8 LAB Arts platform connecting artists, art dealers and collectors.

About

8 Lab is an arts technology platform which connects collectors, artists and art dealers.

Monetary transactions are handled by the dealer or artist outside the 8 Lab site.

Account types

There are four types of accounts: Artist, Art Dealer, 8 Lab Standard and 8 Lab Plus. Each one has unique functionality. Artists are the only ones that can currently upload artwork and WIPs. All users can favorite artworks, follow artists and inquire about artworks. When a user follows an artist, all their works will show up in your news feed from the most recent to oldest posted. Verified art dealers have their profile populated with artwork from artists that they represent on 8 LAB.
Example Artist Profile

8 Lab Plus Account
This account level is a yearly paid subscription which allows users to view:
- Powerful search filters.(recommended for art advisors, dealers and interior designers)
- More works in progress.
- Availability and pricing(when artist opts) in news feed.
- Early notifications of new content.
Each subscription request will be reviewed to make sure validity of user. 8 Lab and Artist's reserve the right to block collector plus users for any reason. Users cannot copy, share via social media or redistribute the works in progress content. Email [email protected] for pricing.

Upload Artwork

Artists can upload high resolution images up to 8M. These images are stored and accessible from any internet connection. Information like, media, location, availability, and dealer can be managed through the dashboard. The artwork is categorized as a artwork according to schema.org with Json LD with the artist as the creator.
Example Artwork

Works in Progress

Wip stands for work in progress. Artists can post one image, along with up to 2000 characters to describe the process, materials or other comments about the work. The option of one link is also provided to point to a resource. Permissions can be set as private, public or only viewable to users logged into 8 LAB. This is like a sketch book to track progress and ideas in artworks. The WIP is categorized as a blog post according to schema.org with Json LD with the artist as the author.
Example Work in Progress

Creating Collections

All users can create collections of artworks that are on 8 LAB. The collection is sharable, gets a unique URL and editable through a collections dashboard. Collections can be attached to an event.
Example Collection

Events

Events is a tool to build an artist resume and share news about developments in the artists career. The categories are Exhibition, Article, Art Fair, Notable Blogs, and Interview to name a few. Basic details of event can be entered like, date, description and location. An image of a single artwork of the artist poster can be attached along with the option to attache a whole collection of artworks.
Example Event

Sharing 8 LAB content

Open Graph is used to create visually sharable posts to major social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr.
8 LAB would like to share your content on our social media platforms. To opt out set your artwork or wip post to private.
8 LAB Youtube
8 LAB Instagram
8 LAB Twitter
8 LAB Pinterest
8 LAB Tumblr
8 LAB Facebook

Creative Authorship

8 LAB makes every effort to establish accurate authorship and details about artist content. The content is formatted in structured data, usually JSON LD for indexing by search engines.

Following artists on 8 Lab

When a user chooses to follow an artist on 8 Lab, they will may recieve a monthly email update on new artworks the artist has released. This depends of how many artists the user follows. 8 LAB limits images in emails to under 10. They can also login to their account to their news feed to see all recently uploaded artwork by the artists they follow.

Artwork prices

Users can view the suggested price of an artwork when they are logged into the site if the artist gives permission to do so. If an artworks prices is not displayed a user can contact the artist through the inquiry button and request the price. Unavilable artworks do not have an inquiry button displayed. Prices and availability of artwork is subject to change, so contact the artist directly for accurate information.

Buying artwork on 8 LAB

Currently all purchases are handeld between the artist or art dealer and client. 8 LAB is not involved in monetary transactions. The inquiry form is a way to get in contact with the artist about a specific artwork.

Recommendation Engine

On each artwork page there are three recommendations for the artist of the current work you viewing. We pull data from 8 Lab and social media to build a machine learning image recognition model to suggest artworks. Suggestions are works that are available.

Can anyone join up?

8 Lab Standard accounts are open to the public. Artist and dealer/gallery accounts are by invitation. The plan for the future is to slowly onboard artists that have some exposure to being a professional artist or who have recently completed schooling. Art dealers which include galleries may be able to join through artists recommendations. Final decisions regarding accepted art dealers will be discussed with an advisory board who currently use the site.