Art by Everyone

What is art by everyone?

Art by everyone is a generative art project that relies on mass user participation and spamming, in short, elements of the web 2.0 'revolution' coupled with the characteristics of digital art.

There are 5 steps to the final process, they are:

1. An image is selected and then chopped into a grid. Each part of the image is an 'art fraction'.
2. An art fraction is sent to people whove have signed up there email.
3. Those users participate by digitally recreating their 'art fraction'. (eg in Paint or Photoshop or Illustrator)
4. Then the user uploads there redesigned fraction.
5. All of the completed fractions are put back together to create an new digitally generative version of the original.

Below is the development I went through to get to these steps. On the right are the final images produced in this produced by the process (please note I had no control over the final outcome).

The prototype

A prototype was first created to see the variance of possibility in the final image and to see how difficult the process was and to determine the most efficient way of creating a portfolio of generative 'everyone' images. This image was selected for the prototype:

The image, in photoshop, was cropped into sixteen fractions and sent to sixteen people on my MSN list. Each person was only given the fraction and the instructions to digitally recreate it through any means. There was a high variance in the styles applied; the two most common were photoshop filters and MS paint layering. There was also vectorizing, live tracing, complete repaints and lighting improvements. This image was chosen because it has both high detailed areas and low detailed bland areas. Some of the blander fractions were not returned and were left as there original, this meant that the later images would need to be higher in detail.

Too Human

The system of creating the final image at this point was not perfected due to two reasons. Even though the process was done on a computer it was still human, I chopped up the image, sent it out, collected it and put it back together. The only human part of the process should have been the participants who redrew each fraction. So the whole system need to become automated. Also I knew the sorts of style that each participant would use, and in-turn I could control to a degree what that final art piece would look like. The next step was to create a website to automate the above process.

Automating the process

The website has two forms on the home page; an enter email form and an upload 'art fraction'. The home-page also contains a description of how the projects works, the description is as simple as possible, it uses and easy to understand flow diagram. Once someone enters there email it is added to a database. Then when I upload my image the php GD library cuts it into my specified number of fractions and randomly sends it to a participant on the emails list. If one of the emails is selected it is weighted so it is less likely to be chosen again. The participant receives the art fraction attached to and email with basic instructions, any suggestion toward what they would redesign the fraction with could alter the outcome of the project. Once (or if) the participant has redesigned their fraction they can come back and upload it on the home-page and that updates the database with their part. Anyone can view any of the picture from the artbyeveryone home-page.

This is digital art

This projects is not digital art simply because its images in a digital format, it is digital art because of the process. There is a distinct input, process and output. The input in this is the original image, it could be argued that this is too much control over the input. However most generative pieces have some variables at the input stage. Selecting an image is the same as at the start of Langston's ant when you pick the speed and the land size. There is a clear process; the action of the participants. And a clear output; the final image.

It also brings up the argument of wether the artist is an artist or just a facilitator of art. Once the system is in place the artist is almost unnecessary, all I need to do is upload a picture and let it run. However I see the participants as artists tools or methods in programming. This project also takes advantage of the crowd-sourcing nature of the web. By tapping into resources of large amounts of people to create something one couldn't.