Night at the Eyewire Museum

As long as humans have been alive they’ve been making art! Creativity is a part of the human experience. Even before Homo sapiens roamed the earth, our ancient human ancestors, Homo erectus, were etching shells over 400,000 years ago. Pretty amazing!

For this month’s competition we won’t linger in the Ice Age (too chilly!), but we’ll take you through a brief art history tour and touch upon some interesting art movements created by modern humans!

Your night at the Eyewire Museum begins on April 19th and runs for 1 week.

We already know that Eyewirers have artistic eyes, just take a look at our “Gallery of Amusements” forum thread!

We invite you to take a tour through art and art history during this week’s competition! We’re sure you’ll find an event that’s just your style. Perhaps some of these art movements will even inspire you to start your own!

Special Art Competition!

Besides our regular events we’ll be hosting an Eyewire art competition. Send your original Eyewire art to support@eyewire.org by Friday, April 26 at 10 am ET. We’ll send out voting forms after Friday’s closing ceremony to pick our most inspired pieces! Anyone who earned a participation badge will be eligible to vote for their favorites!

Our art gallery winners will earn special swag. The top 3 will get a customized thank you card, and the 1st place winner will get a customized art piece with a hero of their choice!

Renaissance Art-curacy Happy Hour

Friday, April 19 @ 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM ET and 10:00 PM – midnight ET

Swag: Most accurate player completing at least 20 cubes wins 1 pencil pouch full of goods! Second and third place win sticker sheets. (And thanks to @susi for sponsoring this year’s swag again!)

The Renaissance was a period following the Middle Ages where a focus on Humanism came to the forefront. Renaissance art often depicted human subjects, and gave importance to realism.

During our Accuracy Happy Hour competition you have the chance to show off your inner Renaissance human! May the most accurate and realistic players take home the Renaissance gold!

Bonuses:
1st Place Accuracy – 10,000 points
2nd Place Accuracy – 8,000 points
3rd Place Accuracy – 6,000 points
Achieve 95% Accuracy – 5,000 points
Achieve 90% Accuracy – 3,000 points
Achieve 80% Accuracy – 2,000 points
1,000 points for anyone under 80% who still plays at least 20 cubes in either slot.
(These bonus thresholds are non-cumulative, i.e. they will not combine. If you earn 3rd place, for instance, and presumably got over 95% accuracy, you still earn a 6,000 point bonus, not 11,000.)

Evil Cubism

Saturday, April 20 @ midnight ET – Thursday, April 25 @ noon ET

Swag: The top scoring player will win 1 pencil pouch full of goods! Second and third place win sticker sheets.

Now we take a great leap forward in time to the early 20th century, where a very different type of art was emerging from the creative minds of artists of the time. Cubist technique breaks up objects and then reassembles them so that they appear to appeal to many perspectives at once.

As with a good critique of a cubist painting, you should look at your Evil Cubes from a variety of perspectives to make sure all their evil parts are in place. Sometimes taking in multiple viewpoints is the only way to do something so weird and abstract justice! Happy tracing and may the Evilist Cubists take 1st place!

**There are new bonuses for Evil Cubes. We think you’ll like them!**
#1 accuracy – 20,000 points (comparable to top Hunt score)
#2 accuracy – 15,000 points
#3 accuracy – 10,000 points
90% accuracy for 12 cubes – 5,000 points
80% accuracy for 12 cubes – 2,500 points
Complete 12 cubes – 1,000 points

Conceptual Trivia

Sunday, April 21 @ 11 AM ET – Tuesday, April 23 @ 11:00 AM ET

Power Hour: Tuesday, April 23 @ 11 AM – noon ET

Swag: The top scoring player will win 1 pencil pouch full of goods! Second and third place win sticker sheets.

Conceptualism is the thinker’s art style. It is not concerned with aesthetics, though conceptual art can also be aesthetically pleasing (or revolting if that’s what you’re going for).

Instead the concept artist tries to provoke the viewer and engage the viewer in a dialogue, often wrestling with the question “what is art?” or “what has artistic value?”

For this competition’s trivia we’ll delve deep into some juicy art history questions, in addition to our regular science questions. Once you’ve learned a little more about art history, we’re sure you’ll have enough material to build your own Eyewire concept art!

Bonuses:
For every question —
1st to answer – 300 points
2nd to answer – 200 points
3rd to answer – 100 points

Impressionism vs Surrealism

Tuesday, April 23 @ 11 AM ET – Wednesday April 24 @ 11 AM ET

Swag: The top scoring player on the winning team wins a pencil pouch full of goods! Another pencil pouch and 3 sticker sheets will be raffled among the top 50% of players on the winning team, too.

It’s time to examine 2 different movements that started off with realism, and then decided to do a little off-roading along the way.

Impressionism is marked by a series of quick brush strokes meant to invoke an overall visual effect rather than any particular detail. Because impressionists liked to paint outdoors, their work is often focused on spontaneous movement of light and color in the natural world.

Surrealists were interested in unlocking the depths of the human psyche. Surrealist art is meant to challenge the viewer’s reality, and invoke deeper emotional truths using elements like surprise and symbolism.

Though it’s hard to say whether one art style is superior to another, we’re going to try anyway! Pick a side and let the best art movement win!

Bonuses:
Earn 2,000 points – 1,000 bonus
Earn 10,000 points – 5,000 bonus
Earn 20,000 points – 10,000 bonus
Every additional 20,000 points – 10,000 bonus
Winning team – 10,000 bonus
Team winner – 5,000 bonus
#1 overall score – 10,000 bonus
#2 overall score – 5,000 bonus
#3 overall score – 2,500 bonus

Eyewire Museum Marathon

Wednesday, April 24 @ 8 AM ET – Thursday, April 25 @ 8 AM ET

Swag: The top player (defined by number of points earned during the marathon time period) will win a 1 pencil pouch full of goods! 2 pencil pouches and 3 sticker sheets will be raffled among the top 25% of participating players, too.

For our final event we’re going to check out the Eyewire Museum, which can be viewed at museum.eyewire.org!

Beyond its scientific value, the Eyewire Museum also allows us to see beautiful depictions of microscopic cells we wouldn’t otherwise be able to view. Behold, the artistic hand of mother nature herself!

Feel free to use these cells or any of the cells up on Eyewire in your own artistic enterprises.

Let’s trace our way through a new marathon cell (or 2) and maybe we’ll see the results in the Eyewire Museum one day!

**Marathon scoring and bonuses have changed. New rubric detailed here**

Multiple cells will be up during the marathon. 1 live cell will be designated the “marathon cell.”
There is a 3x multiplier on the marathon cell.

Bonuses (these can be earned by tracing on any cell, including non-marathon cells):
Every 25 cubes traced = 3500 point bonus
All SC bonuses doubled
Every 3 SCs counts for 1 cube toward naming eligibility and per-cell completion bonus
50 cubes = 5,000 points per completed cell
200 cubes = 10,000 points per completed cell

Also:

Each player who traces at least 50 cubes will win the right to vote on a name for the marathon cell.
Each player who traces at least 200 cubes will win the right to nominate a name for that vote.