Wednesday, December 06, 2006
A good idea
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Artist/Blogger, Christopher Jager, has just announced the long awaited launch of his new arts internet business, SlideRoom (www.slideroom.com). What is SlideRoom?
"SlideRoom is an online application system to facilitate online portfolio submission and review. Nothing needs to be downloaded, installed, purchased or anything. So, arts organizations no longer have any reason to require slides from artists!"
I like the idea of this project, a simple to use, cross platform capable system that can easily streamline the slide submission process. While I know that many purists out there still love slides do to detail quality, they rarely ever get viewed in ideal conditions anyway. Digital images are rapidly becoming just as good and are a lot easier to deal with particularly on a tight budget. And really, what artist wouldn't prefer saving money on slides.
Imagine how much easier the arts organizations job will be with such a system as this in place. Each of their jurors can view the images privately on their own computer or easily hook up one of their computers to a video projector for the whole room to view. No more having to load numerous CD's and DVD's in and paperwork getting lost. All you arts organizations and non-profits may want to check out his service to help you save some time and money.
[This advertisement was not paid for, haha, I just like the idea]
Oh, on a different note, for those of you in the holiday mood, check out these shots of the Jager family's Christmas manger scene set up. Quite impressive.
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10 Responses to “A good idea”
December 7, 2006 at 12:45 AM
So what is this? A website we can upload images to or some kind of program people have to purchase?
December 7, 2006 at 6:18 AM
Scott,
Thanks for the promotion! I really believe this is going to solve a big problem in the artworld.
Anonymous,
SlideRoom is technically a database in which you create an account, and can access with a password. Nothing needs to be purchased or downloaded. You simply upload your portfolio into your account. From this account, you can send your portfolio to any participating organization. I hope this helps.
December 7, 2006 at 9:48 AM
Is there a web address? And how does your company make money? Are there ads all over the place?
December 11, 2006 at 2:06 AM
Hey, I have been out of town with no access to the internet so sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I will try and explain more about SlideRoom by giving an example:
Let's say that a gallery wanted to do a call for submissions for a juried show. (This typically would involve artists sending all their slides or digital image cd's to the gallery along with their slide lists, cv's, etc. As you can imagine this can be a lot of material to keep track of and prepare for the jurying group to view.) SlideRoom would allow for all images to be uploaded to their site where images can be labeled properly and categorized for easier viewing. The jurying group would be able to pull up all the images that were submitted in a single batch and view instantly and be able to grade/rank them and leave comments for the jurying process. (this would save a lot of time that it takes to get images ready when coming on cd's or slides, and allows for jurying panels more flexibility to view images.) By making everything the same as far as layout goes, things are much more streamlined and easier to use and get through.
As for how SlideRoom makes its money, it makes money buy selling this service to organizations and artists who want or need to use it. There are no ads on the site that I saw. You do not have to purchase anything or download anything to do this, but there is a small service charge if use the site. (at least that is how I have interpreted it) Consider it as part of the submission fee you always have to pay for these types of shows.
I hope that answers some of the questions. I have not yet tried the site as it is still brand new. But I do think several of our local events should convert to this set up and save some time and man hours for their juried shows and call for submissions. If you have anymore questions I would suggest checking out the website and taking the tour of it.
December 11, 2006 at 10:51 AM
I'm sorry, but I don't see how this is any different from having my own website and/or attaching JPG's to an email submission for various inquiries. Almost every artist worth their salt already has a site and does this at zero cost other than their web hookup and server storage (which has decreased in price over the years).
As far as layout and comments, that's already on most sites as well and is easy to implement if not.
I'm not seeing the innovation here unless it's for artists that simply don't have a site or a clue of how to set one up. When I make an iquiry to a gallery, I simply attach a few JPGs and then list my URL. If it's a competition, I do all of the above and send a CD of specific images.
Sadly, many juries are still not accepting weblinks or emails as a valid way to view art (but strangely enough, will accept CD's, slides or printouts) and until the old dogs die off, this will be the status quo.
December 11, 2006 at 12:58 PM
I think you may have missed something, perhaps I was unclear. Have you checked out their site? Taken the tour? It only takes a couple minutes.
Anonymous 10:51 said- "When I make an iquiry to a gallery, I simply attach a few JPGs and then list my URL. If it's a competition, I do all of the above and send a CD of specific images. Sadly, many juries are still not accepting weblinks or emails as a valid way to view art (but strangely enough, will accept CD's, slides or printouts) and until the old dogs die off, this will be the status quo."
That is pretty much the point of SlideRoom. SlideRoom is not to take the place of personal artist websites but to make submission processes faster, easier for orgaizations and jurys to use, and make sure that all images are set up the same with easy to read labels. I have had to jury a few shows in the past and they are always a pain to get organized with the biggest hassle being getting all the images set up to view. Asking a jury to visit 20, 50, 100+ websites to view art, or load just as many cd's into their computer to view images is quite time consuming and quite often artist cd's are not formated for both Mac and PC's (this is fixable but still a common problem). Rather than pay someone to take the time to upload all submitted slides into a projector or load all artist cd's into a computer for a jury to view, SlideRoom will make this whole process a lot more streamlined. That said, if the organizations you are submitting to are not a part of SlideRoom, then this discussion is mute.
Perhaps a better understanding of how submission processes work and how jurying such processes takes place would make for a clearer understanding of how this system would benefit the orgazization holdig the submission process and how it would benefit the artists as well. Maybe one of our local organizations will try its next submission call using SlideRoom and we can see the whole process at work. I think it will make more sense in practice than in discussion.
December 11, 2006 at 1:49 PM
Thank you Scott for your descriptions here - you are totally correct. In some ways, this is primarily a service for organizations to more easily gather submissions.
December 11, 2006 at 1:54 PM
Thank you Chris.
I see a lot of potential in your project and wish you and it much success.
December 12, 2006 at 12:01 PM
Okay, I'm just trying to figure out if this is at all helpful to artists. A lot of grant sites already have proposal set ups where you just upload your images- really easy. What would make this better for us would be if we could upload everything once and have it stored there, then when we want to apply to a program/gallery/grant that is using this service we could easily transfer our images to the gallery's aplication. Is this how it works?
December 12, 2006 at 1:43 PM
Yes! You got it! This makes it easier for artists as well.
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