Announcing Open Eyebeam

ENTER OPEN EYEBEAM

In the pre-pandemic days, Eyebeam offered artists physical studio space, and would regularly open its doors so that the public could see artists’ works-in-progress.

In 2020, of course, that changed. Eyebeam responded to the pandemic by going fully digital, first with the Rapid Response fellowships, then with its inaugural round of Fractal Fellows. As we moved into digital space, we still longed for a space to call our own, to bring the feeling of Eyebeam’s open studios to a wider audience. Thus Open Eyebeam was born.

Open Eyebeam is a digital studio space built by and for Eyebeam’s community. It’s still in the early stages, but as the inaugural Fractal Fellowship comes to a close, we wanted to share it with you. Going forward, this will be the home for our artists’ works-in-progress and our digital events. It is an ever-changing, experimental space, much like our old physical studio: it will never look or feel the same for too long.

With Open Eyebeam, we hope to create a space outside of the ever-watching eye of surveillance tech: a friendly, DIY home for artists, technologists, and anyone willing to imagine a better digital world.

Right now, Open Eyebeam is populated with the studios of our inaugural Fractal Fellows, who concluded their fellowship in July of 2022. They’ve shared thoughts, works-in-progress, and more. You may also find your way to the studios of our new round of fellows, who started in November – right now, they’re pretty bare, but check back soon for the fellows’ updates!

For now, feel free to wander about the space, and see what you discover. And if you find something that doesn’t look quite right, a bug you’d like to fix, or have a burning idea for something we could add to the platform, this project is fully in the open-source spirit of Eyebeam! You can find all of our code on GitHub, and we encourage you to reach out to [email protected] if you’d like to contribute or get more involved.