2 Pretty performs at the party. (Courtesy Patrick McMullan Company)

On Friday night downtowners crowded the New Museum for a very special edition of its Next Generation party hosted in part by Lauren Cornell and Ryan Trecartin, co-curators of the 2015 New Museum Triennial. At the ground level, attendees mingled with DIS Magazine media companions (those full-body-spandexed creatures who wear advertisements and like to pose for pictures), but for the most part the party took place on the museum's top floor, where DJ sets were interspersed with performances by artists like Lauren Devine, a YouTube sensation, who, as it was painfully explained to an older attendee, doesn't actually have that many hits for her videos. She doesn't need them! Parody would be the wrong word, but she's described her music as "Fro-Yo Pop," like the music they play at Pinkberry.

Mr. Trecartin, and his ilk, tend to bring a certain style to parties like these, and their contributions remained the most memorable parts of the evening. Right by the coat check, for example, attendees were greeted with little bottles of what appeared to be urine, wrapped in the Chase Bank logo, each carrying the suggestion, in Chase font, that we "Taste."

"It is locally sourced," said Babak Radboy, the man behind the bottles, when we found him upstairs. (By that he meant he'd filled the bottles with water and food coloring in the museum's basement, thankfully.) His collective, Shanzhai Biennial, focuses on the art of counterfeits and plans to soon partner with James Franco on making advertisements for a line of underwear they'd found in Chinatown, underwear featuring his name, for some reason, as if it were a real brand.

The media companions could be slightly off-putting, and even MoMA PS1 Director Klaus Biesenbach, who had them at the opening of Mr. Trecartin's show there in 2011, said he wasn't quite used to them. "I had my picture taken with Ryan tonight, because I am his curator," he said, "And even I was a bit scared by them. It's that they don't have any faces, I think. They're very inhuman."

We'd spotted Gallery Girl Liz Margulies on the ground floor (and would have said "hi!" but couldn't find you later!) and asked Mr. Biesenbach if he watched that show. He said he hadn't seen it, or the other Bravo art show, Work of Art, because he doesn't "know how to find programs on [his] television."

Near the exit, as things wound down, a woman who worked for Calvin Klein solicited opinions on the name for a clothing line she wanted to start, and advised a man who works for Jeff Koons to get a colonic. The clothing line would take its name from a friend of hers who is Danish, and whose name is a homonym for a racial epithet in English. "I don't know," said the Koonsman, not so sold on the colonic. "What's it like?"

A punk on his way to the door overheard the conversation and jumped in. "Oh man you've gotta try it," he advised. "Have you ever done ecstasy? It's like that, only way worse."

Michael Stipe, still of animated GIF, 2012:

Michael Stipe, RoseLee Goldberg, Ryan Trecartin and the Rodarte sisters are just some of the artists and curators signed up to take part in "Moving the Still: A Festival of GIFS," the "first ever large-scale open call and exhibition" dedicated to GIFS as an art form, both in digital and real space. The festival, which is being presented by Paddle8, the online site for art collectors, and Tumblr, the social blogging platform, will launch its online call for submissions on Oct. 17.

The GIF file format turns 25 years old this year, but it wasn't until recently that it started popping up in gallery shows and art fairs. Remember when Lauren Cornell sold animated GIFS at Rhizome's booth at the Armory Show last year?

In honor of the anniversary, when the open call is done (it will stay live through Nov. 7), there will be a real-space exhibition of a selection of GIFS on view in the Wynwood District at Art Basel Miami Beach in December.

This is where the artists and curators come in. Messrs. Stipe and Trecartin, Ms. Goldberg and the Rodarte sisters, along with Richard Phillips, James Frey, Nicola Formichetti and Vinoodh Matadin & Inez van Lamsweerde will choose 25 GIFS for the Art Basel Miami Beach exhibition.

Winners will be announced on Nov. 26. Get on it.

Lauren Cornell. (Courtesy Patrick McMullan)

Lauren Cornell, formerly the executive director at Rhizome and adjunct curator at the New Museum, has accepted a position as a full-time curator at the museum, according to an e-mail sent out this afternoon.

Ms. Cornell already announced she would co-curate the New Museum's 2015 triennial along with Ryan Trecartin, an artist whom she was an early champion of. (Mr. Trecartin was included in the museum's first triennial--the excellent "Younger Than Jesus" show--which Ms. Cornell also co-curated.) As a curator, she has frequently explored the intersection of new technology and the Internet, most especially with the New Museum's 2010 group show "Free," which looked at, among other things, how being online has changed the way artists work and think. Ms. Cornell's new official title is Curator, 2015 Triennial, Digital Projects and Museum as Hub.

Lauren Cornell. (Courtesy Patrick McMullan Co.)

The New Museum's 2012 Triennial only just came down, but the museum's administrators are already charging ahead with the 2015 edition, announcing today that artist Ryan Trecartin and Lauren Cornell, executive director of Rhizome, will handle curatorial duties.

“I can think of no better team to organize the next Triennial—an exhibition that is now awaited with great anticipation and high expectations,” Lisa Phillips, director of the New Museum, said in a statement.

Ms. Cornell, who also serves as adjunct curator at the New Museum, will step down from her current position in July.

In The New York Times, Ms. Phillips explains how the collaboration came about: “I appointed Lauren, and she immediately came up with the idea of inviting Ryan to co-curate it with her."