The Getty opens its public domain art to all

The Getty launched its Open Content Program on August 12, 02013 to make digital versions of its public domain artwork available to all. They went above and beyond, as have some other cultural organizations, by providing "high-resolution, reproduction-quality images with embedded metadata, some over 100 megabytes in size."

I applaud The Getty's decision and hope that many more cultural institutions will follow their example. In British Columbia, the City of Vancouver Archives has a comparable policy to the Getty. I would love to see my former employer, the Royal British Columbia Museum, step onto the open access/open content stage. Perhaps this will happen once the BC Archives, which has been part of the RBCM for a decade, converts its database systems for public access via the new content management system, work on which has been underway for at least five years. Amazingly, the existing BC Archives search system is nearly 20 years old, possibly a world record when it comes to public access Web-based databases.

I've always felt it was wrong for cultural institutions to charge money for the use or licensing of public domain content they were preserving since most if not all these organizations also held full rights to other content or could find other ways to generate revenue.

 For some further information about The Getty's decision, see President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust Jame Cuno's article "Open Content, An Idea Whose Time Has Come" in The Getty Iris.

Gigapixel art, the Google Art Project

The Google Art Project was started by Google employee Amit Sood. Launched on February 1, 02011 at London's Tate Britain gallery, the Art Project contains content from 17 major galleries and collections around the world and allow a virtual visitor to explore these museums and one art art using "gigapixel" technology. The virtual tours use the same technology as the Street View you experience through Google Maps.

Et tu Snarkus

I read about "the rise of the ridicule" or "online snark culture" in a newspaper article by Melissa Martin of the Winnipeg Free Press on July 25, 2010. What was it comedian Rodney Dangerfield said, "Can't get no respect." The article is essentially a paen of praise for April Winchell's Regretsy.com. She mocks "the most hiedeous or head-scratching items on the handmade online marketplace, Etsy." Get it? Etsy + Regrets = Regretsy. Winchell, the article recounts, "was something of a connoisseur of really crappy art." So now she's laughing all the way to the bank with no regretsies. Did I mention she's also published a book titled Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF.

TinEye Reverse Image Search

I have not tried a search with TinEye, "a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version. TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is free to use for non-commercial searching. TinEye regularly crawls the web for new images, and we also accept contributions of complete online image collections. To date, TinEye has indexed 1,630,532,499 images from the web to help you find what you're looking for." (http://www.tineye.com/about)

Into the Pixel, ongoing juried exhibit of video game artwork

Curious about what some of the upcoming video games will look like or how some existing games differ from their original concept art? Check out Into the Pixel, an ongoing, juried exhibit of video game artwork sponsored and hosted by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. The exhibits date back to 2004.

Wikipedia Saves Public Art (WSPA): New Project to Document Public Art on a Global Scale

The ResourceShelf reported on an interesting new Wikipedia project to document public art on a global scale initiated by faculty and students at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The IUPUI Public Art Collection on Wikipedia is worth a look.

Landmarks: Public Art in the Capital Region of Victoria, BC, Canada

The Capital Regional District of Victoria, BC, Canada and three of its municipalities have assembled a terrific site called Landmarks: Public Art in the Capital Region. You can search for public art installations by artist, title, neighborhood, or type of art. I'd long thought of doing something similar with the many building murals around Greater Victoria, so I'm glad to see that a start's been made and that the coverage is broad and inclusive of both private and publicly (taxpayer) funded artwork.