According to a press release, after being selected by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) for its seventeenth annual compendium of the Art & Technique of the American Commercial, Zune Arts’s animated short Masks was added to the New York Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) permanent collection.

According to the press release, the short was created by Jonathan Gorin and Naomi Mishimura (a.k.a. PandaPanther) and features the music of The Black Angels in what the release calls a “Braveheart-meets-Care Bears battlefield drama” suggesting how peace can be achieved by a simple change of perspective.  

The film—like all Zune Arts features—was, according to wired.com, commissioned by Microsoft as part of its Zune marketing campaign and represents a crossroads between art and advertising, or what the AICP’s Web site dubs “art in the service of commerce.”

According to aicp.com, the film was selected by the AICP because of its merit in commercial filmmaking, and by extension, Microsoft’s quasi-philanthropic approach in creating the ad/film. According to aicp.com, the film was automatically added to MoMA’s permanent collection once it was selected.

Regarding the campaign itself, Robert Schaltenbrand, Microsoft’s marketing manager says in a Wired report that the “target is the cultural core, the key influencers in society that pay attention to this kind of art.”

To see the film, visit http://zune-arts.net/masks.