exactly did the initial idea of creating Daata Editions come to you?

David Gryn: I worked with Art Basel for five years, and before that with various major other art fairs. It was obvious that galleries really don’t think about bringing films, videos, sound and other digital media to art fairs because they haven’t found a way to sell them. It dawned to me that something needs to be done about this, not just by one person but by many. I’ve never been a big believer in the market place per se, but I do believe that you need to have a market place where artists who make good digital artworks can be supported.

So our model of creating Daata Editions is the idea to start commissioning artists, paying them and giving them royalties, marketing the process and what they create, and I came together with these thoughts with collector and philanthropist Anita Zabludowicz, whom I’ve known for a long time. We came from different spectrums of the art world, me working with the art directly and not involved in the market place, while Anita collecting art passionately but also supporting artists and students. She believes in the ecosystem of the art world like I do, and the evolving concept of Daata was something we mutually agreed with.

S: What differs Daata Editions from other online sales platforms?

DG: We are not trying to be different. What we are building is our own bespoke, boutique model. I’m not looking at this being reinventing the wheel, but that we’ve created Daata Editions to present artists who make artworks with digital media, video, web, sound works. It works for that medium as well as we can possibly do within a finite model. Where it may differ from others is that we are very restricted to what we are focused on doing—we are commissioning, any one time, currently 18 artists per “season”. We pay the artists upfront to make the works, which is quite unusual in the art world. They also receive a royalty, which is also quite unusual.

A snapshot of the “Artists” page on the Daata Editions website. The background picture is a frame from Leo Gabin’s “Write Your Name”.

I hope that there are many models, and we are one of many. My view is that we’ll do it very well and hopefully other people will also do well. Just like you need many good galleries in an art fair, and you need many of them in a neighborhood to make it an art center that people might travel to visit. One good thing doesn’t form a market place, but often dominance. What often happens with digital business in the art world is that there’s a desire to be dominant because of the idea of monopoly. You could be the next big thing, the next Facebook or the next Twitter. We are not trying to be that. We are trying to put artists at the center of what we are doing, representing mediums that are actually very much commonplace amongst artists. Really commonplace. It’s almost ridiculous that most artists use digital media even if they are painters, to some degree to research or to communicate. But somehow the art market hasn’t found a way to reflect that yet. And galleries really find it difficult to find a business model around those works and how to find the commodified market place. We are working with art forms that are still finding their feet in that area but we are also working with them because we believe that those are true artists, not some freak shows. All the artists we work with are artists that are emerging and somehow emerged—simply talented artists and digital media is just the way they work.

S: But you seem to have a different language or vocabulary for the components within your model? What’s different about the works in the category “Web”? What’s a “season” (it easily reminds people of TV shows on websites like Netflix)?

DG: A lot of things are about semantics here. It’s trying to find a way to describe what we are doing. You might have noticed that we call everything artists’ video, artists’ sound, artists’ web, because what we see is that artists make the works. It’s not just video art, sounds art or web art—sometimes these are quite old and clumsy terms. The category “Web” is still an amorphous area of different forms of artworks, maybe a website, a video, or GIFs, but it’s enabling us to have different technologies within a section. Right now it’s probably ostensibly things that you could call video in our video section, but they are just made by slightly more emerging artists. With the “seasons”, it is a way of defining what each cycle is. As we were launching, we wanted to give a flavor that Season 1 is the first commissioning cycle. Like on Netflix, you might have a second season, which is a new cycle. What I think of the languages of Netflix is that you go back to Season 1 and Season 2 when you are on Season 10, but are still delighted to look at those seasons. You don’t think of them any less just because they are “older”, and in some cases you realize you have to look at those first.

A snapshot of the “Art” page on the Daata Editions website, where artworks are categorized as “Video”, “Sound” and “Web”.

S: How do you select the artists for each season? How does the collaboration work?

DG: It goes back to what I mentioned as an ecosystem. The artists all have a pretty good aura around them. A few of them recently graduated, like Helen Benigson, Matt Copson, Lina Lapelyte and Charles Richardson. And then there’s others that we have been working with for years and are well known. David Blandy has done a lot of works about gaming and sound cultures. Ed Fornieles and Jon Rafman are both advisors to our project. Leo Gabin, for instance, produce video and film works, but for Daata they have also made sound works for the first time. It’s therefore exciting to commission something that these artists haven’t focused on before. We show them online, but they can be purchased and shown offline. In other words, they are not solely dependent on the online platform. We commission the artists without saying what they should make for us, only that the work should be around 3 minutes or less. The idea is that the works will be fresh, quick and spontaneous. We limit what we do but we never judge the works. There’s no sending back to the artists or saying that we don’t like the works. That’s risky but it’s the way we wanted it to be—trust the artists to deliver. Our business model is a self-sustaining company. The aim is that each cycle is paid for from the previous one, but the artists get paid upfront regardless of sales.

Takeshi Murata, OM Passenger, HD Video, mp4, 0:40 mins ( artwork page on Daata https://daata-editions.com/art/video/takeshi-murata-om-passenger )

S: What about the choice of the website design?

DG: We did something similar with the designer of the website. Studio Scasascia, the company we worked with designed the website of a favorite record company of mine. As I’m comfortable buying music online, I hope to use this model to sell artists’ works as well. My brief to the designers was that we wanted the artists to be the center of the website. We wanted it to be an aesthetically pleasing and also simple platform, doing not more than showing and selling 18 artists’ commissioned works. We commissioned 6 works from each artist, plus one by Jon Rafman, which is free for downloading from the website. Meanwhile all the works can be viewed without registration or payment.

Jon Rafman, Oh the Humanity, HD Video, mp4, 3:00 mins, Unlimited edition.

A certificate for Jon Rafman’s “Oh the Humanity”.

S: Now that the works can be fully accessed on the website, what marks the difference between viewing and owning the works? What do you think drives a collector to purchase something non-physical?

DG: For one artwork, there’s 15 editions for sale. When you purchase one work you can download the high resolution file and own an edition of that work. The price goes up by $100 (in web and sound) or $200 (in video) after each edition sells. The price of a final artwork, for instance in video, can be $5600, which in my view, is probably closest to what the artwork is actually worth. In this way, we want to make it transparent and accessible, so that the works become affordable for many more people. Of course not everyone buys an artwork of $100, but this price is quite cheap for a quality artwork. So we are talking about people who believe in art. We are not trying to convince people who think it’s not worth it, because they might say the same thing about Picasso and Matisse. But still we want those people to be able to watch the works. Unlike Youtube where you find millions of videos and sounds, we are an artist based platform and we show artworks. What drives the collectors is their wish to own artworks, similar to how they come into a gallery or an auction house to buy artworks of other media. I think a collector can do both.

S: How is Daata Editions and your artists doing so far?

DG: We have made some major sales to major art collectors and collections. We will be announcing those in October when we launch the third release. It is in fact magical for us because these are the biggest collectors of this kind of media. It’s also brilliant for the artists because they are now in those big collections. Some of them will truly start their career from this, which could have taken more years for their works to be found or purchased via galleries. Actually, many of the artists on our site don’t have galleries yet. For those who do, several galleries are keen for us to show their artists, because evolving a market for any artist is difficult. So we see what we do as a supportive act. We promote the artists but don’t actually represent them.

Lina Lapelyte, Hunky Bluff ACT2 – Never was a shade, CD Quality sound, wav, 2:57 mins, ( artwork page on Daata https://daata-editions.com/art/sound/lina-lapelyte-hunky-bluff-act2-never-was-a-shade )

S: What’s the sales agreement between Daata Editions and its customers? Do you have something like customer service? What happens if a file is damaged or lost?

DG: If the file on your computer is damaged or lost, you can download again from the website. We won’t make it a problem, since the collectors own the file and their names are on the certificate. If they want to give it to another person and transfer the ownership, they go to the website and change the certificate and then download it in the new owner’s name. Also the collectors can always log in their accounts on our website and view their purchased items online. If a different operating system exists, we will adjust the files to make sure the works play well on it. We want to make the whole process simple and friendly instead of making a prison contract that you enter into. You buy an artwork, and you can view it on whatever platform, and within reason, you can show it in your home and in your office. Of course if you want to show it publicly, the artist owns the intellectual property, and we need to go back to the artist. But we operate based on the trust in the buyer. The art world I operate in is all about good will and credibility, and this world should believe in itself. We don’t want to make the buying of digital art a problem before it’s happened.

S: Did you set a goal of any sort?

DG: We are working with artists, whose natural language is digital and online. We set up this platform with the goal that in the near future people are happy to buy, play and show artworks digitally on their devices. If a gallery can’t sell digital artworks or any time-based media easily, then the artists become compelled to make paintings, sculptures, installations that are easier to commodify. I see digital media equally to the traditional mediums such as painting and sculpture. I hope they can be seen equally by all. With most artists touching upon digital media in some way, we anticipate there will be a real market and audiences will have the confidence to engage with it.

S: Are you confident about creating a “virtual” market for artists and collectors?

DG: Yes. I do think it’s a natural development. It’s not a contrived market because I do believe we are getting to the point where real artists are making really good artworks with digital means. Technology, as their tools, are being used brilliantly. It’s no longer a romanticism of digital media. But again we don’t want to be the only platform to show artists working with digital media. Currently we can’t do more than 18 artists in a season because obviously we, as a small team, are limited. I’d love to think galleries can look at what we are doing and similar companies like ours can copy us, because I believe galleries are the ultimate and best placed curator of the artists they represent. However, many galleries can’t think of doing it, because perhaps they can’t do it properly or still lack the desire. That’s why I think we have to evolve different market places. Not all artworks are sold in the same way. There should be different sales or rental models, but what bonds them, makes them co-exist and move forward together are dialogues and communications. Hopefully we are a powerful voice and I do believe that we are empowering the market place by making people believe they can buy what we have commissioned from the artists and create various commercial relationships.

1 See ANNY SHAW, “Collectors join forces to co-commission digital art”, THE ART NEWSPAPER, 18 June 2015, http://theartnewspaper.com/reports/156860/

Daata Editions 3rd Artwork Released on 12 Oct

Takeshi Murata, Plant Whisperer (2015). Courtesy the artist and Daata Editions.

Daata Editions, the online platform for the sale of commissioned artist video, sound and web editions, is pleased to announce the third artwork release for Season One. The artworks will be available at http://daata-editions.com from 5pm on Monday 12 October with a special release event at the Daata Editions Lounge at the Zabludowicz Collection. The release coincides with the Jon Rafman and Charles Richardson shows opening at the Zabludowicz Collection.

Daata Editions was developed to enable audiences to view contemporary artists who are working in digital mediums, showing artworks made for, and therefore best viewable on, laptops, iPads, iPhones, screens and even cinemas. This new and innovative way to collect art is designed specifically to be a native platform to a new generation of artists who work with moving image and sound, and to empower artists, audiences and the marketplace in an area of artistic practice that remains underrepresented within traditional art market models.

For Season One, Daata Editions has commissioned 18 artists to create six new artworks each in editions of 20, with 15 going on sale to the public via the website and five others automatically put aside for philanthropy. All artworks last no longer than approximately three minutes and are made in ways that challenge traditional modes of exhibition, reception and, therefore, of collecting as well. Daata Editions artists commissioned for the Season One are: Ilit Azoulay, Helen Benigson, David Blandy, Matt Copson, Ed Fornieles, Leo Gabin, Daniel Keller & Martti Kalliala, Lina Lapelyte, Rachel Maclean, Florian Meisenberg, Takeshi Murata, Hannah Perry, Jon Rafman, Charles Richardson, Amalia Ulman, Stephen Vitiello, Chloe Wise.

David Gryn, Director of Daata Editions, said: “It is important that while we continue to find new artists whose work pushes the definition of contemporary art, we also develop formats through which such work can be best accessed and understood. We also need far more competition from similar platforms that commission, show and sell digitally made art online to empower artists, audiences and the marketplace alike.”

In addition to the commissions available for purchase, all subscribers to the platform receive a free Jon Rafman artwork, made specifically for Daata Editions.

To watch the trailer for the third artwork release, please click here.

Event

Daata Editions 3rd Artwork Release Launch
Monday 12 October, 5 – 6pm
Daata Editions Lounge @ the Zabludowicz Collection
176 Prince of Wales Road
London NW5 3PT
RSVP to hannah@suttonpr.com

Artworks in Daata Editions 3rd Release (Season One)

Video
Ed Fornieles – Climbing
Leo Gabin – Ain’t Gon Do It
Daniel Keller & Martti Kalliala – Exitscape 3
Florian Meisenberg – hihihihihihihihih
Takeshi Murata – Plant Whisperer
Amalia Ulman – White Flag Emoji 3

Sound
Ilit Azoulay – Object #3
Matt Copson – Booty Call
Leo Gabin – Aliens
Lina Lapelyte – Hunky Bluff Act 3
Hannah Perry – sick off smoke
Stephen Vitiello – In The Woods (after Tana French)

Web
Helen Benigson – Cluck, Cluck, Cluck 3
David Blandy – Mist
Rachel Maclean – Let It Go Part 3
Hannah Perry – the worse you feel the better I look
Charles Richardson – Extra
Chloe Wise – should i add an emoji

(All works are 2015)

Press Information

Hannah Gompertz, SUTTON
+44 (0)207 813 3577 | hannah@suttonpr.com

Making it rain ! Selected works from Daata Editions Season One at TIFF

Takeshi Murata, Making It Rain (2015). Courtesy the artist and Daata Editions

Toronto International Film Festival: Wavelengths

September 10-19, 2015

Making it rain !

Selected works from Daata Editions Season One

Featuring selected Daata Editions artists: Jon Rafman, David Blandy, Ed Fornieles, Leo Gabin, Daniel Keller & Martti Kalliala, Rachel Maclean, Florian Meisenberg, Takeshi Murata, Hannah Perry, Charles Richardson, Chloe Wise. 

Selected by David Gryn, Director of Daata Editions and Curator of Film, Art Basel in Miami Beach.

For TIFF’s 2015 offsite program, the Drake is thrilled to collaborate with Daata Editions to present a program of digital works by 12 international artists. This program is designed to invite viewers to consider the moving image outside of formal exhibition spaces and bring new media more directly into our environments.

The program will be screened at the Queen West Hotel on screens throughout and nightly on the façade of hotel’s downtown location, Drake One Fifty. In addition, the entire programme will be screened with sound in the Hotel’s private dining room, on September 12 and 13, noon-5pm offering a more cinematic experience.

Making it rain ! 

List of Daata Editions artworks

Jon Rafman – Oh the humanity
David Blandy – Ice
Ed Fornieles – Bathing
Leo Gabin – Girlhood
Daniel Keller and Martti Kalliala – Exitscape 1
Rachel Maclean – Let It Go – Part 1
Florian Meisenberg – the_tacit_one
Takeshi Murata – OM Making It Rain
Hannah Perry – aahhhhhh
Charles Richardson – Carramesh
Chloe Wise – she’s so talented
David Blandy – Ruin
Ed Fornieles – Falling
Leo Gabin – Write your name
Daniel Keller and Martti Kalliala – Exitscape 2
Rachel Maclean – Let It Go – Part 2
Florian Meisenberg – somewhere_sideways
Takeshi Murata – OM Passenger
Hannah Perry – Useless
Charles Richardson – 27th March
Chloe Wise – do you really think he fingered her

Location:

Drake Hotel

1150 Queen Street West

Toronto, ON M6J 1J3

&

Drake One Fifty

150 York St

Toronto, ON M5H 3S5

More information:

daata-editions.com

thedrakehotel.ca

tiff.net

Hercules Rough Cut by David Blandy at Bloomberg SPACE

David Blandy 

HERCULES : ROUGH CUT

Bloomberg SPACE

50 Finsbury Square
London EC2A 1HD

Exhibition dates: July 10 – September 19, 2015

Hercules Rough Cut, David Blandy’s new commission for Bloomberg SPACE, explores empire, civilisation, London and language in a hypnotically rotating, mutating installation of video and voice. Sound by Larry Achiampong. Curated by Sigrid Kirk.

More information: http://www.bloombergspace.com

David Blandy has artworks now available at Daata Editions http://daata-editions.com

Daata Editions featured in Elephant Magazine – Summer 2015

Ed Fornieles, Bathing (2015). Courtesy the artist and Daata Editions

Daata-Editions

Dates: Ongoing

Daata-Editions launched its online platform for the sale of video, web and sound editions at NADA, Frieze New York, Salon 94 and Soho House this spring. The simple and extremely well designed project allows collectors to easily and confidently download digital art forms that have until now been thought of as difficult to acquire.

“It’s about creating an economy for artists working in these mediums during a curious time of change” says founder David Gryn, who has been working with artists for over twenty years, including curating the film programme at Art Basel Miami Beach. “People think that online is some kind of mythological space where things happen automatically, but that’s not the case. We need to encourage artists to know that these mediums are valued.”

‘Season One’ of Daata-Editions sees 18 artists including Ed Forneiles, Leo Gabin, Chloe Wise, Florian Meisenberg, David Blandy, Hannah Perry and Ilit Azoulay commissioned to produce six works, no longer than three minutes long each, which will be released on the site regularly. The artists are commissioned and paid in full for the works, as well as receiving royalties on the sale of the editions, and are free to experiment entirely on their artworks.

You can view and buy the works at www.daata-editions.com

by Molly Taylor, Elephant Magazine

–

Taken from the latest print issue of Elephant Magazine

Elephant, Issue 23, Summer 2015 – What is Post Internet Art ?

Pages 19, 29, 135, 136

Daata Editions Season 1 Trailer

Daata Editions

Artists video, sound and web

Launching May 14, 2015

Facebook  Instagram  Twitter

Artists: Ilit Azoulay, Helen Benigson, David Blandy, Matt Copson, Ed Fornieles, Leo Gabin, Daniel Keller & Martti Kalliala, Lina Lapelyte, Rachel Maclean, Florian Meisenberg, Takeshi Murata, Hannah Perry, Jon Rafman, Charles Richardson, Amalia Ulman, Stephen Vitiello, Chloe Wise

Daata Editions Launching May 14 – Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

Daata Editions

A new online platform for the sale of artist commissioned video sound and web art editions

Launching May 14, 2015
www.daata-editions.com

TRAILER

Launch during May art fairs in New York include a viewing area at NADA, and programming partnerships with Salon 94 and Soho House New York.

New York  (April 17, 2015) – Daata Editions is a new online platform dedicated to the support, promotion and collecting of artists’ digital moving image and sound. This new and innovative way to collect art is designed specifically to be a native platform to a new generation of artists who are working with video, sound, and web (mediums), and which are not easily exhibited in the traditional gallery context. Daata Editions is founded and directed by curator David Gryn, and developed by London based web agency Studio Scasascia. Daata was born of a need seen by Gryn via his work as a curator, noticing the concerns of galleries, institutions, and collectors interested in artists working in moving image and sound. Daata Editions is a remedy to this, a new business that commissions and empowers artists to develop new work, and creates a seamless and playful platform for collectors and viewers to access and experience this material.    

Launch Commissions 

Daata Editions will be launching by commissioning 18 artists to create six new – video, sound or web artworks each.  All of the works, each in an edition of 20, will be available online for sale and research. The website is designed to be an easy to use and aesthetically appealing interface for collectors to browse and acquire the works. The Daata Editions website is ideal for these works, as a native platform, Daata presents digital commissions for digital distribution.

The first group of artists commissioned to create new artworks for the launch of Daata Editions are: Ilit Azoulay, Helen Benigson, David Blandy, Matt Copson, Ed Fornieles, Leo Gabin, Daniel Keller & Martti Kalliala, Lina Lapelyte, Rachel Maclean, Florian Meisenberg, Takeshi Murata, Hannah Perry, Jon Rafman, Charles Richardson, Amalia Ulman, Stephen Vitiello, and Chloe Wise. In addition to the commissioned editions available for purchase, all subscribers to the platform will receive a free Jon Rafman artwork, made specifically for Daata Editions launch. Art writer and curator Lucy Chinen has written the first texts for the website. 

Launch Programs and Events

Daata Editions is launching in NY during the week of the Frieze Art Fair, May 11 to 17, 2015, with a series of events, including a collaborative viewing area at NADA New York (May 14-17) and a Frieze Art Fair brunch, hosted by renowned collector and philanthropist Anita Zabludowicz at the Neue House VIP lounge in association with the Frieze VIP program on May 16. In addition, passers by on the Lower East Side can enjoy a month long screening on the Salon 94 video wall on the Bowery, next to the New Museum, and another month long screening program will be at Soho House, New York, running from May 11 to June 15, 2015.  

About The Team

Daata Editions’ team has a strength of experience and credibility that is unique in our art meets digital world and aims to create a marketplace platform that will be a fun experience as well as educational. Daata Editions’ Director, David Gryn of Artprojx and Curator of Film, Art Basel in Miami Beach has a strong reputation worldwide in producing, curating and promoting artists’ audio visual projects and events that have consistently excited and attracted large audiences and introduced new audiences to the arts. Responsible for the design and development of the platform is London-based Studio Scasascia, who have extensive experience in cutting edge web development for international clients including Damien Hirst’s Other Criteria, Berlin Biennale, Sounds of the Universe and the Swiss Federal Office of Culture.

For more information, please visit www.daata-editions.com

Media Contact

Molly Rowe / Andrew Huff
Third Eye
molly@hellothirdeye.com / andrew@hellothirdeye.com
www.hellothirdeye.com

Barefoot Skank – a soundcloud reissue

 

From the Artprojx Archives – just for fun:

Artprojx Radio presents
the original soundtrack recording
Barefoot Skank
&
Barefoot Skank (Ark Dub Mix)
Produced and music by Manasseh
In Association with The Barefoot Lone Pilgrim / David Blandy
Executive Producer, David Gryn / Artprojx
2008 (Back in day)

Artprojx Dojo presents
The Barefoot Lone Pilgrim AKA David Blandy/Soul Seeker v
The Legendary Manasseh AKA Nick Manasseh/Dub Master

Live dub battle versions at: Artprojx Space, Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery

davidgryn.wordpress.com
www.artprojx.com