Etoy is a European digital art group formed in 1994. It has won several international awards including the Prix Ars Electronica in 1996. Their main slogan is: "leaving reality behind."
Etoy has routinely experimented with the boundaries of art, such as selling shares of "stock" in the etoy.corporation, a registered company in Switzerland [1] and travelling the world as well as living in "etoy.tanks" (cargo containers). [2]
The group first used the name "etoy" in 1994, for performances at raves and techno music events. [3] The group's members, based in various European countries, were referred to as "agents". [3]
In 2007, German and Swiss director Andrea Reiter realised a documentary (produced by Hugofilm) about etoy's "Mission Eternity" project, a "digital cult of the dead". [4]
As of 2015, a history overview on the group's website describes it as entering "hibernation mode" in 2013. [5]
The toywar was a legal battle around 1999/2000 between the Internet toy retailer eToys.com and etoy about the domain name etoy.com. Fearing brand dilution and customer confusion about the similar domain names, eToys sued etoy for trademark infringement, and asked etoy to remove graphic images and profane language from their website that were bringing customer complaints. The artists refused to comply, and eToys eventually obtained a preliminary injunction against etoy which shut down their website. [6] etoy fought back with a coordinated public relations campaign and Internet-based denial of service attacks on eToys.com. [7] After several weeks eToys dropped the lawsuit and the etoy website returned to operation. [8]
etoy activists have called it "the most expensive performance in art history". [9] The story is one of the subjects of the documentary film, info wars .
An email campaign was led by Internet activists including etoy agents developing the toywar website.
A book about the story of the etoy corporation, Leaving reality behind, by Regula Bochsler and Adam Wishart was released in 2002.
Software art is a work of art where the creation of software, or concepts from software, play an important role; for example software applications which were created by artists and which were intended as artworks. As an artistic discipline software art has attained growing attention since the late 1990s. It is closely related to Internet art since it often relies on the Internet, most notably the World Wide Web, for dissemination and critical discussion of the works. Art festivals such as FILE Electronic Language International Festival, Transmediale (Berlin), Prix Ars Electronica (Linz) and readme have devoted considerable attention to the medium and through this have helped to bring software art to a wider audience of theorists and academics.
Manfred Mohr is a German artist considered to be a pioneer in the field of digital art. He has lived and worked in New York since 1981.
The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica.
SITO is an online artist collective which began in January 1993, making it one of the oldest Internet-based art organizations. It was started by Ed Stastny and has been maintained by Stastny and a group of volunteers and supporters.
RTMark is an anti-consumerist activist collective, whose stated aim is to subvert the "Corporate Shield" that "protects" American corporations. The name is derived from "Registered Trademark".
UBERMORGEN.COM is a Swiss-Austrian-American artist duo founded in 1995 and consisting of lizvlx and Luzius Bernhard. They live and work in Basel, S-chanf near St. Moritz and in Vienna, where both are professors at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Piratbyrån was a Swedish think tank established to support the free sharing of information, culture, and intellectual property. Piratbyrån provided a counterpoint to lobby groups such as the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau.
K·B Toys was an American chain of mall-based retail toy stores. The company was founded in 1922 as Kaufman Brothers, a wholesale candy store. The company opened a wholesale toy store in 1946, and ended its candy wholesales two years later to emphasize its toy products. Retail sales began during the 1970s, using the name Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby.
eToys.com was a retail website that sold toys via the Internet. It was established by a startup company of the same name on November 3, 1997. After an initial public offering on January 4, 1999, the company quickly shot up in value, becoming emblematic of the dot-com bubble. The company went bankrupt on April 1, 2001, and shut down soon thereafter. The etoys.com domain went through a number of changes of ownership afterwards, and has been owned by Toys "R" Us since February 2009.
Eyebeam is a not-for-profit art and technology center in New York City, founded by John Seward Johnson III with co-founders David S. Johnson and Roderic R. Richardson.
Arts and media industry trade groups, such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), strongly oppose and attempt to prevent copyright infringement through file sharing. The organizations particularly target the distribution of files via the Internet using peer-to-peer software. Efforts by trade groups to curb such infringement have been unsuccessful with chronic, widespread and rampant infringement continuing largely unabated.
Mark Stephen Meadows (born September 28, 1968), known by his artist name, pighed, is an American author, inventor and artist.
Golan Levin is an American new media artist, composer, performer and engineer interested in developing artifacts and events which explore supple new modes of reactive expression.
Zachary Lieberman is an American new media artist, designer, computer programmer, and educator.
Charles Hernan Carreon is an American trial attorney best known for his involvement in a legal dispute between The Oatmeal webcomic and content aggregator FunnyJunk. As of 2012, he represented individuals and companies in matters pertaining to Internet law.
Aram Bartholl is a Berlin-based conceptual artist known for his examination of the relationship between the digital and physical world. His works often deal with anonymity and privacy. Aram Bartholl is currently Professor for art with digital media at HAW Hamburg.
Assocreation is a group of fine artists founded in Vienna, Austria in 1997. Its works are primarily based on haptic perception and conscious temporal motion in space. In seeking to inspire reflection and insight through motion and sensory experiences, Assocreation works primarily with interactive installations and public happenings. Ground and floor play an important role in its works.
Paolo Cirio is a conceptual artist, hacktivist and cultural critic.
Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in the city of Linz. Ars Electronica's activities focus on the interlinkages between art, technology and society. It runs an annual festival, and manages a multidisciplinary media arts R&D facility known as the Futurelab. It also confers the Prix Ars Electronica awards.
Lucas LaRochelle is a Canadian artist and designer based in Montreal, Quebec. They are best known as the creator of the community-based online collaborative mapping platform Queering the Map.
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