The Present Prize is a democratic arts prize targeting an underfunded area of the creative landscape. It is funded and awarded by The Present Group’s community of web hostees as well as individual contributors.

Stay updated on new projects, prizes and voting announcements.

It works like this:

  1. People sign up for web hosting.
    (over 25% of their fees go to the prize)
  2. We choose a theme targeting an underfunded area of the creative landscape.
  3. Hostees and other supporters nominate artists from within the theme.
  4. Nominated artists are invited to participate.
  5. The public helps narrow down the field to three finalists.
  6. Hostees and supporters vote on the finalists.
  7. We dole dollaz. (currently: $1224)

Current Prize: Net Love

"The digital arts (AKA New Media Art, tech art, net art, interactive art, or whatever other moniker you want to use—we’re talking about artistic works that are using digital technology as an essential part of the creative process) have long been the red-headed stepchild of the art world. Though the first computer art exhibitions were staged back in 1965, some 55 years later, the digital arts remain as much an outsider in the contemporary art world as ever, forever denied access to the secret clubhouse." -read more on The Creators Project #DIGART

The internet is awesome. It allows us access to so many great projects. Creators who put their work online, who experiment with systems online and who allow us to experience their projects online are wickedly underfunded.

The goal of this prize was to award one of those creators. We asked for nominations of works of art that were able to be experienced online. Websites, gifs, you tube videos, interactive experiences and project sites all applied. As long as we could track down who made it, the intent was to give someone some money for making something we’re all able to enjoy.


Awarded to:
Destructables.org

Past Prizes

Prize 1: $1100 Bar Area Travel Prize

co-sponsored by: The Collective Foundation

“Unlike most first-world countries we don’t have a cultural agency at the state or federal level that funds artists’ travel. I have an untested theory that if Bay Area artists had support for mobility that they would be more likely to stay....” -read more on OpenSpace, the SFMOMA blog

Winner Alison Pebworth used the Present Prize to visit the Sabbath Day Lake Shaker Community in Gloucester, Maine to develop a residency with the last four living Shakers and to research Radical Sects and Utopian Societies of America for an upcoming tour with the Beautiful Possibility Project. - read more here and here

Buy In

Don't need web hosting? You can still participate!

For $25, you can be part of the final vote

The final round of voting will consist of hosting clients and anyone who has paid into the prize.

Rest assured that 100% of proceeds go directly to the winner (after transaction costs)

There are two ways to participate in the prize process:

Sign up for web hosting

or

Buy In to the prize