| About 20 years ago I undertook an art
project with the aim of involving non-artists in the making of a
collective work of art. I created a large canvas with lines drawn
to divide it into squares exactly 9 inches by 9 inches. Then, I
encouraged, bribed, harrassed and begged friends, relatives, co-workers
and acquaintances to give me something that would fit inside a 9" by 9"
square to become a part of the larger work of art. Many of the people I approached were reluctant. Like most non-artists, they felt insecure about their artistic ability and insisted they wouldn't know where to begin to find something to contribute. Some took more encouragement than others to follow through with their committment to help. However, in the end, the results were quite surprising. Items contributed to the work included a diverse group of selections including a poem inked on denim, a piece of a decades-old humorous T-shirt saved as a remembrance of a departed parent, a selection of cicada wings dyed bright colors and mounted under plexiglass, rubbings from Buddy Holly's cemetery marker, a beloved grandfather's eyeglasses, a piece of handmade embroidery and many other things that stretched the definition of art in challenging ways. The work was entitled "9 by 9" as a reference to the size of the contributed works. I recently learned of the existence of an internet phenomenon called "pixel advertising". The idea is that a single web page is divided into a tight grid, measured in pixels, and advertisers can purchase space on the page for a relatively small cost. One such pixel advertising page bills itself as the Million Dollar Home Page and its creator has supposedly become wealthy by selling one million pixels of advertising space for $1 each. As I looked at the Million Dollar Home Page, the mosaic-like visual image reminded me a lot of the "9 by 9" project, which was displayed on one of my living room walls for several years. The two were similar in that the viewer initially sees a large work with a pattern of square colors and shapes, and then upon closer inspection, discovers that there are hundreds of smaller images that each have their own integrity as a stand-alone image. I started examining how we look at web pages and how, with very few exceptions, we don't really view them as "art" themselves, even if they contain art or are about art. For the most part artists have yet to really use the internet as a tool to create art. Not that lots of artists don't have online galleries of their work. But very few actually use the internet as a medium to create art or to deliver it. I considered how installation artists work. Most of them create a work that can only be seen in one physical location, which is often a museum or gallery. And, in most cases, the work they create is temporary in nature and only available to experience for as long as it remains where it has been "installed". Could the internet be viewed as a legitimate location for the installation of an artwork that would be visible nowhere else? With this in mind, I began to think about creating another work similar to "9 by 9", except this time as an online installation where it could be viewed by anyone with access to the internet. Where my "9 by 9" work, created in the early 1980's, was never seen by more than a few dozen people at the most, this new work would have an unlimited potential number of viewers. And, it could be unlimited in size, unlike the original work, which contained only a limited number of 9" by 9" squares. This new work is entitled "50 by 50" because the size of the images you see in the collective work is exactly 50 pixels by 50 pixels. As the work grows, white space visible on the page will disappear and the smaller images will meld into a single mosaic of images. Each of the images you see here has been contributed by a different artist, and the artists come from all parts of the world. Like my experiences with the non-artists in the 1980's, I find that many of those who are contributing to "50 by 50" don't really see the collective image the way I do--as a new image made up of lots of small images. They see it as we have grown accustomed to seeing web pages full of tiny images--as a gallery. Others absolutely see that their work has become part of a larger mosaic which exists independent of the individual works that make it up. Perhaps because of the prevalence of galleries of images on the internet it may be more difficult to convince the viewer to see the collective mosaic as a single work. It might be easier to convince them if all of the images were affixed to a single canvas hanging on a wall, as they were in the original "9 by 9" project. The "50 by 50" project remains unfinished and in a state of flux because work from new artists is added regularly, changing the size, shape and complexion of the collective work. Mark Cotton, 2006 |
| Unlike the first work, this one does
not have as its primary goal the involvement of non-artists.
However,
any person, artist or non-artist may submit work to become part of the
project. |