The very exciting Guggenheim Museum/YouTube collaborative competition – YouTube Play – is on the hunt for the world’s most creative videos. As we reported last month, YouTube Play was conceived to discover and showcase the most exceptional talent working in the ever-expanding realm of online video. Open to the global online community, the competition is accepting submissions now through July 31st.

And now the competition’s all-star and eclectic jury from the worlds of art, design, film, and music has been announced. The impressive dream-team panel includes Laurie Anderson, Animal Collective, Darren Aronofsky, Douglas Gordon, Ryan McGinley, Marilyn Minter, Takashi Murakami, Shirin Neshat, Stefan Sagmeister, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

According to jury chair Nancy Spector:

“We will be looking for work that will test, elevate, and experiment with video as it is manifest online. We are less interested in what’s ‘now’ than in what’s next.” YouTube Play is open to students and amateur video makers, artists, and creative professionals. Submissions may include animation, motion graphics, narrative, nonnarrative, documentary, and music videos. The jury will review a short list of up to two hundred video works that have been prescreened by the Guggenheim from the pool of videos submitted by the international YouTube community and uploaded to youtube.com/play. From the short list, the jury will select up to twenty that they deem the most creative and inspiring, regardless of genre, technique, or budget. The short-listed videos will be on the YouTube Play channel (youtube.com/play) beginning in September 2010.

To learn more, visit YouTube.com/Play.

YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and YouTube have announced the launch of YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video. A collaboration with HP, YouTube Play was conceived to discover and showcase the most exceptional talent working in the ever-expanding realm of online video. Open to the global online community, the competition is accepting submissions now through July 31st.

A jury of experts from the worlds of art, design, film, and entertainment will select up to 20 videos submitted from around the world to be presented at the Guggenheim Museum on October 21, 2010, with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice. The works will also be available to a worldwide audience on the special YouTube Play channel at youtube.com/play.

YouTube Play is just the latest in YouTube’s run of innovative events. In 2009, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra gave everyone with access to the Internet a chance to play in Carnegie Hall, and in 2007, the CNN/YouTube debates gave everyone a chance to ask a question of U.S. presidential candidates. With YouTube Play, YouTube expands upon the traditional curatorial process in a way that gives every video creator a shot at international artistic recognition.

Upload Creative Video
The goal of this project is to discover and celebrate work that expands the notion of what video can be. Submissions may include any form of creative video, including art, animation, motion graphics, narrative and non-narrative work, or entirely new art forms. YouTube Play hopes to attract innovative, original, and surprising videos from around the world, regardless of genre, technique, background, or budget. Participants can be art students or amateur video makers as well as creative professionals. To help video creators generate the best possible submissions, the YouTube Play channel will post HP Make tutorials, featuring editing, sound, and other video-making techniques.

How to Participate
Participants are invited to submit new or existing videos created within the last two years to a YouTube Play channel at youtube.com/play. The maximum running time for a video is ten minutes. Each participant will be asked to provide a written statement regarding his or her work. Only one video per participant will be considered. The deadline for submission is July 31, 2010, 12:00 p.m., Pacific Time, 3:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.

Selection Process
The Guggenheim will identify up to 200 videos which will be viewable on the YouTube Play channel at youtube.com/play. From the 200, up to 20 videos will be selected by a jury of experts, comprised of distinguished artists, filmmakers, designers, and musicians, to be presented at the Guggenheim Museum in New York during a special event on October 21, 2010.

Check out the video below for more details, and/or visit YouTube.com/Play.

*above: Design by Jeff Baxter adapted from a photograph by David Heald; © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2010

*above: Design by Jeff Baxter; Courtesy of Google

*Images courtesy of The Guggenheim.