We ran the first stage of our selection process for the New Indianapolis
Airport by giving the artists the option of sending slides or digital
images.  We asked them to send CD's with JPEGs no larger than 1MB per image
(this worked out to about a 150dpi resolution) and to name them consistent
with the title of the artwork. Once we got them we imported the images into
a PowerPoint presentation that gave a standard black background for each
image.  We projected the presentation for the jurors using a digital
projector hooked up to a computer, where the presentation was stored on a
hard drive.  (we could have used a laptop for this but we had thousands of
images, and we broke the presentation into 8 or 9 segments for ease of
loading)

Overall we thought it was highly successful, and in the future we would like
to go to an all-digital jurying process.  The real pain in the process was
dealing with all the slides!

We found the following to be true:

1) The process of assembling the Powerpoint presentations was quick and easy
for each artist, but time-consuming given the volume of entries we received
in a short period of time.  Remember that most artists apply at the last
minute, and give yourself plenty of time between your deadline date and the
jury date.

2) Artists who shot their work using a digital camera to begin with had
better results than the ones who had their images scanned and digitized.
The quality of film scanning equipment varies considerably.  Many
professional photographers of art now offer digital documentation of artwork
as one of their services.  The quality I have seen from them is generally
excellent--their equipment is good and they do a full studio setup for their
shots.

3) The digital images looked better than the slide images, on average.  I
think the people using slides were at somewhat of a disadvantage due to a
comparatively dimmer bulb on the projector, inconsistent presentation,
scratched or faded images, etc.

4) If the artist burned their images to disk using the software that came
with a Mac, we PC users couldn't open the disk.  This was alleviated by
having the artists email their images, or some artists owned an inexpensive
supplementary program that was able to burn images without the
cross-platform issue.

Many, if not most, public art programs run their viewing processes entirely
digitally and are very satisfied with their method although things are by no
means standardized. For more information, contact your nearest
percent-for-art office (city or state) or Greg Esser, Manager, Public Art
Network, [log in to unmask] Greg used to be with the Phoenix public art
program and spearheaded the movement to an all-digital process there, and
started a relationship with Zapplication (www.zapplication.org), a digital
jurying service used by a number of art fairs and festivals (where digital
jurying is really taking off).  Zapp is expensive to license, though it does
simplify everything for both artists and those reviewing them.

Good luck!


Julia Muney Moore
Public Art Administrator and
Project Manager, Art Program, New Indianapolis Airport 
Blackburn Architects
3388 Founders Rd
Indianapolis, IN  46268
317.875.5500 x230
FAX 317.875.0544
[log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: Stacy Klingler [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 3:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Accepting Digital Entries for Juried Art Shows

Has anyone out there accepted digital images for
juried art competitions?  If so, what kind of
requirements did you set for the images?  What kind of
formats did you accept (jpeg, tiff, etc.)?  Did you
have naming requirements?  Was it a successful venture
or just a big headache?

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