The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale opens its “online” doors here, and in a more relaxed pace, its “AFK” (away from keyboard) doors in more than ten different cities around the world.

The Wrong aims to create, promote and push positive forward-thinking contemporary digital art to a wider audience worldwide through a biennial event that gathers the best selected by the best, while embracing the young talents of today’s digital art scene.

A team of 30 top curators/artists have featured what they like best in the new digital art world. The biennial is divided into pavilions; virtual spaces in which selected works are exhibited. In total, there are 30 online pavilions, including an “unlimited” pavilion open to public participation and a “meta” pavilion exclusively featuring the artwork of the curators. More than 300 artists have been invited officially, to have their work featured in the pavilions, and several hundreds are still applying until the end of the event to participate in the “unlimited” open pavilion. The Wrong is the only free biennial that is fully accessible both to participate and to attend.

The open public unlimited pavilion (aka Homeostasis Lab) displays a selection of artwork submissions where artists interested in participating in the event, but who were not invited by any curator, can submit to the two curators assigned specifically to this space. An open call will run until the last day of the event, allowing everyone interested to have a chance to submit their work also during the event. The content of this pavilion will be curated by Julia Borges Araña + Guilherme Brandão and renewed everyday until last day of the biennial. Visit the Homeostasis Lab for to submit your work.

Selected highlights from the curators’ pavilion:

Gallery404 is an open source browser-based 3D art gallery.

And one day, boom: the pavilion of exploded reality! is an augmented reality experience.

Triangulation is a blog about net.art, computer graphics and video.

That was your dog, 2012 by Sebastian Buerkner

Wilderness of Mirrors is a collection of online works curated by Max Hattler.

The curators’s pavilion curator, David Quiles Guilló, is also the creative director of the The Wrong, and found guilty of selecting the 30 curators of the biennial. He is the founder and creative director of ROJO®, the art joint responsible for putting this biennale together, from initial ideas to getting everyone on board, to design, production and full media communication of the event, until its last consequences.

At the very end of the biennial, The Wrong Book will be launched, compiling a selection of the best digital artwork submitted by all participants to specifically appear printed in this book. Due to the very nature of the event, The Wrong Book’s binding will be done in “random mode”, meaning that each and every copy will be unique. It will be available for orders online on January 2014.

The Wrong is, as David Quiles Guilló puts it; “A large gathering of creative individuals, inside a virtual environment, speaking the highest form of human communication; ART”.

The Biennale runs until 31 December 2013.

I decided to set up Racket Racket in the early part of the summer of 2011 after a bit of an epiphany moment on a long car drive from London to Glasgow, when the whole concept for it became very succinct in my mind. It was at that point that it all fell into place, I suppose. The fact that I didn’t have ‘a blog’ had been niggling away at me for the best part of the last ten years and I had always, maybe somewhat ambitiously, hoped that when the time did come it would be something more thought out, considered and expansive than your average music blog, something less ephemeral and throwaway than much of what exists out there already and something distinctly different from your average contemporary online music magazine.

I took inspiration and education from my time as station manager at Radio Magnetic (a truly invaluable three years of experience) and also from a handful of websites and blogs I had been frequenting regularly for years, London based Test Pressing being one particularly strong influence. The concept I defined in my head during that long journey home was to establish an online magazine which would act as an outlet for me to share and explore my own, fairly niche, interests and obsessions in terms of music (and to a lesser extent art, design and film) as well as the interests and obsessions of certain key people who have specific and idiosyncratic tastes which I trust implicitly – many based in Glasgow but many from further afield. The name I chose essentially means ‘an illegitimate organisation making an extremely loud noise’ – the Racket Racket.

On the site, since launching in Dec 2011, there have been articles and features from some notable and respected cultural voices including JD Twitch, DJ Dribbler, Douglas MacIntyre, Bruce Morton, Stuart Cosgrove, Neil Macdonald, David Barbrossa, James Pole, Brian Sweeney, Paul Benedict Henderson, Jennifer McColgan and Alan Bissett. As I mentioned earlier, all of these people have tastes, opinions and viewpoints that I respect and value hugely. The aim or manifesto, if you like, is to explore ‘alternative pop culture’ from through the decades and around the world. Most of the content on Racket Racket is music-focussed simply because that’s my first love and has been my major personal preoccupation since I was about 7 or 8 years old. And especially, although not exclusively, it’s music from the past and from the peripheries. Mixes, documentary videos, interviews and features make up the majority of the posts so far and there will be lots more of all of those things in 2013. Because that’s what floats my boat.

Some of the most popular articles of the past year have included JD Twitch‘s conversation with legendary UK dub producer Adrian Sherwood, Douglas MacIntyre’s Run Run Run series, DJ Dribbler’s account of a rave at The Tramway in 1989, Brian Sweeney’s Happy Mondays Texts, Stuart Cosgrove’s two part social history of the Zoot Suit in the USA; and interviews with Stuart Leath, Peaking Lights, Ken McCluskey, Albion Venables and Django Django have all gone down rather well too.

One particular area I’m going to be focusing on in the new year is the ‘mix‘ side of things. In doing so, showcasing and promoting DJs and vinyl collectors and enthusiasts around the world who I admire deeply and who, perhaps, go a little unnoticed on the larger and more mainstream online music platforms. I think it’s really important to give these people the exposure they deserve as well as providing a place, in Racket Racket, for local DJs I’m a fan of to show off corners of their record collections that they don’t often get the opportunity to. The music they listen to at home rather than what they would be expected to play in a nightclub on a Saturday night. The weirder and more experimental the better, really. And also we’ll be starting a regular feature ‘spotlight’ (for want of a better term) on independent record shops, again, around the world: Monorail, Rubadub, Underground Solush’n, Redlight Records, Growing Bin, Piccadilly, Sounds of the Universe and so on and so forth. So, there is basically lots of exciting stuff to look forward to next year!

Before that though, Racket Racket has just reached the ripe old age of one and I’ve organised a free party on Friday 28 December at The Brunswick Hotel, Glasgow to celebrate. This will be the third free party we’ve hosted since launching, with each one showcasing three of our favourite local DJs in the intimate and sweaty basement environs of the Brunswick; and they’ve all been really successful nights. David Barbarossa, James Pole, Brian D’Souza, DJ Dribbler, Pro Vinylist Karim and Dirty Larry all deserve a special mention for their huge efforts with the first two parties. For this one – our Christmas-come-first birthday party – we are totally thrilled and excited to have Optimo’s JD Twitch, Hot Mess’s Simonotron and Racket Racket site designer and my girlfriend, Denise (AKA Din Daa Daa) playing the dance records from 9pm till 2am. If you’re free and in Glasgow on the 28 it should be a fantastic night.

Looking forward to the year ahead you can expect to see, as I have touched upon already, regular exclusive mixes and features, articles, interviews and short videos as well as (all going well) a slightly more adventurous event or two consolidating and encapsulating the ethos of the site’s content in ‘the real world’. A site redesign is scheduled for the early part of the new year which will make more of the archive of content on the site already and how that’s presented to the user. All of that as well as Issue 2 of our side project, the So & So fanzine – a physical zine dedicated to the creative musical endeavours and projects happening in the city of Glasgow – which was featured on Central Station back in July, 2012.

I am sincerely grateful to everyone who has been encouraging and supportive over the last year as well as to everyone who has contributed. And hope you continue to approve of the racket we, the racket, are trying to make.

Where to find out more:
Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Want to take a look at more blogs by artists? Look here.

Chelsea Part 1 by Illustrators Carolyn Alexander and Coll Hamilton

Chelsea – Part 1 by illustrators Carolyn Alexander and Coll Hamilton. This is the first part of an ongoing collaborative online graphic novel. Follow the story of Amber and Chelsea as they search for one another here.

Cargo |Facebook | Twitter

What:
typo/graphic posters is a platform where you can find inspiration and promotion of good poster design. Brainchild of Brazilian André Felipe, a graphic designer and web developer with a strong passion for design.

Focusing solely on typographical and graphical posters, typo/graphic posters is a curated gallery with a graphic design point of view.

Why we like it:
typo/graphic posters features a selection of designers set out on a grid pattern on their homepage. Click on a poster to find out more about that designer and scroll through their designs horizontally. You can change the background colour of the whole website by going to the top navigation and clicking on one of the small circles next to ‘color’. Also, at any time you can type t or click the / on the far left to get back to the homepage with a fresh list of designers. All in all, this is one really great website.

Find out more:
Website | Blog | Flickr | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Triple Canopy is dedicated to slowing down the Internet. This begins with their cleverly-designed interface which encourages prolonged, focused engagement.

Working collaboratively with writers, artists, researchers, designers, and developers, Triple Canopy facilitates projects that engage the Internet’s specific characteristics as a public forum with its own evolving practices of reading and viewing, and modes of interaction.

Why we like it:
With great articles like international art language and downloadable podcasts, it’s difficult not to spend all day on this site.

UN<SIMPLE downloadable podcast by Adriana Reines

Find out more:
Website | Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

The Space is also a place where everybody can experiment with ideas and play with images, text and sound.

Why we like it:
The Space provides access to all of the arts in one place where it is absolutely free to discover and enjoy. Their easy to navigate site allows you to find films including BFI Shorts, musical treats, contemporary dance and performance videos.

Find out more:
Website | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

What:
For SOUNDWORKS, the ICA invited over a hundred artists to submit an audio work taking inspiration from the themes evoked in Bruce Nauman’s seminal sound installation Days.

SOUNDWORKS is an online platform that doubles as a virtual exhibition space. The project includes a wide range of approaches by artists who have been working with the medium for years, as well as artists producing sound art for the first time.

Why we like it:
A beautifully sleek and minimal interactive site which allows the user to enjoy the art of sound without being distracted by visuals. You can also easily share your favourites on Twitter and Facebook.

Find out more:
Website | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.