The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is helping to launch a website dedicated to digital art.
The £8.6m project – called The Space – will commission and showcase new art for audiences around the world.
Ai has given the names of victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China to a 24-hour launch event taking place at London’s Tate Modern this weekend.
He hopes the names will be used to create “a meaningful piece of digital art”.
Ai compiled the list of names of 5,196 student victims via his blog after accusations that shoddy construction work had caused the collapse of thousands of classrooms during the quake.
The dissident artist has made a number of artworks about Sichuan, including Nian (“Remembrance”), a sound installation of the students’ names being recited by 3,444 individuals rallied from a Twitter campaign.
The launch event for The Space at Tate Modern featured a video message from Ai from his studio in Beijing.
“It gives another opportunity and a platform for artists or somebody like me to work with. I believe many, many young people and students will love it,” he said.
The Space – which was set up by the Arts Council and BBC – will feature some 50 new art commissions a year.
Speaking on Friday, launch director Ruth Mackenzie said that not every commission was expected to be a success.
But she hoped that potential “Picassos or Eisensteins” would submit ideas, external to The Space for a paid commission.