PotatoEngine.com, 1998–2004
PotatoEngine.com was an early online platform created by Jeffrey Allen Price to document, promote, and experiment with potato-themed art, research, collecting, humor, and cultural projects. Developed during the formative years of the internet, the website served as a central hub for many of Price’s emerging ideas and activities, including exhibitions, performances, writings, collecting projects, and the first public manifestations of concepts that would later evolve into POTATOISM and the Think Potato Institute.
Part archive, part laboratory, and part artwork, PotatoEngine.com reflected the playful and exploratory spirit of Price’s early potato-centered practice. The site featured original essays, project documentation, festival announcements, photographs, collected references, and a wide range of potato-related cultural material gathered from around the world. It also served as a platform for selling early THINK POTATO merchandise and helped connect a growing international network of artists, collectors, researchers, and potato enthusiasts.
Among those connections was Dutch artist and musician Michiel Brink, who first encountered Price’s work through PotatoEngine.com and would later become one of his longest-running collaborators through projects including Cult of Potato and numerous international potato-related exhibitions, performances, and publications.
In 2004, PotatoEngine.com was intentionally taken offline as part of an effort to redesign and expand the project. Although the planned relaunch never materialized, the website played a significant role in establishing an early online presence for potato art and culture and helped lay the groundwork for many of the ideas that would later be developed through the Think Potato Institute.
Today, PotatoEngine.com remains an important precursor to TPI, representing one of the earliest attempts to create a dedicated online platform for the study, documentation, and celebration of potato culture. Plans are currently underway to relaunch PotatoEngine as a new digital project, continuing its legacy for a new generation of visitors.