Enjoy videos about some of the greatest artworks in the world

Earlier this week, Google unveiled the Google Art Project—a new site that lets you explore hundreds of artworks from 17 of the world’s most acclaimed art museums in extraordinary levels of detail, as well as take 360 degree tours of the museums using Street View technology.

With this project comes the launch of many of the museums’ very own YouTube channels -- along with an array of new videos about the artworks featured in the project. On the Google Art Project site you can explore 1000+ pieces of artwork at an amazingly high resolution levels. While zooming into a work of art you can also watch YouTube videos about it, as well as reading more about a particular artwork and its artist. More than 170 works of art in the project have accompanying videos; learn about a professional snowboarder’s perspective on an alpine landscape, the 20+ locations of Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ , the preservation process for Van Gogh’s ‘The Bedroom’ or even the live reaction of a pair of identical twins to a 17th century painting of twins.



You can browse a selection of the featured artwork videos on the Art Project’s YouTube channel, where you can also see behind the scenes footage of the project.

This project began as a 20% project for a group of Googlers who are passionate about making art more accessible online. We hope you enjoy these videos and maybe deepen your understanding of some of the world’s most famous works of art.

Anna de Paula Hanika, Project Manager, Google Art Project, recently watched “Art Project preview.”

Jury selection for YouTube Play revealed at last

Today we announce the jury selection for YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video with the Guggenheim.

It was our goal to reach the widest possible audience, inviting individuals from around the world to submit a video for consideration. While our original goal had been to select 20, the jury was so moved by the quality of work submitted that we decided to honor a final list of 25. We believe the end result is 25 of the most unique and innovative video work to be created and distributed online during the past two years.

Tonight we will be celebrating this announcement with a live streamed event: YouTube Play. Live from the Guggenheim. Head to youtube.com/play for the live stream and for highlights after the event.

1. Auspice
Bryce Kretschmann, b. 1974 in California, USA, lives in Newark, NJ, USA.



2. Bear untitled - D.O. Edit
Christen Bach, b. 1978 in Kolding, Denmark, lives in Berlin, Germany.



3. Bathtub IV
Keith Loutit, b. 1973 in Melbourne, Australia, lives in Coogee, Australia.



4. Birds on the Wires
Jarbas Agnelli, b. 1963 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he still lives.



5. Birdy Nam Nam ‘The Parachute Ending’
Steve Scott (Director), b. 1970 in Plymouth, UK, lives in London, UK. Will Sweeney (Art Director and Illustration) b.1973 in London, UK, where he still lives.



6. deuce
Monica Cook, b. 1974 in Dalton, Georgia, USA, lives in Brooklyn, NY, USA.



7. Die Antwoord – Zef Side
Sean Metelerkamp, b. 1984 in Knysna, South Africa, lives in Cape Town, South Africa.



8. Gardyn
Pogo (Nick Bertke), b. 1988 in Capetown, South Africa, lives in Perth, Australia.



9. I Met the Walrus
Josh Raskin (Director and Animator), b. 1980 in Toronto, Canada, where he still lives. James Braithwaite (Drawings), b. 1978 in Edmonton, Canada, lives in Montreal, Canada. Alex Kurina (Computer illustration), b. 1981 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, lives in Toronto, Canada. Jerry Levitan (story and voice), b. 1954 in Toronto, Canada, where he still lives.



10. Ladybirds' Requiem (digest version)
Akino Kondoh, b. 1980 in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, lives in New York, USA.



11. Le Syndrome du Timide
Pierre-Axel Vuillaume-Prézeau, b. 1986 in Nalliers (Vendée), France, lives in Paris, France.



12. Luis
Joaquín Cociña, b. 1980 in Concepción, Chile, lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Cristóbal León, b. 1980 in Santiago, Chile, lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Niles Atallah, b. 1978 in Sacramento, California, USA, lives in Santiago, Chile.



13. Man with a Movie Camera: The Global Remake
Perry Bard, b. 1944 in Quebec City, Canada, lives in New York, USA.



14. Moonwalk
Martin Kohout, b. 1984 in Prague, Czech Republic, lives in Berlin, Germany.



15. Noteboek
Evelien Lohbeck, b. 1983 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, lives in Tilburg, The Netherlands.



16. Post Newtonianism (War Footage/Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare Footage)
Josh Bricker, b. 1980 in Torrance, CA, USA, lives in New York, USA.



17. Scenic Jogging
Jillian Mayer, b. 1984 in Florida, USA, where she still lives.



18. Seaweed 
Remi Weekes and Luke White, both b. 1987 in London, UK, where they still live.



19. Strindberg and Helium at the Beach
Eun-Ha Paek (Director, Animator and Artist), b. 1974 in Seoul, South Korea, lives in New York, USA. Erin Perkins (Writer and Voice of Helium), b. 1977 in Duluth, MN, USA, lives in Oakland, CA, USA. James Bewley (Voice of Strindberg), b. 1975 in West Chester, PA, USA, lives in New York, USA.



20. Synesthesia
Terri Timely (Corey Creasey and Ian Kibbey). Corey Creasey: b. 1979 in Long Beach, CA, USA, lives in Oakland, USA. Ian Kibbey: b. 1980 in Berkeley CA, USA, lives in Oakland, USA.



21. Taxi III Stand Up and Cry Like a Man
Lisa Byrne, b. 1973 in Town – Newry, Northern Ireland, lives in London, England.



22. The Huber Experiments
Erik Huber, b. 1984 in Atlanta, USA, where he still lives. Matthew Huber, b. 1973 in Atlanta, USA, lives in New York, USA.



23. This Aborted Earth: The Quest Begins
Michael Banowetz, b. 1955 in Wichita, KS, USA, lives in Denver, CO, USA. Noah Sodano, b. 1981 in Denver, CO, USA, lives in Denver, CO, USA.






24. Wonderland Mafia
Lindsay Scoggins, b. 1985 in Gainesville Florida, USA, lives in Tampa, USA.



25. WORDS
Everynone (Will Hoffman, Daniel Mercadante, and Julius Metoyer III) Will Hoffman: b. 1985 on Staten Island, New York, USA, lives in New York, USA. Daniel Mercadante: b. 1984 in Farmington, Connecticut, USA, lives in New York, USA. Julius Metoyer III: b. 1985 in Los Angeles, USA, where he still lives.



The YouTube Play Team

Tune into YouTube Play: Live at the Guggenheim on October 21

Next week the YouTube Play jury will announce the top 25 videos that it selected from the 23,000 submissions received. We’re busy working with the Guggenheim to make sure that this announcement is like no other. Right now we can’t tell you who those 25 are, but we can tell you a little about the gala we’re going to throw to celebrate it.

YouTube Play: Live from the Guggenheim will be a live streamed event featuring music, collaborations, eye-popping projections and, of course, the most creative video. If you’re in New York, you can catch some of the projections on the façade of the Guggenheim on the night of October 21. If you’re not, then head to youtube.com/play on October 21 to catch the event live, starting at 8 p.m. ET.

So, who’s going to be there? Here’s a sneak peek of the lineup:

OK Go: The Chicago-based four-piece have torn up the rulebook with their music videos, picking up a Grammy and tens of millions of views in the process. "This Too Shall Pass" is in the YouTube Play shortlist.

Kutiman: "ThruYOU" was named one of Time Magazine’s top 50 best inventions for 2009, and is also in the shortlist. Kutiman shot to fame by compiling musical elements from across YouTube; at the Guggenheim, he’ll be choreographing a unique live collaboration.

Michael Showalter: The MC for the evening is also the star of Comedy Central’s Michael and Michael Have Issues, has a hit online with CollegeHumor.com’s "The Michael Showalter Showalter," and used to be on The Daily Show.

That’s it for now. You’re going to have to head to youtube.com/play on the night to find out who made the top 25 and what things really look like when YouTube meets the Guggenheim.

Tom Pursey, Product Marketing Manager, recently watched "TOM WAITS THEME FOR IRON MAN 2 (REJECTED)."

Conrad Ventur refracts YouTube videos at MoMA

Brooklyn-based Conrad Ventur makes installations from YouTube videos and currently has a show at MoMA PS1, running through October 18, 2010. Learn more about this video artiste...



1) How do you use video in your art?
I use video in my art in two different ways. First, I find older recordings that I incorporate into installation. I really love archive performances by singers and work with these as material in my art. Secondly, I also direct and shoot videos myself. In these works, I'm essentially re-filming or re-staging underground films from the ’60s using the same actors that appeared in them the first time around. Some of these are Jack Smith and Andy Warhol films. My upcoming projects use some of these actors in stories that are non-quotational.

2) How do you use YouTube in your art?
For the last few years, I've enjoyed browsing YouTube. A video will attract my attention if it's an old recording that may have originally been meant for live television broadcast -- I like LIVE recordings mainly. I'm drawn to recordings that might have the potential to appeal to the collective memory of a larger audience. I take those videos and then project them through new-age crystal prisms or onto mirror balls in order to change the way the video content affects the viewer. I like my art to be more of an experience for the audience. It's best to see it in person.

3) What are you trying to convey through the installation currently at MoMA PS1?
In the installation at MoMA PS1, the curators and I decided to show a three channel video piece that we situated in the lower level of the museum. It's in an unexpected, small room. It's a bit of a surprise for museum-goers when they encounter these three recordings of the singer Shirley Bassey. It's the same song, “This Is My Life,” that she performed in three different decades of her life. Each has its own projector, and the three play at the same time on a continuous loop: the young Shirley singing with the old Shirley, singing a song about her life. Rotating prisms are situated in front of each projector lens. The videos are projected directly through these prisms. Thus, the room becomes a kaleidoscope that you walk into. It's a swirling, refracted, multiplied space that came from the collective (and ever-changing) catalogue of YouTube.

4) If you were to create this installation in 100 years, based on the music icons of today, who/which videos would you include and why?
If in 100 years I could look back and see how the careers and lives of contemporary singers unfold, I would choose live recordings of Micheal Jackson to use in an installation. Most importantly, in 100 years, the varnish will rub off and we'll be able to see clearly how the march of time resonates with the myth of MJ. He was a tremendous talent and was extremely generous to his audiences as a performer. His untimely death is an unfortunate bookend to a life lived in the spotlight which we all are familiar with in some way. An installation would be an interesting format to tell his story in a way that appeals to the audience's senses on many levels.

5) What are your top 5 videos of all time on the site?
I'm always looking for new material to capture my imagination. Here are a few that I like:











You can subscribe to Conrad Ventur’s YouTube channel here.

125 video shortlist announced today for Youtube Play

The Guggenheim has spoken: the shortlist for YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video will now go in front of the jury, and is available to view at youtube.com/play.

It’s been a busy summer. More than 23,000 videos, from 91 countries, were submitted for YouTube Play, and the Guggenheim has picked 125 to make up the shortlist.



In there, you’ll find submissions from students, video artists, photographers, filmmakers, composers, video game programmers, an American Women’s Chess Champion, a comedy improv group, a Swedish rock band, a South African hip-hop group, an Australian electronic music producer – and a lot more.

It’s now down to the YouTube Play jury to pick up to 20 videos for a special presentation at the Guggenheim Museum on October 21. Here is one of the jurors, Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, to explain why he thinks YouTube is important in the art world today:



The videos selected by the jury will be on view to the public from October 22 through 24 in the Tower 2 Gallery of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, at kiosks at the Guggenheim Museums in Bilbao, Berlin and Venice, and available to a worldwide audience on the YouTube Play channel.

Tom Pursey, Product Marketing Manager, recently watched “Luis.”

Explore the Life in a Day video gallery

On July 24, people around the world made history by capturing glimpses of their lives on camera and submitting the videos to Life in a Day, an experiment to create a documentary about a single day on Earth. In total, 80,000 videos were submitted from 197 countries, making this the world's largest user-generated film. Now, you can explore many of these videos in the gallery on the Life in a Day channel .

To make browsing easy, you can sort videos by geography, time of day, mood and more. The film's Academy Award-winning director, Kevin Macdonald, and his team are adding more videos to the Life in a Day gallery as they are reviewed, so check back soon for more content. You'll also find updates from Macdonald and editor Joe Walker as they lead a team of researchers in reviewing and cutting the footage down to the final feature-length film. Remember to subscribe to the channel for more news on the film's progress as Kevin and producer Ridley Scott gear up for the world premiere in January at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Congratulations again to all of the participants. Thanks for making history.

Nate Weinstein, Entertainment Marketing, just watched Dancing Merengue Dog

Conflictivism

For our second cross-post from the Guggenheim’s The Take blog, inspired by YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video, Jaime Davidovich pontificates on YouTube as “public access gone ballistic” and how the 21st century artist might deal with the site’s cacophony of image and sound.

Davidovich was one of the first artists to recognize cable television for its potential for contemporary art, producing The Live! Show, a weekly public-access television program that featured avant-garde performances, artwork, political satire and social commentary. He’s currently working on pieces for his YouTube channel, as well as “video paintings,” or video images projected onto a gestural painting surface. You can read his original article here.

In his recent book Feedback: Television Against Democracy (2007), David Joselit challenges artists with a manifesto that echoes a sentiment common among us: "How is your image going to circulate? Use the resources of the 'art world' as a base of operations, but don't remain there. Use images to build publics."

I have been practicing Joselit's principle since 1976, putting art into the public arena through public-access television. One of my first programs was The Live! Show, a satirical variety show about the art world, which ran from 1979 to 1984 on New York cable television.



In the series I appeared as Dr. Videovich, my alter ego, interviewing artists such as Eric Bogosian, Tony Oursler, and Martha Wilson, as well as Marcia Tucker, founder of the New Museum, and the present-day director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, Richard Armstrong. The idea of The Live! Show was to showcase art on a popular medium — TV — allowing people to watch these works in the comfort of their homes.

Continuing the first-come, first-serve spirit of public-access TV, YouTube, with the tagline "Broadcast Yourself," is the current medium for circulating art outside the pristine walls of the art gallery. YouTube is public access gone ballistic — an anarchist brain on steroids. While public-access television was one channel at a time, YouTube features dozens of channels at the same time, and they are not listed anywhere, but found by user searching. And while public-access television was low tech and a 30-minute format, YouTube is all tech and features short clips with a maximum length of 15 minutes. I currently have a work on YouTube that is a close-up video of a delete key with audio accompaniment. The concept of this piece is to provide a break in the cacophonous overload of YouTube images and sound.



I am a conflictivist, an artist who explores the conflict between high and low culture. The artist of the 21st century cannot live solely in the art world or the “real world.” Rather, he or she should commute between the two.

How should artists today deal with new forms and media? Please comment below (note comments are moderated due to spam) or directly on The Take.

The transmission of art by television (and now YouTube)

Inspired by YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video, the Guggenheim has launched a terrific blog called The Take, featuring writings by scholars, artists and other experts on topics like online video, digital content, the history of video art, and the effects of the Internet on art and culture. Naturally, some of what’s being covered has strong connections to YouTube, and so the kind folks at the Guggenheim have allowed us to cross-post here.

This post is from writer/curator Michael Connor, founder of the Marian Spore contemporary art museum in Brooklyn and co-curator of the permanent exhibition “Screen Worlds” at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne. Connor also teaches at the School of Visual Arts and New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. You can read his original post here.



"The transmission of art exhibitions by television is the beginning of an era when the public will be taught to appreciate great works of art, seeing them in their homes.”

This was the prediction made in a report written by one E. Robb for the BBC way back in 1933, less than a year after their first experimental television broadcast. For Robb, art on television meant pointing a camera at a painting or sculpture.

More than three decades later, a German filmmaker named Gerry Schum had a similar idea. In those days, West Berlin was cut off from the rest of West Germany by the Iron Curtain. In 1968 Schum wrote that “not only must works of art be flown into the city, also critics and visitors from West Germany experience difficulty in reaching Berlin.” Television, he realized, could allow artworks and visitors to be connected across such long distances and closed borders.

West Berlin’s plight is partly what inspired Schum to start an art gallery on television. Fernseh-Galerie (Television Gallery), as it was called, was a pioneering series of video art commissioned by Schum, including two broadcast exhibitions in 1969 and 1970. The first exhibition, Land Art, was broadcast on the public station Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) on April 15, 1969. Many notable artists contributed films that were then transferred to videotape, including Jan Dibbets, Richard Long, Walter de Maria, Dennis Oppenheim, and Robert Smithson.

My favorite piece produced by the gallery is Jan Dibbets’s TV as Fireplace. Between December 25 and 31, 1969, public television station WDR III in Cologne rebroadcast Dibbets’s video of a burning fire every night for three minutes. The logs were lit on the first night, and the fire grew in intensity before slowly dying on the last one. Perfectly site specific, Dibbets’s piece turned the home’s cathode-ray tube into a flickering fire for just a few moments at a historical moment when the TV set had gone a long way toward replacing the hearth as the focal point of domestic space.

Watching TV as Fireplace on YouTube would of course be completely different. Online video shatters the direct link that Dibbets made between physical viewing environment and moving image. Given that audiences may now watch videos on an iPhone at the beach or a computer at the office, is it still possible for artists to create this kind of dialogue between the physical space of viewing and the space on-screen?

What do you think? Please comment below (note comments are moderated due to spam) or directly on The Take.

Meet kamapazzo, the escalator-powered animator

We recently announced that we’d be adding some new kinds of posts to this blog, and today we’re happy to run the first from the Creator’s Corner, which is devoted to the process of videomaking and all of the people who wow us with their creativity, ingenuity and passion. You can now find posts that used to be in the Creator's Corner in this blog, and we encourage you to leave a comment below with the username of anyone you'd like to learn a little more about.

First up, we caught up with kamapazzo, a 26-year-old motion-graphic designer who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and has spent time in Beirut teaching workshops about visual and stop-motion animation. His “escalator animations” surprise and delight; read more about how they came to be below.



1) What gave you this idea?
I was at the Istanbul airport, standing with my luggage next to a very long escalator. I had nothing to do; I was just intensely watching the handrail, when suddenly I thought, “Hey, I can use it for an animation!” Then I realized how easy it could have been sticking on the handrail. Also, in that period I was studying the great work of Norman McLaren; at the beginning of his career he was painting directly on film. I thought that my escalator animation could have been a kind of tribute to his wonderful work of abstraction. McLaren is my first inspiration. He was always experimenting with new techniques, including inventing a way to make sound painting directly on film.

So, when I came home from the airport, I made a test with the stickers, as I was not so sure about the result. But actually it was working; I liked the images and I decided to develop a full abstract movie. I started to prepare all the shapes and stickers without having a script or even thinking about a story. I just wanted to use this public space and play with it as a kid, letting my imagination flow. Having fun in the creative process is very important for me; that’s the only way I know to do something fresh, something that could catch the audience unprepared.

The escalator animation could be considered as the following chapter of a video I did last year in Berlin, using a photocopier. I'm enchanted by creating animations starting from things and objects people use in everyday life. With a little bit of imagination, you can see motion and animation everywhere around you.

2) How did you do it?
I started preparing all the paper's shapes: for each one of them I did nine different sizes so that when they moved on the steps you can also see the dimension changing. Then I went shooting for a full day with four friends of mine. A friend and I were on the bottom of the escalator and we were just leaning the shapes on the steps that were going up, and another friend stayed on top sending the shapes back on the steps that were going down. On the opposite side the camera man, Jacopo, was shooting just the side where the escalator was going up.

It was a very funny day, actually. The escalator was located close to a university, and it was full of students that got really surprised. Some students even asked me if they could take some hearts or clouds. Then I drew all the animations on the stickers and I went to the escalator a few times during the night while it was stopped. We pasted the stickers on the handrail, and then in the morning we went back there to shoot them. Actually, I had lots of troubles due to the winter cold: the stickers didn’t stick to the handrail.

3) How long did it take you?
Building all the materials and shooting took me about two months, and editing, the longest part, about three months. I've also spent one week preparing the soundtrack. So in the end the whole work took me about six months.

4) Why did you pick this escalator?
First off, I was fascinated by the hypnotic movement of the escalator; it runs all day long in the same way. I wanted to break this repetition with a kind of game and let people imagine public spaces in a different way -- more funny and more creative. I like to imagine this world as a place with no rules, where you can act more freely and take life less seriously. Another reason is that I wanted to mix my passion for animation with my passion for urban installation.

5) Tell us something about this video you'd never know by looking at it.
During one of the shooting days a police officer came to us asking what were we doing and if we had a permission. We said we were just shooting a commercial for a very famous Italian pop band. At this point he said he loved them and left without even asking [to see] the permission.

6) What's next in your world of escalator animation?
I will go on working in public spaces. The final result always surprises me. When you make experimental videos, a lot of problems come up that you never thought about before; until it's done you don't really know where you're going. Maybe you start with an idea and then it's not going fine, so you have to change everything. I already started drawing a new animation with a script, and it will be done on a common object that people use everyday. Can't say more until it's done. It will be a surprise!

Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently watched “America's Got Talent Jackie Evancho YouTube Audition.”

YouTube Summer School, Session 4: History

While we enjoy looking ahead and thinking big, we also take to heart the famous quote from George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." That’s why for this week’s session of YouTube Summer School, we’re taking some time to review the past, to help us better understand the people, events and decisions that have shaped our times. Here's a playlist of important history lessons from top institutions:



And while we're in a scholarly mode, let’s look at last week's session on math and test your knowledge. If you know the answers to the quiz questions below, please leave them in the comments below (please note comments are moderated due to spam):

1. Where did Terrence Tao learn the numbers and letters that enabled him to start teaching his peers at age two?
2. Based on probalistic aggregation studies, Gettysburg College would be able to withstand an attack of how many robots?
3. Cornell math professor Allen Knutson holds a world record in what?

Finally, answers to last week's quiz, on art:

1) What color house did Frida Kahlo grow up in? Blue
2) Malaquias Montoya, professor of Chicano studies and art history at the University of California in Davis, is known for what item of unique clothing? His hat
3) The African art exhibit in the Valparaiso University Brauer Museum is from what century? Late 19th and early 20th centuries

Mandy Albanese, Communications Associate, recently watched “The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe.”

YouTube Summer School, Session 3: Mathematics

Welcome back, life-long learners! We’re in our third week here at YouTube Summer School and today we’re shifting gears again. After our lovely stroll through the art gallery of YouTube EDU, we’re headed to the hall of mathematics and will be crunching numbers for the next week.

Ever have any trouble with algebra, geometry, calculus or trig-a-what? For some, putting numbers in their place isn’t as easy as Captain Picard makes it look. Sometimes we simply can’t “make it so” without a little help. That’s why we’ve scoured through YouTube EDU to find what professors from top universities around the globe are teaching about everything from differential equations to probalistic aggregation studies (try saying that 10 times fast!).



And to review what we covered last week, take a minute to test yourself with the following questions. If you know the answers, let us know in the comments below (please note comments are moderated due to spam). We’re on the lookout for our “Grade A” students!

1) What color house did Frida Kahlo grow up in?
2) Malaquias Montoya, professor of Chicano studies and art history at the University of California in Davis, is known for what item of unique clothing?
3) The African art exhibit in the Valparaiso University Brauer Museum is from what century?

Until next week!

Mandy Albanese, Communications Associate, recently watched “Nilsequences and the Primes.“

YouTube Play jury selected and ready to view your work

For artists, YouTube is a 21st century canvas. Since the YouTube Play project was announced last month, more than 6,000 videos ranging in genres, topics and budget have been submitted from 69 countries, and the YouTube Play channel has received over 2 million views.

Today, we’re unveiling the jury for YouTube Play, which includes some of the world’s leading artists, from international film festival winners and renowned photographers to performance and video artists on the cutting edge of art.

YouTube Play jurors include musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson; musical group Animal Collective; visual artists Douglas Gordon, Ryan McGinley, Marilyn Minter and Takashi Murakami; artists and filmmakers Shirin Neshat, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Darren Aronofsky; and graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, with Guggenheim Chief Curator and Deputy Director Nancy Spector serving as jury chairperson.

Over the course of the next few months, these jurors will watch countless hours of videos submitted by the international YouTube community and select the most creative and inspiring work to showcase at the Guggenheim museums in October.

Already, this campaign has drawn some remarkable talent, and we’re looking forward to seeing more of your submissions in our quest to find the most creative video art in the world and showcase it alongside van Gogh and Picasso. The deadline for getting your videos in is July 31. For more information about the jurors and to learn more about how to participate, check out youtube.com/play.

Ed Sanders, Senior Marketing Manager, recently watched “YouTube Play: Behind the Scenes.”

Fab 5 Freddy Curates YouTube

The legendary hip-hop pioneer and graffiti artist curates our homepage today. He took his Flip into his studio to tell you about his picks and also jotted down some thoughts on them:

Blondies' video for the song "Rapture" was like my coming out party in 1981 and introduced me to a world that really wouldn't know me well until several years later in 1988, when YO! MTV Raps would air weekly coast to coast and in many countries around the world.

I was a part of a very cool underground public access TV show in 1979 called "Glenn O’Brien's TV Party" that aired weekly back then and I was a regular guest and one of one of the show’s camera men. Typically, it was a groovy talk show format but this was a theme show. Bad musically, but a lotta fun. Check Jean Michel Basquiat standing there with a guitar on smiling. And he wrote "mock penis envy" on the wall visible behind Blondie's Chris Stein, also with a guitar and shades on.

This is a mash-up video of scenes from my film Wild Style. Some clever guys in Amsterdam did this, and I love it.

Here's a scene from the first film/documentary to showcase New York subway graffiti, "Stations of the Elevated," released or finished in 1981. Back then I'm sure this film was not seen by too many. I don't recall it ever airing on TV, but these days, thanks to digital tech and sites like this, we can see what it was like when nearly every New York City subway car was touched by graffiti. I love this film!

As a kid growing up in New York City, when I cut school I'd often visit the various museums, like the Metropolitan and look at art. Here I got familiar with painters like Jackson Pollock and I would notice later how New York graffiti writers tagging on the inside of trains would let the ink drip, reminding me of his work.

My dear friend, Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme, invited me to be in his film, Rachel Getting Married. You can see me in this trailer, minus my hat, and in the film my scene is a toast I give to the about to be bride and groom at the wedding rehearsal dinner.

"Talking All That Jazz" is a clip I directed for Stetsasonic which is the first video to deal with the soon to be large issue of sampling. Also, because I grew up in a jazz-loving house hold and drummer Max Roach was my godfather, I knew I'd be able to do a good job with this one.

Max Roach, the legendary bee bop jazz drummer, grew up with my dad, and he played jazz often in the house. Max was also my godfather and he really embraced rap music and hip-hop culture from the minute he heard about it. If you search the site you can see a bit performance we did together in the early 80's.

Sharissa's “Ain't No Half Steppin" was a video I directed in 2004.

The first music video I directed was this clip, "My Philosophy," for KRS ONE in the spring of 1988. 

Catch Fab's whole playlist here:

"The Key to Curation Is Curiosity" Meet Our Curators of the Month

We're thrilled to have the folks behind the Wooster Collective, one of the Web's most-trafficked sites devoted to urban and street art, curating our homepage today. For anyone interested in cool art videos, their YouTube channel is a must-subscribe; from their vast network of artists, they're often the first to know about videos like notblu's MUTO, which has gone on to garner more than 5 million views.

The Wooster Collective are a model of an important -- but often under-the-radar -- group on YouTube: curators, those people who have a knack for finding great videos, organizing and archiving them on their YouTube channel, and perhaps also distributing them off of YouTube via a blog or social media. In this case, the curators post daily to the Wooster blog, while on their YouTube channel they cluster finds into playlists with themes like The Classics, Outdoors, Timelapse, Geek Graffiti, and Guerrilla Knitting. Learn who they are, how they find such gold on the site, and a bit about their philosophy on all this:



How do you find such great videos?
A few different ways. First, amazingly talented artists and videographers from all over the world share links with us of new videos they upload to YouTube. We receive a hundreds of emails about new work every day. But, in addition to this, we use the terrific tools that YouTube offers to keep up with what's new on the site. We subscribe to many artist and videographers' channels. We also check out the videos that are recommended by YouTube. Every day we discover new things.

For us, the key to curation is curiosity. The best curators in the world, both online and off, are curious people by nature. We love seeing new things, learning about new artists, and exploring new subjects. We’re constantly wanting to be inspired and wanting to share what’s inspiring us with others.

Can you offer any tips about organizing these videos on your YouTube channel?
We love organizing the videos into playlists. The playlists feature is great because you can show both breadth and depth of what you’ve curated. We also like changing the featured video three or four times a week so when you go to the Wooster YouTube channel, it’s different each time.

If someone's into street art, what are some of the must-subscribe channels on YouTube relating to that topic?
Some of our favorites are: Walrus TV, Wallkandy and Romanywg.

Which video that you've found do you think is criminally under-seen?
Here’s one of our favorites, a timelapse by our friends The Barnstormers.

Subscribe to the Wooster Collective's YouTube channel to get a notice in your feed every time they favorite, rate or comment on a video.

Know of other great video curators on YouTube or on the Web? Leave their channel name or site URL in the comments below.

Follow the Announcement of Nobel Prizes in Real-Time on YouTube

This week, Nobel Prizes will be awarded in a variety of categories, and for the first time you can follow the proceedings live on YouTube. Through October 12, YouTube users can tune in to the Nobel Prize YouTube channel for live-streamed announcements of each prize. This marks the first time that a European event will be live-streamed via YouTube.

Missed the earlier announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine? You can view it here:



The complete schedule of awards announcements is below. Click here to watch them all, live as they unfold:

Physics
Tuesday, October 6: 11.45 a.m. CET, 09.45 a.m. GMT

Chemistry
Wednesday, October 7: 11.45 a.m. CET, 09.45 a.m. GMT

Literature
Thursday, October 8: 1.00 p.m. CET, 11.00 a.m. GMT

Peace
Friday, October 9: 11.00 a.m. CET, 09.00 a.m. GMT

Prize in Economic Sciences
Monday, October 12: 1.00 p.m. CET, 11.00 a.m. GMT

Kim Alltorp, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Nordic Region