Glowlab was an

artist-run initiative An artist-run space or artist-run centre (Canada) is a gallery or other facility operated or directed by artists, frequently circumventing the structures of public art centers, museums, or commercial galleries and allowing for a more experimental ...

that produced and presented experimental work related to

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

and

psychogeography Psychogeography is the exploration of urban environments that emphasizes interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. It was developed by members of the Letterist International and Situationist International, which were revolutiona ...

, including interactive artworks and projects, events, exhibitions, and artists' gatherings.

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

artist and curator Christina Ray launched Glowlab in 2002 as an experimental, web-based arts lab to support the visibility and expression of artists within her community. Ray produced exhibitions and projects including street-based performance work and site specific interventions both in her Williamsburg loft and in the greater urban environment. Glowlab moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan in 2008, opening an exhibition space at the edge of

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

. As an innovative model advancing a niche collective of artists, thinkers and technologists, Glowlab produced over a dozen solo and group exhibitions, artist talks and performances. In early 2010, Ray re-launched Glowlab under her own name, continuing to focus on contemporary art, technology and creative projects examining the nature and psychology of the built environment. In 2003, Glowlab's Christina Ray and David Mandl co-founded

Psy-Geo-Conflux Psy-Geo-Conflux (better known as Conflux) is an annual New York City festival dedicated to psychogeography, where visual, performance and sound artists, writers, urban adventurers, researchers and the public gather for four days to explore the phy ...

, currently known as the Conflux Festival, which takes place annually in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The Village Voice described Conflux as a "network of maverick artists and unorthodox urban investigators… making fresh, if underground, contributions to pedestrian life in New York City, and upping the ante on today’s fight for the soul of high-density metropolises.”

Projects and artists

In addition to the annual Conflux Festival, Glowlab initiated a number of projects that focus on the exploration of public space. One Block Radius, produced for

The New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...

in 2004 by Christina Ray and David Mandl created a web based "psychogeographic portrait of a single

Bowery The Bowery () is a street and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north.Jackson, Kenneth L. "B ...

block" with the help of media contributions from artists and the public. in Manhattan. Open Lab, at Art Interactive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a nine-week series of "deceptively simple, playful investigations of site and the social fabric of Central Square, Cambridge". At Southern Exposure in San Francisco, Ray and Kurt Bigenho invited people to step away from the intensive social networking of internet sites like Myspace and

Friendster Friendster was a social network game based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003.Eric Eldon, August 4, 2008.Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO VentureBeat. Retrieved December 4, 2 ...

, and engage in non-social meetups in real space in their project Noso.Say It Isn't So: No, It's NoSo
by Rose Miller, Mother Jones, January 26, 2008 Artists and groups who have been associated with Glowlab include Wilfried Hou Je Bek, Bethany Bristow, D. Jean Hester,

Brian House Brian House (born Denver, Colorado) is a new media and sound artist. House's early projects were formative examples of locative media art and digital media in social practice. His subsequent projects have focused on sound and data sonification in ...

, Emily Conrad, Catherine D'Ignazio (aka Kanarinka),

Steve Lambert Steve Lambert is an American artist (born 1976) who works with issues of advertising and the use of public space. He is a founder of the Anti-Advertising Agency, an artist-run initiative which critiques advertising through artistic intervent ...

, David Mandl, Ryota Matsumoto, Roberto Mollá,

Marisa Olson Marisa Olson is an artist, writer, curator, and former punk singer. In 2004 she auditioned for popular American television show American Idol as an artistic project. Over the course of three months of daily "training exercises," it is revealed th ...

, Mark Price,

Sal Randolph Sal Randolph (born May 30, 1959) is an American artist and theorist who works with issues of gift-giving, money, alternate economies, and social architecture. She founded the non-curated sound-exchange web project Opsound, which functions throug ...

, Jesse Shapins, Swoon, Holly Tavel, Jessica Thompson,

Lee Walton Lee Walton is an American visual artist whose artwork is regularly associated with the subject of sports. Walton has exhibited his work internationally in a variety of media including drawing, concept based systems, performance art, video art, ...

, and

Wooster Collective Wooster Collective is a website founded in 2003 that showcases street art from around the world. ''The'' ''New York Times'' called it "a leading street-art blog." It features ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world. The site als ...

References

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External links

Glowlab
Arts organizations based in New York City Organizations based in New York (state) Arts organizations established in 2002 2002 establishments in New York City