IN Innovators. Where are they?

Sorry to say, but art for art’s sake isn’t a big business in Indiana. Most practitioners of New Media around here are in it strictly for the dollars. And most of them aren’t terribly innovative. I think that’s probably true anywhere, but more true here. I’ve found a few that are interesting though. Some of these are cool because of what they make, and some are cool because of the overall effect they could have on our community. Some I think are alright just because they’ve found a way to monetize the skill we’re learning here. You can tell that graduation is rapidly approaching, and I don’t have an employer yet.

The first thing new media source I looked at in Indianapolis was artbabble.org. I’d seen it in action at the IMA, and thought it was pretty impressive. What I liked about artbabble is that it combined several aspects of the modern New Media landscape, online video and social networking, and combined them into a promotional tool for the arts. The thing that I found most impressive about it was that the IMA seemed to be a leader in this sort of thing. Generally, when I think of Indiana, I don’t think of arts leadership. But, looking at the partners involved, IMA is sharing video with MoMa, the Smithsonian, Art:21, the Smithsonian, the New York Public Library, LACMA, and SFMOMA, all pretty heavy hitters in the world of art and information. What I found innovative about it was that they were using the models that are known to work, and adapting them to art. I liked it. Not enough to sign up, but I liked it.

Next, I looked at Medical Animatics. Founded by an IUPUI New Media grad, this company is interesting to me. I don’t do 3d work or anything, but I thought this guy’s vision for the market was smart and innovative. He saw a way to take 3d modeling talent, and use it for something other than special effects in movies. There may be nothing glamorous about making informed consent videos for kidney transplants, but as a cynical, got-to-live-in-the-real-word type of guy, I like to see New Media successfully monetized, and not just used as pure art. Art is nice, but bills have to be paid, and there are only so many charitable foundations paying artists.

I don’t think that it really qualifies as artsy New Media, but I’m pretty impressed with what ChaCha is doing locally. They are a text/email/phone service that provides answers. You send them your question in human language, and somebody looks up the answer for you. It seems to me that they’ve thought their system out pretty well. They get your question, and forward it to an actual human being who looks it up, and gives you a pithy answer. Kind of cool. What I think is innovative is that it uses a system to allow people who don’t understand searching to search effectively. I think that’s clever. One of the great future threats to information brokering companies is that people will learn to use search engines effectively. ChaCha is wisely building a clientele of people who don’t care to search for things themselves, and ensuring that they never learn how to search for themselves, keeping them dependent on ChaCha. It’s so clever, I signed up to be one of their guides, who do the searching for the answers.

The Indiana State Legislature. I’m going to give it to them not as a creator of New Media, but as an advocate. The production incentives that were passed last year (over the governor’s veto), provide tax breaks for companies making media productions in Indiana. While this only applies to film and TV projects of $100,000 or more, and digital media productions of $50,000 or more, I think it will have a large effect on the type of artistic New Media creations that appear in Indiana in the future. The key to interesting stuff getting produced is to have Indianapolis be a hub for production. The more productions that happen here, the more producers will locate to the area. Hence, more interesting stuff being made.

I’ll have to list Creative Street as my fifth. They aren’t innovating in any of the flashy arts ways, but they are finding enough ways to please their clients that they can keep fifty full time employees. For Indianapolis, that’s pretty good. They must be doing something right.

Despite all my cynical talk about making money, and nothing interesting in Indiana, I have to say artbabble was my favorite subject from this little research project. I like the idea that they are promoting art videos and video about the arts right here from Indianapolis. I think their partnerships with respected museums is a wise move, and I think they’re raising the profile of new media arts in Indianapolis. They’re also providing an outlet for those arts right here in Indiana. They’re my favorite innovators.