Collaborative art
Jul 24th, 2010 by roncin
So how does that^ turn into this…?
I fancy myself an amateur graphic designer. I’ve never taken a formal class nor received training from a professional artist. It’s a fun hobby, and occasionally useful for school/work projects. One of the reasons I ventured into this craft was the potential to collaborate with other artists, to learn and be inspired from their work, and to showcase myself in an open and social manner. After a few years honing my skills, I found that there was only so much I could create with my own hands and mind – instead, I found collaborative murals!
Images, like the one posted above, are created when one artist (Mr.A) teams up with a second artist (Mrs.B) and perhaps a few others (C,D,Etc) to work together. One person gets the ball rolling, usually with something simple and easy to manipulate. He then send the editable Photoshop PDF file to the second collaborator through email or instant message. The second artist can take that image and build upon it, often removing elements or adding their own personal style. It’s then passed on (or back to the original artist in the case of ‘photoshop tennis’), for the next artist to play with. The results are usually visually appealing, and always unpredictable! Most often, these murals/battles/tennis matches are set up on online discussion boards devoted to graphic design (I would give examples, but all the ones I used to frequent have vanished from the web), and the process can sometimes take upwards of a year, depending on the skill and devotion of the artists involved. The main constraint of these graphic design feats is often the limitation of our computer screens to display the art. I’ve seen murals that stretch horizontally for well over 10,000 pixels, making it hard to appreciate the work as a whole.
Another example of collaborative art is shown on Flickr, where a group named Photoshop Tennis has emerged. The idea is similar to that mentioned above, but the size of the image usually doesn’t grow – instead the content of the image will change (sometimes subtlely and sometimes radically) with each participants efforts. In those situations, comedy is often emphasised over artistic merit.
Of course, analog art (not sure what else to call it!) is also greatly benefitted by collaboration. Whether graffiti or authorized artwork, many of the neatest eye candy has been designed by team – not individual. Here’s an example of just a few minds working with a blank wall and felt pens. Another idea that can work with large groups of artists (or students), is to give each person a small role in a larger picture, and when the pieces are assembled the mural really comes to life (see example).
While the web really gave new life to collaborative art, there has always been a desire among artists to work together. ‘Mail art’ was a practice where artists would send each other their contributions through the postal system. Email and the advent of PDF files really took this to a new level.
And if anyone is interested, here’s the link to my photostream on Flickr. I’ve only uploaded a few of my oldest pieces that I found kicking around on my harddrive – but hopefully they’re good for a few kicks!
You’re reminding me of one of the coolest (but not very well known) forms of collaborative art known as “mail art” where the mail is the medium and artist send the piece via the mail where each participant adds something to the art piece before sending it onward to the next participant. Wikipedia has an article on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_art