This morning I logged into Facebook and saw that both Bob Stein and Eric Swenson had both RSVPd for an event called Net Art 1.0. So knowing that it had to be hip and cutting edge, of course, I clicked through to learn more and discovered add-art.org. It is an eyebeam project that combines ad-blocker with a curated art show. The ad spaces on websites are replaced with shows that go up for 2 weeks and contain the work of 5-8 digital artists whose work is described on the shows curator page.
The project leverages AdBlock Plus which along with an earlier version have been downloaded over 26 million times. The ad-art site writes, "With the overwhelming popularity of adblockers, if Add-Art were to attract 5% of existing users, the numbers would be in the hundreds of thousands. Add-Art can bring contemporary art to the desktops of all types of people at home and in their workplace - all over the world." I've loaded it, blocked my ads which I was ignoring anyway and have now seen the show. I really liked Vivan Selbo's work but I think I'm going to turn the ads back on for now for some more ignorable background variety.
