MobileCoin — a San Francisco-based crypto company — recently unveiled an artist residency program meant to support modern artists exploring privacy-related issues.
The program grants modern artists opportunities to explore certain themes within the digital privacy category. And focus on issues concerning several nuances of the multifaceted digital privacy issue, autonomy, and security.
MobileCoin made the official announcement on Wednesday, a move that coincided with the Miami Art Week, which ended on Sunday.
The program — aptly dubbed the Private Practice Residency — will cover the next three months. And during this time, MobileCoin will offer a fat stipend (worth $2,500) to participating artists. On top of the stipend, artists will have full access to lawyers, cryptographers, and other prominent experts working in digital privacy.
MobileCoin’s commitment to privacy and sustainability
Besides offering the program, MobileCoin together with New Art Dealers Alliance Art Fair awarded the best privacy-related artwork at the just concluded Miami Art Week.
As partners, they awarded the winning artist $7,500 in MOB (or mobile coin) — a cryptocurrency asset designed by MobileCoin (much like Bitcoin).
The winner of the Miami Art Week (announced on Friday, December 3rd) was selected by Inga Bard (MobileCoin’s director of art) and Andrew Berardini (art curator and critic).
When asked about the program and why its theme is central to MobileCoin’s philosophy, Bard said that … “privacy is essential to the autonomy and dignity required to make art and participate in the cultural life of a free society.”
He further intimated that by committing to privacy and sustainability in their transactions, “[MobileCoin] is also extending commitment to [contemporary] artists”.
Participation in the program was by invitation
Internationally renowned artists such as David Horvitz and Neil Beloufa graced the Residency program, which was by invitation only.
Horvitz is an American multimedia artist whose artworks prominently feature conceptual websites, art books, photography, and performance. While Beloufa (a Franco-Algerian artist) is widely known for video installations.
Invitations were also extended to other renowned artists to grace the inaugural season of the program, which fosters cultural dialogue about the role of privacy in our lives.
Bard and Berardini are planning to open up the Residency program for external submissions by artists working globally.
“For the first season of the residency, we choose to invite artists whose work we are familiar with and are excited about, one of which who has already created work about the appropriated life of our data or the World Wide Web”.
Bard said they’re selecting artists they admire “for being conceptual poets, and we’re eager to support artists that are interested to explore the subject for the first time.”
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