Video art isn't new, but the Guggenheim Museum is turning to a new source to find it: YouTube.

The famed museum, which has branches around the world, has teamed up with the popular online video website for a contest to find "the most creative video in the world," officials said as they launched YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video on Monday.

Users are invited to create, submit or nominate short, innovative videos and digital media works they've come across on the web page YouTube.com/play.

"We're looking for animation, motion graphics, narrative, non-narrative or documentary work, music videos and entirely new art forms — creations that really challenge the world's perceptions of what's possible with video," organizers said in a statement.

Staff will accept submissions until July 31 and then pare down the list of contenders to the best 200 videos, which will be posted on YouTube.com/play.

An international panel of professionals from the worlds of art, design, film, music and video will then evaluate those submissions and choose the top 20 to 25 videos they consider to be "art."

Those will be unveiled at an event at the Guggenheim in New York on Oct. 21 and be on public display Oct. 22-24 at Guggenheim museums in New York, Venice, Berlin and Bilbao.

There is no cash prize or reward for those behind the selected videos.

The goal is to show that creative content can be featured and stand out on the populist site, said YouTube officials, who hope to hold the competition on a biennial basis.

In 2009, officials for the video site sifted through more than 3,000 audition submissions for the inaugural YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which ultimately comprised more than 90 musicians hailing from approximately 30 countries around the globe.

Members of the symphony — both professional and amateur musicians who played 26 different instruments and ranged in age from 17 to 55 — participated in three days of master classes and rehearsals in April 2009 before performing a concert at New York's Carnegie Hall.

The concert featured a piece by Chinese composer Tan Dun titled Internet Symphony No. 1, Eroica, arranged specifically for the occasion.