NEW YORK, NY.- In an effort to engage a larger audience with the Whitney’s Annual Fund, the Whitney launches an online art project, to benefit the Annual Fund. Gifts to the Annual Fund are purely philanthropic and support the general operating costs of the Museum—from keeping the lights on to assembling groundbreaking exhibitions.

Last winter the Whitney’s Membership and Annual Fund department challenged artists to create an online experience that would encourage micro-donations and illustrate how financial support at every level has a positive impact. To respond to the fundraising challenge, digital artists UBERMORGEN.COM created CLICKISTAN, an online game that invents its own territory—ruled by the click—and celebrates the pixel. Players enter CLICKISTAN and can play a few levels before being asked to make a $1 donation to the Whitney’s Annual Fund to continue to more advanced levels. Each visit is unique, so players will be encouraged to return again and again.

“With a project like this you have the chance to engage a worldwide audience and encourage them to make a statement about supporting the arts at a very accessible level,” said Kristen Denner, Director of Membership and Annual Fund. “Gifts in any amount represent a commitment to the Whitney and by extension, art and artists in a global community. Plus it’s fun! UBERMORGEN.COM created an engaging, colorful game environment with great music and we hope players will have a great time while providing critically important support to the Museum.”

Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts, led the search for digital artists to create an interactive fundraising project. In early 2010, the Whitney commissioned a work by UBERMORGEN.COM, an artist duo—lizvlx and Hans Bernhard—based in Vienna. Their work uses computers and networks and is based on an “open circuit” of conceptual art, drawing, software art, pixel painting, computer installations, net art, sculpture and digital activism (media hacking). “Ubermorgen” is the German word both for “the day after tomorrow” and “super-tomorrow.”

On selecting the artists for the project, Christiane Paul commented, “Many of UBERMORGEN.COM's art projects have addressed the intersections of culture, money, branding, and the Internet in a playfully subversive way, which made them perfect candidates for creating a fundraising game.”