Art Authority Blog
Announcing year 12 of the Art Authority Summer Intern program
It’s that time again! Year 12 of the Art Authority Summer Intern program is starting in a couple of months, and we’re encouraging early applications so art professors and students can consider how the program can enhance their education and career goals.
Following are details based on previous programs; some projects have evolved. If you’re an art history professor and would like to incorporate the program more directly into your online class curriculum, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us directly to discuss doing so. We’re happy to work with college programs to ensure students receive credit for the work they complete during the internship program.
If you’re an art history student, you might want to ask your professors about their thoughts and possible credit.
As discussed previously here, the Art Authority Summer Intern Program offers art and art history majors a 21st-century alternative to traditional art docent internships. By working on our cutting-edge Art Authority apps and 1000Museums.com e-commerce site (museum-approved archival reproductions), technology-focused students gain experience with and exposure to a set of tools they’ll need as “art goes digital.”
These past two years have been a learning experience at Art Authority, as far as how to support the internship program during a pandemic and what’s needed to keep our product line evolving. Students have learned a lot too, gained credit towards their major, connected with professionals in the museum industry, and even found jobs as a result of the program (including here at Art Authority). We’re looking forward to seeing what our interns will achieve this summer.
If you or anyone you know would be a good fit for this technology-minded art internship program, please check out the Summer Intern Program Web site site link for more information and an application form. The number of internship spots is limited, so anyone interested should apply as soon as possible. If you have any questions about the program please check the FAQ page or contact us directly.
Urgent: Year 10 of Art Authority Intern Program available early
We were going to start year 10 of the Art Authority Summer Intern program in a couple months, but we’re pushing up the start as much as we can so art professors and students can consider the program now as everyone scrambles to put and attend art classes online.
Following are details based on previous programs; some may change. Especially if you’re an art professor, please let us know if there are ways we can modify the program to meet your needs. We will certainly be waiving some of the requirements.
As we’ve discussed a number of times on this blog, the Art Authority Summer Intern Program offers art and art history majors a 21st century alternative to traditional art docent internships. By working on our cutting-edge Art Authority apps and 1000Museums.com e-commerce site (museum-approved archival reproductions), technology-focused students gain experience with and exposure to a set of tools they’ll need as “art goes digital.”
We here at Art Authority have learned a lot over the past nine years, both as far as how to run the intern program and as far as what’s needed to keep our product line evolving. Students have learned a lot too, gained credit towards their major, and even found jobs as a result of the program (some have worked here). We’re really looking forward to another great and meaningful summer for all concerned.
If you or anyone you know is curious about the program, please check out the Summer Intern Program Web site for more information and an application form. The number of spaces are limited, so anyone interested should apply as soon as possible.
Congratulations Art Authority Intern Program Year 9 graduates!
For nine years running now, Art Authority has sponsored a college internship program. Our interns have usually been art majors with an interest in technology. This year they were technology majors with an interest in art. And they are graduating this weekend!
Brian and Miles, computer science majors at Southern Oregon University here in Ashland, have helped us make major progress in a new mobile app which we hope to be able to have available in the not-too-distant future. As part of the SOU computer science capstone requirement, they also earned college credit and gained real-world experience with both technology and art.
We’ve always said that we here at Art Authority live at the intersection of technology and the arts, and we’re happy to have been able to provide yet another set of internships at that intersection, just coming from a somewhat different direction.
Congratulations Brian and Miles, and thank you for all your help!
Art Authority Summer Intern Program Year 7
Today we are announcing year 7 of our very successful summer intern program. As we’ve discussed a number of times on this blog, the Art Authority Summer Intern Program offers art and art history majors a 21st century alternative to traditional art docent internships. By working on our cutting-edge app and database, technology-focused students gain experience with and exposure to a set of tools they’ll need as “art goes digital.” This year, after our acquisition of 1000Museums.com, interns can also gain experience working with a major e-commerce site as well as in the field of fine art reproduction (high-end print-on-demand).
We here at Art Authority have learned a lot over the past seven years, both as far as how to run the intern program and as far as what’s needed to keep our app line evolving. Students have learned a lot too, gained credit towards their major, and even found jobs as a result of the program (a couple of them have worked here, one being our current intern manager). We’re really looking forward to another great and meaningful summer for all concerned.
If you or anyone you know is curious about the program, please check out the Summer Intern Program Web site for more information and an application form. The number of spaces are limited, so anyone interested should apply as soon as possible.
Our original research: Ranking Artists
We are pleased and honored that the MIT Press journal Leonardo has chosen to publish a research paper which we here at Art Authority have been working on for nearly two years: “Ranking Artists: An Internet-era Analysis.” We are equally pleased that we are able to continue to give back to the art history community from which we (and our app users) have also benefited.
Quoting from the paper’s abstract, “To provide guidance to the vastly expanded, un-curated art world made available through the Internet, [we] developed a methodology for objectively and repeatably rating artists, … [and] applied that methodology to Western painters in particular, creating a ranked list of the significance of nearly 10,000 of those painters… [we] observed that the Internet not only greatly broadens access to art, but also provides the tools needed to curate that access in a meaningful scientific manner.”
We learned quite a lot in the process, and are happy to be making the major result of the study freely available online. So, without further ado, we are proud to unveil our ranked list of:
The Most Significant Western Painters
With close to 10,000 annotated entries, we feel that this scientifically-developed list provides a major resource for art historians, educators, students and just plain art lovers. And of course app developers 🙂 Essentially for the art community as a whole. As we indicate in the paper, although one of the main goals of the study is to be as objective as possible, we realize that many of the specific decisions we made in the specific method we used are themselves subjective, and thus this ranking is simply one of many possibilities.
We also hope and believe that our research provides more than just this important list. As the paper concludes, “We hope that our work serves not just as a useful source of exploration, but as a template for other similar guides, and as a starting point for questions about how we all value artistic contribution in this massively connected and information-intense era.” We look forward to those questions.
Back to School, Again
For the fourth year in a row, Apple is featuring Art Authority in a Back to School Promotion. This year both Art Authority for iPad and Art Authority for iPhone are featured in the App Store’s new “Kickstart Your School Year” campaign:
Whether you’re starting grade school, finishing your last year of high school, or even teaching a course, this comprehensive collection covers a wide variety of subjects and grade levels to help you start the year on the right foot.
Art Authority is featured near the start of the “Art & Creativity” sections. The apps are particularly useful when combined with the “Lesson Ideas” Apple introduced as part of their “Real World Learning” area (where Art Authority K-12 for iPad is highlighted).
One of the many, many reasons we’re happy to see Art Authority in the new promotion is that it shows that Apple and we are on the same page when it comes to the importance of art education. It was Steve Jobs himself who first talked about the importance of the intersection of technology and liberal arts. Although we were already in complete agreement at the time, we’ve taken what he said to heart and have concentrated even more on that area. Art Authority K-12 and our now wrapping-up fifth year of the Art Authority Summer Internship program are two great examples.
Thanks Steve, thanks Apple, thanks interns, and thanks everyone here at Art Authority.
Apple highlights, provides lesson guides for Art Authority K-12
Today Apple is introducing a new collection in the Education section of the App Store entitled “Real-World Learning.” We’re honored that our Art Authority K-12 for iPad app is one of the five titles they’re featuring. For each app in the collection, Apple has created a free set of lesson plans tailored towards real-world learning with that app. In our case, their multimedia iBook “Art Authority Lesson Ideas” provides specialized plans for ages 5-12, 12-14 and 14-18. And the lessons are not just about art. Art Authority is used as the jumping off point for lessons about Literacy, Social Studies, and History too.
The plans include both app-based and real-world activities, such as museum visits, poem writing, and drawing. One activity is specifically based on Picasso’s The Old Guitarist, and another is about the impact of the Byzantine Empire. Objectives, overviews and even rubrics are provided for each activity, along with the activity details.
Apple feels that the benefits of the plans include:
- Enriching the classroom with works of world-famous artists
- Enabling comparison of works within the app, and to real life
- Engaging students and building anticipation by exploring artists before visiting real art museums
- Inspiring work in other subjects.
This is not the first time that Apple has featured our app in a high visibility education event. It was also called out by Phil Schiller as one of seven “amazing” iPad educational apps in a Special Educational Event at the Guggenheim Museum, and has been featured in a number of Apple’s Back to School programs.
We love it that Apple loves our app. As Apple continues changing the world in incredibly meaningful ways, it’s nice to know that we’re helping out too.
Summer intern program, year 5, kickoff
Year 5 of the Art Authority Summer Intern Program kicked off earlier this week. For the first time, orientation was held through a couple of multi-person Google Hangouts. Over a dozen interns participated, with the sessions led by Art Authority’s intern manager Celia. Art Authority’s president, Alan, also dropped in. We expect close to 20 interns by the time they all get started.
The kickoff was very successful. Interns could see each other and Art Authority staff, as they shared a bit about themselves, learned details of what they would be doing over the summer, and asked questions. Google Hangout was particularly appropriate, not just because it enhances the way interns can learn and interact, but also because it serves as a great example of one of the main goals of the program: helping modern-day art majors become familiar with Internet-based tools that will be essential to many of their jobs in “the real world.”
The Art Authority Summer Intern Program is in fact structured around this goal of getting ready for the current-day Internet-enhanced real world. Interns work from their dorm rooms, home offices, or other location of choice, with the principal requirement being a good Internet connection. They use, and thus become intimately familiar with important Internet tools like Google drive, Google docs, and Skype as key parts of their day-to-day activities. Not to mention using and becoming familiar with apps in general and our industry-leading Art Authority app line in particular. And they learn how to structure and allocate their time in a “non-traditional” office environment.
Of course being art majors, we also want them to learn about art, while helping to enhance our art apps at the same time. This year the Intern Program is focusing on less well-known, but still significant, western artists, none of whom are currently in the Art Authority collection. Using mainly Internet-based information sources, each intern will be become familiar with a different set of these artists, and help us in adding a number of works by each artist to the app. In the process, we hope they will gain invaluable insights into the artists involved, but more importantly into the Internet-era processes that go into creating a leading-edge modern-day art resource like Art Authority.
Stay tuned for more about the program throughout the summer.
Announcing the Art Authority Summer Intern Program, year 5
Today, on the heels of our app’s and the iPad’s 5th anniversary, we are announcing year 5 of our very successful summer intern program. As we discussed two years ago in this blog, the Art Authority Summer Intern Program offers art and art history majors a 21st century alternative to traditional art docent internships. By working on our cutting-edge app and database, technology-focused students gain experience with and exposure to a set of tools they’ll need as “art goes digital.”
We here at Art Authority have learned a lot over the past five years, both as far as how to run the intern program and as far as what’s needed to keep the app line on top. And it’s been working, as exemplified by this recent review.
Students have learned a lot too, gained credit towards their major, and even found jobs as a result of the program (one of them works here!). And of course it’s not just the Art Authority app now, but also Art Authority K-12, Art Alert and community.artauthority.net. Even an iBook. So we’re really looking forward to another great and meaningful summer for all concerned.
If you or anyone you know is curious about the program, please check out the Summer Intern Program Web site for more information and an application form. The number of spaces are limited, so anyone interested should apply as soon as possible.
Five years of the iPad, and Art Authority
Five years ago today Apple shipped the iPad, and Open Door Networks shipped Art Authority for iPad. And the rest is history. And art.
The New York Times called the iPad “a completely new experience — and a deeply satisfying one.” And it called Art Authority “an experience unlike any other.” In our day-one announcement we said the two were clearly made for each other, and we were right. Within the first few days, the app was in the top 100 grossing app list, just below Angry Birds!
Over the past five years, Apple has made numerous enhancements to the iPad, and created a family of devices. Likewise we have evolved Art Authority, and created a product line. Here’s some of what we’ve done:
- The app (and the iPad) proved an immediate hit in schools. Seton Hill University, among many others, has been using the app since 2010.
- Our age appropriate K-12 version, specifically requested by teachers, has been popular as well. We also have a free iBook, “Exploring Art with Art Authority.”
- We have nearly doubled the number of works the app provides access to, from 40,000 five years ago to over 75,000 now.
- When Apple introduced the retina display, we not only added a number of high-resolution images to take advantage of it, but also introduced our new SmArt Resolution technology so the larger images wouldn’t slow things down.
- We’ve added link to articles on thousands of individual works, and videos for hundreds more.
- We’ve added major new technologies and features such as Art Like This, Art Real Size, and Art Near Me.
- We’ve sponsored a summer intern program for art majors, year five of which will be starting shortly.
- The app was twice named best iPad reference app of the year by Apple. It has often been in the top 10 on the App Store, and was number one in Japan at one point for a whole week.
Not bad. So what will the next five years bring? Well, to start with, how’s this: today only, Art Authority for iPad is FREE!