For 3 years now a group of new media artists, curators and hangers-on in NYC have been meeting and discussing online and new media art. This loose group has called their meetings The Upgrade.

The Upgrade started as a casual get-together between Yael Kanarek, Mark Napier, M.River, and T.Whid at the bar 2A in Manhattan’s East Village. Eventually, as the get-togethers grew, we moved over to Two Boots pizza. Finally, to make the meetings more productive, Yael persuaded Eyebeam to begin hosting the events at The Filmmakers Collaborative (another org, like Eyebeam, founded by John Johnson). That’s when the meetings became known as The Upgrade because we were upgrading to a new room with projectors, internet connections and critical discussions as opposed to pizza, beer and gossip. When Eyebeam’s Chelsea warehouse became usable the meetings moved there.

The most recent Upgrade was the three year anniversay and Eyebeam was kind enough to donate a small brunch to accompany the presentation. Here are some photos of the event: http://www.mteww.com/upgrade_brunch/ permanent link to this post