ICE Advertisements

Infobox computer underground
group_name = Insane Creators Enterprise (iCE Advertisements)

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caption =
origin =
country = United States
status = active
years_active = 1991–present
category = artscene
founders = Many Axe (Frozen Tormentor)
products =
affiliates =
website = http://www.ice.org/

iCE Advertisements is a digital art group formed in 1991. Although the expanded title is rarely ever used, iCE is an acronym for "Insane Creators Enterprise". iCE, along with ACiD Productions, has been one of the most prominent and critically successful groups on the underground computer artscene.

History

The group originally specialized in the creation of ANSI artwork for BBSes and MCGA graphics. During the BBS-era, their biggest competitor was ACiD Productions.

The ANSI artscene was in a continual state of flux, with intense rivalry between artists and groups. In addition, ansi artists tended to switch loyalties often, moving from group to group. Groups would merge and restructure, or completely disband, but iCE was generally viewed by artscene regulars as one the more stable groups. iCE was known to have particularly effective artistic leadership, and benefited from early artscene leaders such as Tempus Thales.

iCE, like their peers in the artscene, released artwork on a monthly basis in the form of an artpack. iCE released their first monthly artpack, referred to as an "iCEpack", in August of 1992.

During the transition between BBS to the Internet, interest in iCE began to wane somewhat during the late 1990s. This was quickly reversed after the introduction of their well received [http://tiles.ice.org Tiles] collaborative art project in December 2000.

Today, iCE has branched out into collaborative art, photography and digital art with members worldwide. Although iCE has continued to release monthly galleries of art to this day (as of 2005), they abandoned the traditional artpack format after the release of their July 2002 artpack (dated August 6, 2002) in favor of an online presentation via their website. On occasion, however, iCE continues to include ANSI artwork as part of their monthly showcase of new art.

Releases

=iCEpacks=

* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice/icepacks/1992/icepk-08.zip August 1992] (first release)
* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice/icepacks/1997/ice9708a.zip August 1997 Disk A] (fifth anniversary)
* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice/icepacks/1997/ice9708b.zip August 1997 Disk B]
* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice/icepacks/1997/ice9708c.zip August 1997 Disk C]
* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice/icepacks/1997/ice9708d.zip August 1997 Disk D]
* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice/icepacks/1997/ice9708e.zip August 1997 Disk E]
* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice/icepacks/2002/ice-200208.zip August 2002] (final iCEpack released in zip format)
* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice/icepacks/2002/ice-200208.zip December 2002] (tenth anniversary, converted to zip format by RaD Man)

=Image Viewer=

* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/viewers/dos iCEview] , a DOS mode multi format image viewer.

External links

In the news

* [http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/24/0315221 iCE's Modern Version of Old-Fashioned Quilting Bee] on slashdot.org (January 23, 2005)
* [http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/02/0439226 Web-based Collaborative Artwork] on slashdot.org (July 2, 2001)
* [http://slashdot.org/articles/99/06/04/1351202.shtml New iCE Web Site] on slashdot.org (June 4, 1999)

Official sites

* [http://www.ice.org/ iCE website]
* [http://www.ice.org/?flavour=photo iCE Photography website]
* [http://tiles.ice.org/ iCE Tiles website]

Galleries

* [http://artscene.textfiles.com/ice textfiles.com iCE collection]