Diagrams of art exhibiting, buying, and collecting networks emerged in the OPENSTUDIO art market experiment.

OPENSTUDIO (2005-2008) was an experimental art economy platform created at MIT Physical Language Workshop.
http://burak-arikan.com/openstudio

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OPENSTUDIO was an online market for artists. It was created by the Physical Language Workshop led by John Maeda at the MIT Media Lab. Participants created and sold artwork in an online marketplace using a virtual currency. It run from 2005 – 2008.

OPENSTUDIO was a collaboration among Burak Arikan, Luis Blackaller, Annie Ding, Brent Fitzgerald, Amber Frid-Jimenez, Kate Hollenbach, Kelly Norton.

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Auction Machine was an online-onsite hybrid art auction software for the OPENSTUDIO art market. Utilizing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to interface the auction system, Auction Machine demonstrated a participant-controlled time based auction for artworks in the OPENSTUDIO economy.

In this auction, each participant has an RFID tag that can send and receive data to the auction software through radio signals. After two or more registered participants are within the radio range of the base station, the auction starts. The Auction Machine displays the names of the current participants and the artwork that is to be auctioned. The price of the artwork changes according to the number of people in the auction. It increases slowly if there are few people, and speeds up as more people join the auction. People stay connected if they think that the art piece is worth the price, or, if not, they leave by turning off their RFID tags. At the end, the last person who stays in the auction automatically gets the artwork and pays the price. When the artwork is sold, all the related information in the database gets updated, and the sale becomes visible as a regular online transaction in the OPENSTUDIO online micro-economy. The Auction Machine connects the virtual OPENSTUDIO system to the activities of multiple people in physical space. Such an interconnected environment creates new types of scenography and spatial continuity that fundamentally affect the way we understand and use space.

The Auction Machine can be set up on any computer that has Internet connection, and its surrounding environment becomes an electronic auction space. The Auction Machine has been used by approximately 20 people (~10 people in the same session simultaneously) during the Media Lab Sponsor Week in Fall 2005.

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The system of fashion is set on the continuous change of styles and speculations of the image of clothing that are represented through mass media and network of individual expressions. This work aims to explore the effect of the fashion system by creating a micro fashion network with the basic elements color and time.

A fixed camera and the custom software processed and stored dominant colors of moving people in Cambridge’s busy neighborhoods. Similar colors connected to each other form a large color network over time. As the network grow, the new vertices are connected to existing similar colors; because of this preferential attachment model, we see the power law distribution, and highly connected dense color hubs in the resulting images. In the result demonstration, three different artistic representations put side by side: captured human figures, color information as abstract boxes, and the complex network of colors.

In collaboration with Ben Dalton.

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Mapping of the global economic data to a dynamic visual system. Representation of two hundred and thirty-two world nations with visual cells. Economic information – GDP, GDP growth rate, inflation rate – is mapped to the geometry and speed of the circles. Military power is simulated by the physical power relationship between the cells.

When a digital camera is placed close to a computer screen we can discover a new disharmony. The intersection of the limits of the devices – the camera’s zoom and the screen’s resolution – creates blurry images. Having world flags on the screen to which the camera moves too close reminds the problem of having physically distinct but politically blurry borders between nations.

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