Welcome to Culturebot, glad you could make it! I’m the editor and I want to tell you a little bit about the site.

First off, it’s a project of P.S. 122, started with assistance from The National Performance Network. So it’s not a commercial enterprise. It’s a labor of love – like most things at P.S. 122.

(Speaking of which, the site would not be possible without the tireless volunteer efforts of designer Dan Rhatigan and programmer Matt Kingston. I would like to thank them and encourage people to give them paying projects!)

And, like most the things at P.S. 122, Culturebot is an experiment.

For 25 years P.S. 122 has provided a place for artists of all kinds, in all disciplines, to express themselves. It’s been a place for audiences to expand their horizons and it’s been a place that explores and redefines the boundaries of culture. It’s an eclectic, vital, dynamic place that is willing to present work that defies definition, that presents high art in an accessible way, that has served as “the petri dish of downtown culture”. P.S. 122 has, for myself and many others, been the catalyst for enormous creativity. So I decided to build a place like that online.

It is our hope that Culturebot will defy definition. Part group blog, part arts journal, part gossip column – we want to be a resource for all the members of the live arts community, artists and audience alike. And we want to change the way people talk about the art they see. That’s a big goal, but here at P.S. 122, that’s what we do.

And, like P.S. 122, Culturebot is as much yours as it is ours. We hope you’ll get involved – and there are several ways to do that.

First off, and most simply, you can join the Culturebot mailing list. In the not-too-distant future we hope to start creating special Culturebot events and working with other arts organizations to offer special performances, previews and opportunities. So join the email list and stay up-to-date.

The second way to get involved is to become a Culturebot affiliate. If you are a web writer or blogger and you write about the arts, you can sign up for the email list and register your site with Culturebot at the same time. Our team of editors will read affiliate sites looking for good stuff to link to. We’re also working on a “trackback” system that will allow us to keep an up-to-date list of which affiliates are writing about what.

And thirdly, you can volunteer to help out as a writer, designer, coder, events person or intern. Just send an email to editor@culturebot.org!

Thanks for reading and we’ll see you again soon!