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Graphics Software

Web-based Collaborative Artwork 78

Posted by michael from the bring-out-the-GIMP dept.
An anonymous reader sent in tiles.ice.org, which is doing a series of collaborative artworks where each artist creates a square in a larger mosaic. The main mosaic right now is being done blind, that is, none of the artists get to see what has been created in the adjacent squares... Neat stuff, a very nice example of something that couldn't be done in the pre-Net era.
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Web-based Collaborative Artwork

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  • Quite right. My father is a high school art teacher and has done a project like this every year as far back as I can remember. About 25 students get a sheet of paper (I don't remember how large, but close to 8 1/2 x 11) and create their art on it. He then attatches all of the pieces together into one rather large picture.

  • Like Slashdot (Score:3)

    by Ed Avis ( 5917 ) <ed@membled.com> on Monday July 02, 2001 @02:49AM (#114906) Homepage
    This is analogous to this site's 'web-based collaborative writing' where each poster bothers to read what has been written in the adjacent postings.

  • Re:Like Slashdot (Score:3)

    by Ed Avis ( 5917 ) <ed@membled.com> on Monday July 02, 2001 @02:51AM (#114907) Homepage
    D'oh! Try again:

    This is analogous to this site's 'web-based collaborative writing' where each poster does not bother to read what has been written in the adjacent postings.
  • I think it would perhaps make for a more interesting whole if you were given a (small, maybe 10-20 pixel) slice from the edge of any adjacent tile(s)that have already been filled in order to be able to match (or blend or clash!) as desired.

    You could set up the square allocation algorithm to prefer giving out squares that are adjacent to already filled in parts, and not adjacent to already allocated, but not yet returned squares.

    There wouldn't be a requirement to match/blend and people could ignore that (or deliberately clash) if they wanted. It would be interesting to see the proportions that chose to do each...

    Just a thought.
    --

  • I just looked at the Google cache of the site (link in somebody's comment above) and I see what you mean - they *do* give a strip 15 pixels wide,as you rightly note.

    While the site was slashdotted, I was going on the slashdot story writeup which said "none of the artists get to see what has been created in the adjacent squares" - I took this to mean zero-knowledge.
    --

  • Hi there vbrtrmn, I'm the tiles.ice.org admin/author. Heh, no, I'm not saddened. The server is still chugging along. QUITE a few of the folks reading slashdot have gotten to the quilts, they just haven't bothered to set up mirrors for everyone else. I apologize to everyone for not having enough bandwidth for this (sending 400k - 1.5megs to tens of thousands of people on a partial T1 is a bad business plan), and I apologize for not handling a failed db connection more gracefully earlier. The code is GPL'd, they could have sent a patch instead of whining :)

    Hopefully once the bandwidth frees up a bit, I can put it back to the regular site. Until then, maybe you can convince the others to share.

    Jon/Slothy
  • John Maeda, one of the few true digital artists out there, started something similar to this in 1997, called the "One Line Project". Basically, people would draw lines into a Java applet online, and then the lines from each one would be connected to make one long line. I remember seeing pictures of it on exhibit at some gallery, all printed out. It spanned the entire gallery. Very very impressive. To see more:

    http://www.maedastudio.com/olp98/index.html [maedastudio.com]
  • No, it was Otis School of Art and Design. The whole story [ibiblio.org].
    bukra fil mish mish
    -
    Monitor the Web, or Track your site!

  • What about OTIS/SITO? (Score:3)

    by angst_ridden_hipster ( 23104 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @10:05AM (#114913) Homepage Journal
    Operative Term is Stimulate (renamed SITO after a second-rate art school threatened to sue over the OTIS acronym) was doing this kind of collaborative artwork back in '94 or '95.

    It got ported to the web, but it started out as an ftp-based exercise.

    Check it out at http://www.sito.org
    bukra fil mish mish
    -
    Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
  • "I think a more aesthetically rewarding project would be one in which each artist could only see the work of the neighboring tiles. Obviously not all of those neighboring tiles would be complete. This would be best performed in a fashion that would allow one to build an infinite pattern." ....
    "It may also be interesting to show only a thin portion of the neighbors (scaled for my 5x9 Font):

    ..NNNNNNNNN..
    ..NNNNNNNNN..
    WW.........EE
    WW.........EE
    WW.........EE
    WW.........EE
    WW.........EE
    ..SSSSSSSSS..
    ..SSSSSSSSS..

    There could be a requirement that your portion blend the edges together. Even the non-artistic may be able to contribute something interesting, and a program may even be able to contribute, or add "interesting" portions when the neighbors become boring. It may make for interesting wallpaper. "

    This is exactly what tiles.ice.org does. An initial tile is created by a chosen artist. From there the tile is worked out with each new artist seeing only those portions (16pixel strips as you outlined) that are already checked in, these strips should be fully blended into. A new tile becomes visible ONLY when the four cardinally sorounding tiles have been checked in. Each quilt is predefined in terms of size (say 10tiles wide x 12 tiles tall) Tiles are scored on a -5 to +5 scale. Most quilts have some theme that ideally should be a factor in the subject of the tiles: What Besse the cow ate, Incredible Machine etcetc

    ice.org runs 3 diferent styles of quilts:
    beginner quilts (cant participate once you have over 10 points)
    public quilts: Any registered user can participate.
    Invite only quilts: Like it says, artists are invited based on their past performance, blending is a very important element.

    Recently a new style of quilt has been going on, one in which all submitted tiles are immediately visible, leading to a bit more of an active collaboration than the hidden tile quilts.

    I am working right now to post a partial mirror at http://heupel.com/tiles/ [heupel.com]

    I enjoy working on these tiles and in fact have found that I have been forced to refine my photoshop techniques and workflow, as this is not the type of photoshop work that I normally engage in. If for nothing else than that it has been great fun and very rewarding for me.
  • Well it seems that the implementation at tiles.ice.org is a little misunderstood. I have set up a mirror [heupel.com] of the completed quilts, along with a bit more explanation of the site workings.
  • A lot of people pointed out the AIDS blanket and similar endeavours.

    When I first read it I was instantly reminded of the work done by the OTIS project [sito.org], which has been around pretty much forever. I especially like the Gridcosm project, but Hygrid is pretty damn cool, too.

    Great. You've got me logged into the site, which I haven't looked at in about 5 years.

    There goes my day...

  • Re:Oh, DO be serious... (Score:3)

    by radja ( 58949 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @02:47AM (#114917) Homepage
    sounds like patchwork blankets to me... Not new, but proven "techology" :)

    //rdj
  • Heh, I was wondering WTF you were talking about! This is Slashdot, after all!
  • Well, like, DUH, because the web did not exist in the pre-Net era... That statement has zero information content, so why bother to say it?
  • Oh, wow, I wish I could be as sarcastic as you ;)
  • OK, the site is slashdotted so I'm not gonna flame you, but essentially that is exactly what happens. Tiles are not revealed until all of their neighbours are submitted.

  • Oh, DO be serious... (Score:5)

    by AndrewHowe ( 60826 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @02:45AM (#114922)
    "Neat stuff"

    Agreed...

    "a very nice example of something that couldn't be done in the pre-Net era"

    Er, no... Maybe it makes it a bit easier, a bit more accessible, but... I think some people take the Net a bit too seriously...

  • DDOS (Score:1)

    by vbrtrmn ( 62760 )
    This just in, "Slasdot kills yet one more great site". Yes, today marks another sad event as the Slashdot DDOS takes down yet another site. The site owner was unable to comment, but we're sure he is quite saddened by his loss. The Slashdot DDOS seems to focus on grass-roots software, hardware, and artistic sites. Though others have been known to fall. One can only wonder WHEN THE FUCK WILL THEY GET SUED?

    --
    microsoft, it's what's for dinner

    bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com

  • Mysql (Score:1)

    by Dios ( 83038 )
    It seems I see Mysql failures all the time... Does no one use postgres? Or does it just not fail? Not looking to flame, I just would like to know a little bit about the reliability of each...
  • Actually, I just saw something on TV the other day (TLC, Discovery, Fox?) about a guy well before the creation of computers, who used to create incredibly intricate ASCII art using only a keyboard.

    You mean, a typewriter?

  • Neat stuff, a very nice example of something that couldn't be done in the pre-Net era.
    It can certainly be done without the Net, and I've done it. My wife and I had a quilt made for our wedding, where each square in the quilt was assigned to different family members and friends. We assembled the final quilt once all the squares were back.

  • This is a great idea, and "open art" is a grand concept, but how do you propose that artists eat, or pay rent? The "I created it, it is mine to sell" mentality is not going anywhere, because there is not an alternative means of earning money from art. How will artists be compensated for their creative work?

    How much less art would be made if all artists could only practice their craft in their spare time after working 40 hours a week to pay the bills?


    ---

  • Photoshop Tennis (Score:5)

    by FunkyChild ( 99051 ) <slashdot@ m k e 3 . net> on Monday July 02, 2001 @02:47AM (#114928) Homepage
    A similar idea is 'Photoshop Tennis' where the participants email back and forth a Photoshop file, adding new layers each time. The game ends when one person gives up or decides that any new additions will just make it worse. It's an experiment rather than a competition.

    Info and examples -here- [coudal.com]
  • How d'y find 10,000 artist without the net? Advertising? How much would such a project cost if you'd had all the extra paperwork to do.

    *Possible* does not mean *technically possible*, it actually means *feasible*, *commerically realistic*


    --

  • Bah. (Score:1)

    by Xzzy ( 111297 )
    http://tru7h.org [tru7h.org]

    You get to see your "art" immediatley, there. And my site's been up nearly a year now. ;)

    Course, my goals were also different..

  • "couldn't be done in the pre-Net era."
    I remember when I was five my grandma and I used to fold a paper up, I would draw a face on one of the little parts, then I would fold it away and leave some marks where the neck ended. She'd then draw the body fold it away and leave some marks where it ended. Finally my grandfather would draw the legs.

    Boy that was fun!
  • "something that couldn't have been done pre-net era?" - how about the Equisite Corpse of the Dada movement? how about the exact operation that's described in the article (each artist making their own tile) but in the absence of making it on computers. Above it's even called a 'mosaic' - where do you think the word came from, the MacPaint instruction manual? -shpoffo

  • huh? (Score:2)

    by bons ( 119581 )
    The main mosaic right now is being done blind, that is, none of the artists get to see what has been created in the adjacent squares... Neat stuff, a very nice example of something that couldn't be done in the pre-Net era."

    You mean like the Aids Quilt [aidsquilt.org]?

  • Free media and sharing... (Score:4)

    by Patoski ( 121455 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @05:05AM (#114934) Homepage Journal

    One of the major obstacles from more of this sort of thing going on is a lack of readily accessible free media sure there are a few oasis of public domain media [wfu.edu] and even fewer still examples of GPLed [gnuart.org] media [gnusic.net]. The fact remains though that there is no central repository for free media that artists can use to build on one another's works.

    My interest is mostly in media that can be used for free games but any media that can be shared amongst the artistic community is great in my eyes. At any rate here are some free media resources that I've found and their associated licenses. I hope this list helps other artists and people looking for free media to use for one purpose or another:

    Pixel Place [pixelplace.com] - Lots of public domain images mainly intended for web site use (but you could find other uses if you're a creative thinker)

    Ender Design [ender-design.com] - Public domain images mostly for web sites once again. High quality and very usable for UI graphics. The 'design sets' aren't public domain so be sure and read the license. I highly recommend this site.

    The Texture Library [forrest.cz] - Public domain mostly photorealistic textures intended to be used for games (OpenGL). Very nice!

    The Golgotha Project [crack.com] - High quality public domain music, textures and meshes! Perhaps the largest cache of freely available media in one place.

    Free Game Arts [planetquake.com] - High quality media (mostly 3d meshes [MDLs] and textures) with various free licenses. The license which each model/texture is covered by is clearly stated before the d/l so be sure to read!

    GNUArt [gnuart.com] - A site in french with GPLed media (mostly music).

    GNUsic [gnusic.net] - A site that features a CD written by artists who have GPLed their work.

    Linkware Graphics [linkwaregraphics.com] - License is called 'Linkware' which translates to free for non commercial use and no modifications allowed. Mostly music related images here. Again mainly for web sites but could be used for other purposes.

    Public Domain Images [pdimages.com] - Small amount of public domain images

    I am currently gathering sites with free media and sucking down their contents in preparation for WorldForge's free media repository.

    Perhaps all the /.ers know of free media resources which I failed to mention here? The free media repository will have media with all sorts of licenses so don't think we're after just one type of 'free' media. Perhaps others who know of good caches with free media could share them with us here? Thanks!

    -Jason

  • Yes, collaborative art has always been possible; as noted elsewhere, a variation of this idea was practiced enthusiatically by the dadaists in the 1920s and 30s; yes, there are also quite a few examples of collaborative art already on the Web...TOO MANY TO LIST [google.com], really...

    But my real interest in this is that "MAIL ARTISTS" [yahoo.com] have been creating similar works offline for decades, and online for virtually as long as the medium has been available to the general public. The very premise of mail art (for most participants) is that the process of exchange/collaborative creation is as important as the resulting objects.

    Me? I think that mail art should attempt to create event/objects (formed through an individual's encounter with an unanticipated situation or object). As a side note, the Web is still an excellent medium for creating THESE SORTS OF ENCOUNTERS [alienabductions.com], but not necessarily a qualitatively different medium. But nobody's really interested in my aesthetic theories... :)

    At any rate, you might take a look at the "Exquisite Squares" project, which sounds rather similar to the project under discussion: http://www.geocities.com/satpostman/index.html [geocities.com]

    * * *

  • Aha. This is why I can't get to tiles.ice.org today. I went to see if I had any new tiles showing, and well, for nearly twenty four hours I couldn't see anything. The point of the original poster (although worded badly) is not that quilts and collaborative art weren't available before the Net era....but that the Net era and technology make this kind of experience much quicker and easier to oversee. And it's not really that similar to the AIDS quilts, or to normal quilts. The only reason it's called a quilt is because the tiles are patched together from artwork by different individuals. Yet to keep the artwork flowing properly across the landscape of the piece as a whole, certain rules have been laid down. A) One person checks out a tile. They have twenty four hours to check it back in. B) They will see anywhere from 0 to 4 of the sides surrounding their tile, depending of course, on which tiles were finished already. C) While a tile is checked out, no tile adjacent to it can also be checked out. D) A tile will not show on the quilt until the tiles on the four adjacent sides are also checked in. (There is one experimental quilt going on where iCE is allowing all the tiles to be shown as soon as they are done. I don't like it as much. I like things being a surprise.) E) You will not be able to check out a tile adjacent to your tile. You may check out a tile kitty corner to your tile. F) You must blend and integrate what you can see from the other sides into your tile. You will have people vote on your finished tile as to how well your tile blends and integrates and makes the quilt interesting. Points are knocked off for bad blends, crappy technique, and for making difficulties for your neighbours. (ie....making all your edges the same colour) The voting is actually kinda like moderating a post. And it encourages the artist to try and be as creative as possible and maintain the quality of the quilt.
  • This may be neat (I can't tell since it's been Slashdotted), but I'll bet I know someone who beat them to it [sito.org].
  • It just means that their MySQL server is overloaded. MySQL blows.

    -jason m
  • On our university we could all send in our pictures that were then turned into a huge mosaic [gewis.nl] hanging in the main hall. No need for the Net at all!
  • Sito.org are the originators of this kind of art. They've been doing collaborative Net art since before the Web.

    Here's the project that most closely resembles this one, Gridcosm:
    http://www.sito.org/synergy/gridcosm/ [sito.org]

  • In case anyone is curious how this was done with pictures amongst the surrealists, they would simply fold a sheet of paper into (usually horizontal) quarters and then draw a portion of the final image each. Typically, each artist was allowed to see the portion preceeding their own so that the pieces could at least line up.

    There're some nice bits of this at the Chicago Art Institute.

  • Your gransfather was a leg man, heh?
  • As far as collaborative, web-based artwork, the Internet Movie Project [imp.org] has been going on for a while now. There is also the IRTC [irtc.org] Group Image Project [rr.com] which is a collaborative, web-based art endeavor.

    Of course, in both of these cases, the projects are not being done blindly; everybody who contributes has some idea of the bigger picture (pun may or may be intended; it's early yet).

  • Possible does not mean commercially realistic - it means possible - i.e. can be done at all.
  • *Possible* does not mean *technically possible*, it actually means *feasible*, *commerically realistic*

    Okay, if you get kicks from changing the meanings of words, go ahead and do it. Don't expect other people to bother reading what you say unless you adhere to the conventions they use.

    Tom.

  • Okay, it's pretty bloody useless, seeing as what we're interested in is the pictures, but here's a link to Google's cached verion of the page:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:cB8pYkd3tss:t iles.ice.org/+&hl=en [google.com]

    The dicussion forum at the end it interesting, but all the same, please come back to life, ice.org, I want to see the mosaic!!

    Tom.

  • Or postal mail and fax-based art, where artists mail and fax in artworks on a specific day. We did one of these in 1993 (and that was by no means early) with a specific time-period instead of a day, all based on copy/fax art. See copy art [xerox.com]. Or do a search on google: fax art [google.com] or mail art [google.com]
  • The error shown appears to be the result of not allowing the MySQL server to accept sufficient connections for its current load-- this is a problem with any server. If you allow infinite connections, the machine will crawl when the load goes up and none of the requests will work. Other than adding bandwidth and/or processing power, the usual solution is to not attract the entire Slashdot readership to your servers at once.

    In this case the HTTP server at least kept up longer than the MySQL server (as I type this the HTTP server is not responding either). The reason you probably see more MySQL error messages of that type is that MySQL seems to be used by everyone and their dog for "quick and easy" database backends for web pages (it has a reputation for being speedier since it doesn't support a lot of the more complex features that something like postgreSQL has). This everyone-and-their-dog user group appears to be less sophisticated when it comes to trapping errors. Good web design would have the server at tiles.ice.org spit out a static page for this that was a little more user-friendly and told us all a lot less about their internal server architecture.
  • Now, when I was young - like in the eighties, when computers cost a fortune and could hardly do much at all - we actually did ASCII art on typewriters. It's possible, but damn hard - one typo and there goes hours worth of typing.

    I wonder if I have some of those pics still laying around. Hm.

  • The Aids Quilt was even public and toured the country.

    Maybe he means that it's something that couldn't have been done over the net before the net. That would make sense. Not very useful sense, but sense nonetheless.

    Oh... and how is it more accesable? I haven't been able to get to the page yet....

  • ..That's exactly how tiles.ice.org runs. Artists see a ~15 pixel sliver of adjoining tiles, and make their artwork blend off that. And yes, there are quilts that are totally visible, and allow for selection and knowledge of the surrounding tiles.

    Ah - thanks for the info - I still couldn't get into the site at the time of writing. If my program makes interesting tiles, I may try to submit one...

  • Re:neat, but... (Score:4)

    by JWhitlock ( 201845 ) <John-Whitlock&ieee,org> on Monday July 02, 2001 @09:51AM (#114952)
    I think a more aesthetically rewarding project would be one in which each artist could only see the work of the neighboring tiles. Obviously not all of those neighboring tiles would be complete. This would be best performed in a fashion that would allow one to build an infinite pattern.

    Fo example, I propose starting the "quilt" at one corner and creating a potentially infinite quilt of diagonal shape, ordered in the following fashion, starting with tile 1, then tile 2, etc. (similar to the proof that the rational numbers are countable :)

    1 2 6 7 15 16
    3 5 8 14 17
    4 9 13 18 .
    10 12 19 .
    11 20 .
    21 23
    22

    The result would then be a quilt that _progresses_ across the middle as each tile has something in common with its neighbors. New ideas/designs would be more likely to appear on the edges where each new tile has fewer neighbors, whereas the bulk of similarity and progression would fall across the top-left to bottom-right diagonal.

    I like your idea. Your patern would be fairly interesting, and may even have artistic merit, depending on if the artists took it seriously.

    It may also be interesting to show only a thin portion of the neighbors (scaled for my 5x9 Font):

    ..NNNNNNNNN..
    ..NNNNNNNNN..
    WW.........EE
    WW.........EE
    WW.........EE
    WW.........EE
    WW.........EE
    ..SSSSSSSSS..
    ..SSSSSSSSS..

     There could be a requirement that your portion blend the edges together. Even the non-artistic may be able to contribute something interesting, and a program may even be able to contribute, or add "interesting" portions when the neighbors become boring. It may make for interesting wallpaper.

    Also, you could use simple space filling fractals, such as the http://ecademy.agnesscott.edu/~lriddle/ifs/carpet/ carpet.htm> Sierpinski Carpet [agnesscott.edu] to assign new nodes, since there are infinite subdivisions to a fractal.

    One final idea is to take a space filling fractal, and create the n+1 mosiac from the n mosiac. For instance, start with an image of Tux, divide it in 9, then have 9 artists create a new image, based on the edges of the other images. If the first image was divided like this:

    111111111222222222333333333
    111111111222222222333333333
    111111111222222222333333333
    111111111222222222333333333
    111111111222222222333333333
    444444444555555555666666666
    444444444555555555666666666
    444444444555555555666666666
    444444444555555555666666666
    444444444555555555666666666
    777777777888888888999999999
    777777777888888888999999999
    777777777888888888999999999
    777777777888888888999999999
    777777777888888888999999999

    , then artist #1 would get a seed that looks like this:

    97777777778
    3.........2
    3.........2
    3.........2
    3.........2
    3.........2
    64444444445
    , where I've wrapped around the edges so that the artist gets 4 sides. In other words, the artist replaces his tile, without knowing what the other artist will replace their tiles with.

    Once the first iteration is done, the image would be divided 9x9=81 times, and farmed out to 81 artists. This keeps going as long as you want. It would be interesting to see what Tux (or whatever seed image you used) would look like after a few iterations.

    Damn - I have real work to do, but I now want to go create a program to do something like this. I also have a suspicion it will devolve into the JPEG encryption algorithm...

  • Ascii art was also really hard to do before computers came along. Not impossible, just really hard.
  • Don't tell me this has been slashdotted already?!
  • Great.. so we end up with a huge grid of completely different and unrelated pieces of small digital artwork with no discernable (or even intentional) pattern. A good question would be: Why would someone waste their time working on that?

    A better question would be: Why would someone waste their time looking at the finished product? Blech.
  • because your skinny-assed servers were slashdotted?

    and now that I've had a chance to actually look at the site, yes, I can see your point. Using alpha blending and gradients to combine completely unrelated subject matter and art styles really does constitute artwork... come on, who are you trying to kid?
  • I did look at your site.. It looks like something that fell off the ugly truck on the way back from community art college.
  • That's a fair point, in that the true success of any free collaborative project - including open source software - will be dependent on the creators being happy comfortable and well fed! I guess I am interested in a GNU public domain art for what I imagine are the same reasons 'Zen' style coders like open source. It frees you to go beyond the limitations of your own energy, spare time and need to earn a living. Most good artists are working on a specific idea, not really a single isolated work. If an artist was able to collaborate or manage a complex project by firstly, sketching out the aims and parameters of the artwork, and secondly, then managing the input of many other informed artists: then perhaps truly complex or refined works could eventuate. I don't think this is an easy goal though. Most artists are reclusive or egotistical which might be one reason many open source projects are technically excellent but primitive in their GUI.
  • I have only just now been able to view the un-slashdotted site, and have to say the results so far are not really what collaborative art can be. I suspect this is because of the fact that the artists were not really collaborating in terms of them communicating. I am interested in the group's aspirations however, because true collaborative net art is an idea that has been bugging me for many months; can art, as in visual or creative 'fine' art be truly collaborative in the GPL sense? That is, can a GNU/GPL style license apply to fine art creative projects which encourage collaboration between artists and not egotistical competition (and yes, I have been following closely the is-code-is-art arguments but disagree with the YES orthodoxy that prevails here). I am an artist, not a programmer, yet am very attracted to open source (eg am mucking around with php-nuke etc) partly because I think most artists, musicians and the like have been stuck in the rut of believing Copyright and patronage are the only way to further their only true interest. That is, to get on with the artistic process and to communicate 'beauty' or 'difficult ideas'.

    To give a concrete example of what I mean, is it practical/'legal' to start a project where, say, everyone is REQUIRED to submit their photographs or compositions under a open source GNU type license? I hate the professional monopoly that lawyers have over our society as much as anyone, and I can see how it has got even artists hoodwinked into believing that such things as Copyright is an unquestionable Right. I personally would like to see the fine arts break out of this legalistic mould - the 'it was created by me, its mine' - and concentrate on the process of communicating with other artists in a collaborative art project that spans decades such as Linux. Can the fine arts truly do open source?
  • Neat stuff, a very nice example of something that couldn't be done in the pre-Net era.

    Umm... ever heard of the AIDs quilt [aidsquilt.org]?

  • As an artist I start an image in multiple manners.

    I start with a key object which is then the center of the scene. Or I have a theme with multiple key objects which then define the scene. Or I choose a direction of flow which then moves the scene to a direction of focal point. Or I tell a story by setting up actions in which the viewer can assume the reactions and impending events.

    These collaborative pieces resemble more of a surreal composition. Looking at my examples, one could first decide a theme, then assign artists to particular objects in the scene and background areas. This would allow a more appealing composition (not that surreal art is bad). I just note this so that work broader than tiling collaborations can be made.
  • This couldn't happen nationwide in the pre-Net era as well as today, but in a way it already has.

    At my old high school [southavenhighschool.com], the English teacher for the gifted program would allow each graduating senior to paint one cinder block on her wall (of course, they had to be approved; I ended up settling for this one [mayotech.com]). We guessed that she would retire as soon as the entire wall filled up, but she just did this last year. She left strict instructions for the next teacher to carry the tradition on (it's been there for 20 or so years, and she always has major headaches when the other walls are being repainted), so everyone is pleased about that). Anyway, sorry to be so off-topic, but that's a tender memory to me.

  • Exactly how is it that a group could not send out 10,000 squares of paper, with a unique number on the back, related to it's position, and ask artists to create a piece of art on the front of the paper, and mail it back to them.

    Then these 10,000 pieces are assembled into a 100x100 grid of artwork using the predefined positioning system.

    Stop Babbling.
    -------------- Russ
    Conscience? Is that *still* in the dictionary?
  • All I see is the error message listed below!!!

    I wouldn't bother to post this as its useless to the discussion of the article, but I figured people always post (and snicker) when an IIS site displays the equivilent of this, so I might as well put this troll/flamebait up.

    Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't create a new thread (errno 11). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug in /var/www/lib/auth.php on line 4

    Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /var/www/lib/auth.php on line 5

    Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't create a new thread (errno 11). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug in /var/www/html/web_quilt/index.php on line 9

    Warning: MySQL: A link to the server could not be established in /var/www/html/web_quilt/index.php on line 9

    Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /var/www/html/web_quilt/index.php on line 9

    Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't create a new thread (errno 11). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug in /var/www/html/web_quilt/index.php on line 14

    Warning: MySQL: A link to the server could not be established in /var/www/html/web_quilt/index.php on line 14

    Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /var/www/lib/auth.php:4) in /var/www/html/web_quilt/index.php on line 47

  • ..That's exactly how tiles.ice.org runs. Artists see a ~15 pixel sliver of adjoining tiles, and make their artwork blend off that. And yes, there are quilts that are totally visible, and allow for selection and knowledge of the surrounding tiles.
  • [..one may ponder as to why you'd post without actually looking at the site] In actualy fact, the user can see a small sliver of the adjoining tiles, and uses these as the basis for their art. So in actual fact, you've got a huge grid of completely blended peices of digital art with discernable and intentional pattern.
  • ..Just to clear up a thing or two.. Tiles is public, so please, if you're artistically inclined, join in on the mayhem. The posting was a little ambiguos / incorrect in reference to artists 'not seeing surrounding art'. In fact, artists do view the surrounding art, but only a small sliver [~15 pixels] and use this as a basis for their 'tile'. ..so come over, and sign out a tile!
  • We're not trying to kid anyone. Perchance if you spent a little longer browsing the site, you might see that yes, it is a little more advanced than alpha blending [ which doesn't come into it incidently ] and gradients [ which are seldom used ]. And, just incidently, just one moment spent looking at a quilt such as http://tiles.ice.org/index_surreal.php?quilt_id=14 will show you that infact they are related. oops.

  • . . . a very nice example of something that couldn't be done in the pre-Net era.

    Rubbish! Another grandiose, impressive-sounding statement with no thought at all behind it. There's certainly no technical reason why the 'net is needed to do this.

    One example of how this has been done before is a family quilt that my family (large and spread across several continents) arranged some years ago. Everyone interested was sent a square of fabric and a vague colour scheme (must include green and white). Everyone was instructed to create one square in any pattern, design, or style that they wanted. The completed squares would be sent back and put together to form a family quilt. Same idea.

    A much larger scale but similar idea is the AIDS quilt that thousands of people have contributed to, often without seeing the quilt beforehand.

    These wide, sweeping statements sound all very impressive, but they just end up making those who say them look silly when it's obvious there's been no thought at all behind them...

  • I agree 100%. The surrealist and dadas were doing this 70 or 80 years ago.
  • But hey, Death started it:

    www.aidsquilt.org [aidsquilt.org]

    --Blair
  • I believe this interests some people. me, for example, sure the "industry" might not be able to "use" it, but art has no "use" per se, it's just a nice thing to have, one of those things that seperates us from the animals.

  • forgetting art history again... (Score:3)

    by carpart ( 307280 ) on Monday July 02, 2001 @05:07AM (#114973)
    "a very nice example of something that couldn't be done in the pre-Net era"

    The surrealist art movement popularized this method of art creation. They first did it with words, and named the game after the first sentence they created... "the exquisite corpse" was born. they then went on to adapt the same technique to be used with pictures instead of words.

    The internet makes the possibilities much greater, and facilitates it's creation.
  • Actually, I just saw something on TV the other day (TLC, Discovery, Fox?) about a guy well before the creation of computers, who used to create incredibly intricate ASCII art using only a keyboard. Needless to say, one mistake and the whole thing was ruined. Anyone have some handy URL's? This guy's work was downright amazing!

  • There's a parlor game from the beginning of the century (you know, where people had to meet in meatspace in order to have fun) where each person would write down a part of a story, fold the paper over, and pass it along.

    I can't wait to read the /. article about on-line Mad-Libs:

    "The process, using forms to query the user for parts of speech, uses PHP to insert the variables into a narrative. This provides for hilarious non-sequiters not possible in the pre-net era. Phrases such as "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" are common.

    Hmm.... Maybe slashdot IS one giant Mad-Lib. There seems to be a lot of references to Penguins (which, along with Nuns, were my favorite "plural nouns").

  • >On our university we could all send in our pictures that were then turned into a huge mosaic hanging in the main hall

    Hehe cool, when I read this, I thought, hey I've just seen a thing just like it! Then looking at the link, it turned out to BE the thing I just saw.

    This one is REALLY cool to look at (particularly since you can see it from all the way across the building.)

    Eindhoven de gekste!


    -------------------------------------

  • "Web-Based Collaborative Artwork" definitely couldnt be done in the pre-Net era, (unless u're talking of Spiders and stuff..

    But "Collaborative ArtWork" - definitely possible..

    and u didnt get slashdotted for that..

  • Can someone put this up on a mirror, it seems as if they couldn't tile together a fast enough server/isp, then again they probably weren't expecting the slashdot effect.
  • . . . a very nice example of something that couldn't be done in the pre-Net era.

    A very noble thing to say, but actually, it could be done beofre the pre-net era. What could be done, is a group of people who want to participate are given the task to do one of the tiles for the mosaic, and then submit them, and they have each tile randomly assigned a number, after which they would be put in the mosaic in that order. It would not be nearly as cool as this one, but it would still be feasiable.
    ---

  • I know. I thought the same thing. Kinda looks like their MySQL server was shut off completely (although, it betters my argument that the two machines should always be one for small servers).

  • Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /var/www/lib/auth.php on line 4

    Anyone have a mirror? -- Azaroth

  • and surrealists have been doing them since the 20s.

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