About the Project

Issues of Identity is a four-year study on the impact of increasing diversity and change in media arts practice, funding and communications policy in New York State. Mapping the Media Arts is a response to these issues, modeling the current trend toward dynamic interactive data landscapes. American Documentary (P.O.V.), the Experimental Television Center and the Electronic Media and Film Program of the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA) developed the map as a way to identify and locate who we are, where we are and what we have to offer as media arts organizations in the new public realm.

About this Site

This map identifies organizations, networks and related links throughout NYS and beyond, that offer a variety of media arts services and information. These organizations are browseable by geographical location, alphabetical order and by the categories listed in the navigation bar on the left. These organizations are searchable by entering a keyword in the search box in the upper right-hand corner or by a variety of criteria on the Advanced Search page.

We hope you will find this Map useful, and we welcome your engagement. Please take a moment to send us your thoughts, suggestions and other feedback. We’d really appreciate your input.

Why a Map?

Maps provide us information by virtue of place. And, in our universal landscape, who we are, where we are and what we have to offer takes on new meaning in respect to identity. Where we are is still about place, of one kind or another, while who we are and what we have to offer are all about relationships.

This map is a portal rather than a guide to a destination. Information is not the driver here. Human need is the driver, the need to know who and where. The information supplied through this map is a vehicle for arriving at that place of critical thinking and creative problem solving.

This map is a living document and the interactive element is about engagement with each other. Mapping is a science, and digital technologies are thrusting us into the science of interpersonal communications. Many of us are rethinking how we navigate our individual lives in respect to community. Because we now link the practice of mapping to digital networks, we have a new luxury of place. Even so, identity remains critical.

Maps are based on coordinate systems. The Media Arts Map looks at New York State as abstract but definable space, in which every point has a neighborhood where the global structure may be more complicated. The principles of mapping, however, allow more complicated structures to be understood in terms of smaller spaces – bringing us back to issues of local and regional identity.

The Map is intended to facilitate the development of more complex relationships. The project welcomes all areas of the independent media arts, individuals, communities and organizations, and looks to encourage numerous relationships and new ways of working. The Media Arts Map supports engagement by helping people locate each other — whether makers, funders, exhibitors or others — for building strategic partnerships and developing collaborative resources.

This project set out to identify the independent media arts in New York State through person, place and thing as a resource of significant value.

Interested in Participating?

If you do not see your organization currently listed on the Map and would like to, please visit Add Your Organization.

Site Developer and Administrator:

Nick Hasty, Directory of Technology, Rhizome

Map Development Team

American Documentary | P.O.V.
Anne del Castillo, Director,
Development and Business Affairs
Simon Kilmurry, Executive Director
Cara Mertes, Former Executive Director
David Nanasi, Consulting
Producer, P.O.V. Interactive
Theresa Riley, Director, P.O.V. Interactive

Experimental Television Center
Sherry Miller Hocking, Assistant Director

New York State Council on the Arts
Karen Helmerson, Senior Program
Officer, Electronic Media & Film / Visual Arts
Consultants: Helen Brunner, Malcolm Jones, Jeremy Roberts

Site Design
Daniel Leyva

This project has been made possible in part with public funds from the
New York State Council on the Arts, Electronic Media and Film Program.
The original site and concept was developed by NYSCA in collaboration
with American Documentary/P.O.V. and the Experimental Television
Center. Rhizome came on as the host organization in 2009.