A new $50,000 annual prize for Internet art has been set up by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in one of the largest single online art awards to have been set up in the world.
Museum officials have issued a statement saying the Webby Prize for Excellence in Online Art will be awarded to an artist or artists whose work's "primary focus is to be experienced online," exploring the "distinctive capacity of the online museum."
"Our purpose is to call attention to this developing technology as a medium for creative expression and to encourage those exploring its aesthetic potential," says museum director David Ross in the statement.
Financed by an anonymous donor, according to Reuters, the new prize is administered by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The call for entries starts Feb. 21, the news wire says, and continues through March 14, with the winners announced in San Francisco on May 11.
The winners will receive prize money plus have their work exhibited in "e.space," the museum's new online gallery which launches in February, Reuters says.
"Just as photography was dawning as an artistic medium 100 years ago and video only 30 years ago so today, artists around the world have begun to work with new online technology," Ross continues.
The Webby joins a short list of prizes dedicated to artistic endeavors in new media, Reuters says, including the Prix Ars Electronica of Austria which was awarded to the Linux computer program this year.
