Digital art nonprofit Rhizome launches video pilot with Electronic Arts Intermix after Vimeo shutdown

Rhizome, a digital art nonprofit, has announced a pilot program that will host films and videos from Electronic Arts Intermix on its own platform, video.rhizome.org. The move takes the distributor's work away from Vimeo, the commercial video-sharing website.

The story starts in May. Electronic Arts Intermix, a distributor of video and new media art, began receiving emails saying its Vimeo account had broken the site's community guidelines, the rules users agree to when they post. The two works Vimeo first flagged were Barbara Hammer's films from the 1970s, Dyketactics and Women I Love. Both are among the distributor's most requested films.

Vimeo shut the account over Memorial Day weekend, the US holiday at the end of May. About a month later, the account was temporarily reinstated. By then the distributor had removed flagged videos by Barbara Hammer, Ellen Cantor, Carolee Schneemann, Peggy Ahwesh and Alex Bag.

Electronic Arts Intermix had already planned to leave Vimeo once a new home was ready. That home is Rhizome's video hosting platform, called VRO, which the nonprofit set up in 2022. Electronic Arts Intermix holds thousands of digital artworks by more than 200 artists, so the pilot covers a large catalogue.

Rhizome is 30 years old and has been affiliated with the New Museum, the contemporary art museum in New York, since 2003. Its executive director, Michael Connor, leads the organisation. Rebecca Cleman is executive director of Electronic Arts Intermix, and Karl McCool is its distribution director.

Rhizome hopes to offer VRO to other digital arts organisations and artists. The aim is a option for creators who do not want to rely on commercial platforms like Vimeo. The pilot is the first step in that plan.

For anyone who wants to see these films, the practical question is simple. The works now sit on a platform run by a small nonprofit rather than a company with its own content rules. How well that works will show over the course of the pilot.