04 September, 2011

Crazy House Announcement

Crazy House is going to be a website that houses some art, or pictures and videos of art depending on the form of the art. (Art is something you make, such as sculpture, music, stories, film, television/video series, zines, food, a building, an installation, graffiti, a play, a musical, or a magic trick.)

Crazy House is the name of a book by Henry Darger, an outsider artist. Outsider art is a hard-to-define category, but many people labeled as outsider artists have psychiatric or developmental disabilities.

Crazy House the website is an imaginary house where you can have your own room. Which is to say that you could apply to be hosted on the domain which I have yet to buy, and then you could make a site for your art. All of these sites would be linked to from the main page, and would make up the Crazy House.

It’s perfectly worth asking why this is necessary when there are so many places on the Internet where you can upload and share art. I’m not really sure why I want to make the Crazy House, except that I like the idea of sharing an imaginary house with other people instead of just having a lot of usernames on different huge websites. I also like the idea of an art space that is somewhat centered on disabled identity.

I would like to buy the Crazy House domain with other people for two reasons. First, it would be cheaper, and second, I would like the Crazy House to be something that isn't dependent on one person, but on several people. If anyone is interested in buying the Crazy House domain with me please email me at [] (I'm hoping to figure this out by November or December).

If anyone can't or doesn't want to be part of buying the Crazy House, but would like to room in the Crazy House, sit tight. Hopefully I will be back in November or December telling you how to do so. And please signal boost.

Amanda

5 comments:

  1. it's true that there are many places to share one's art on the internet, but a lot of them have their shortcomings - i used to host my art on deviantart, but there was no way for me to turn off the favoriting feature. i hate that feature bc it seems like so many people favorite things on there just bc it's 'pretty', without actually taking into consideration the purpose /behind/ the art in the first place.

    so this space that you're trying to set up? is totally important. bc it will be giving people with disabilities control over their artistic creations, how they are presented, and to an extent how they are received.

    i may actually join in on it. i haven't decided quite yet, but i've been looking for ways to show the world what is going on in my brain in the same way that i do, without the constraints of all of the image sharing sites i've come across. when i figure out the extent of my possible contribution, i'll pop an email over to you. until then, thank you for giving people this opportunity!

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  2. Sweet! I think I just used to spend a lot of time on the Internet before there was youtube and before blogger was very big, when having your own place on the Internet (at your own domain or the domain of someone you knew) was actually important, so maybe I have a sentimental attachment to that. But saying that makes me feel like I'm wasting my time so I'm glad you pointed out some better reasons for doing this.

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  3. Great idea, definitely want to support it with some donations (both monetary and of my own comics).

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  4. It's cool to get comments on your blog (in my opinion), but never a ZILLION comments on a zillion different blogs. So I'll end here. But I'll be back, assuming that's okay.

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