Virtual World Art Breaks Real World Record

In yet another example of how online social communities are impacting our offline world, a social networking website last week announced the breaking of a decidedly real-world record. Without a paint brush in sight, the largest piece of collaborative art has been assembled beneath the art critics noses, using nothing more than the humble computer mouse and the creativity of over 25,000 willing doodlers.

In the dim and not so distant past, such a feat would have presented huge logistical challenges. The previous world record for the largest number of contributors to a single painting was set in the state of Texas, USA where a steady line of budding artists added their own blob of paint to a canvas during a period spanning 3 years and seven months. The final image, tangible as it was, was essentially nothing more than a giant paint numbers, designed and lorded over by artist Jim Campbell.

Cue the internet revolution, birth of social networking and another artist with grand plans. This time round however the discernibly more left wing project architect, Paul Fisher, is less inclined to get his (or his participant’s) hand’s dirty. In laying out a vast digital canvas and some structured democratic rules, his Million Masterpiece (millionmasterpiece.com) has taken on a life of its own, breaking the record set by Jim Cambell’s monolith and creating something with almost infinite interpretations.

The work is an evolving triumph of modern communication technology. Whereas in pre-internet times the scale of collaborative art invariably came at the expense of detail and meaning, a framework now exists in which scale and meaning can increase exponentially in parallel. In the case of the Fisher’s Masterpiece, each tiny section of the expanding nebulous artwork is a miniature hand drawn image, which in turn is actually an ever changing movie that has captured a moment in time when someone, somewhere, expressed themselves creatively. This collaboration is telling us a story about its people, both on an individual level and as a collective.

The potential for this kind of collaborative artwork has been spotted by others. The infinitely layered graffiti wall we know as Drawball (drawball.com), and Markus Weichselbaum’s brilliant global mosaic theBroth (thebroth.com) both explore the concept of mass participation in single artistic projects that become more complex and meaningful over time.

As an art lover it is thrilling to feel moved by the work of hugely talented artists and thinkers. It is equally thrilling to become an equal shareholder in a piece of collaborative artwork, where the not-so-talented can stand together to produce something of real meaning. I look forward to the day that the artistic establishment learn to applaud these collaborative masterpieces on a par with the work of single individuals. It’s time to celebrate the art of the people, user generated creativity is here to stay.