Today is my first day at Art.sy’s HQ in General Assembly, full time.
A couple of months ago a friend of mine introduced me to Carter, Art.sy founder, CEO and idea-man. I read what the hype machine (TechCrunch, Forbes) had to say and was very skeptical. Art-technology startups suffer the same problem as music companies – the obvious lack of content and the reluctance of the industry to give it up.
After getting some valuable user feedback, Art.sy had just scrapped a lot of its social features and was going back into stealth mode to focus on the more complex and juicy parts, the art genome search. Carter asked me to give a bit of technology advice and I followed his own recommendation of always accepting a free lunch. I looked at what Art.sy had built, suggested a few ideas and cared enough to see them through as the growing development team ramped up.
I got quickly sucked in. The art.sy team was exceptionally strong and included both developers and art scholars that worked closely together and had more than one thing to teach me. As both a coder and an exhibiting artist, this was truly a unique opportunity for me. I won’t say anything else about the company for a while, but I do plan to write a lot about our technology. You should follow me on Twitter.