SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has set up a new, $50,000 annual prize for Internet art, one of the largest single awards for online art and media in the world, officials said on Thursday.
The SFMOMA Webby Prize for Excellence in Online Art will be awarded to an artist or artists "for a body of work whose primary focus is to be experienced online and that explores and expands the distinctive capacity of the online medium," a museum statement said.
The new prize is being jointly administered by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and financed by an anonymous donor. The call for entries opens on 21 February and lasts until 14 March. Winners will be announced at the Webby Awards in San Francisco on 11 May.
Along with the prize money, the award winners will have their work exhibited in "e.space," the San Francisco museum's new online gallery to be launched next month.
"Our purpose is to call attention to this developing technology as a medium for creative expression and to encourage those exploring its aesthetic potential," SFMOMA director David Ross said in a statement.
"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.
The new Webby award joins a fairly short list of prizes dedicated to artistic endeavors in new media. One high-profile award, Austria's Prix Ars Electronica, was awarded this year to the Linux computer program.
