BUZZ NEWS

Art 2.0 – When Web 2.0 Inspires Artists

Posted on August 11, 2007
Gérald Julia

Not only geeks are fascinated by web 2.0. Numerous art performances, be they called art or not, have found their inspiration in the spirit of web 2.0 and collaborative works of art of a totally new kind have been created. We present you with a selection of projects that, although initiated by an artist, have in common that they need participation before they can be completed. The organiser makes the artwork possible and coordinates the different contributions, but he or she cedes absolute control over the work itself and lets the public take it over.

MySpace Invasion
The artist Space Invader, known for his mosaics which he puts onto house walls in cities , now invades MySpace. The principle: you add the profile Myspace Invader to your friends and place it among the top 8. Then you are invaded. Nearly 8000 profiles are participating at the moment.

Bio mapping
The artist Christian Nold has developed the concept of bio mapping. The principle: While taking a walk you are wired up to a device (a kind of lie detector) which is linked to a GPS and registers your Galvanic Skin Response, an indicator of your emotional arousal in conjunction with the geographical location. Combining these two devices makes it possible to identify the places that touch us emotionally and those that do not, and thus to create an emotional chart. Here an example from Greenwich and one from San Francisco.

One Thousand Paintings
Onethousandpaintings is a series of paintings by Zürich artist Sala and they represent the numbers from 1 to 1000. Each painting is unique and its price is calculated by taking the difference between 1000 and the number it represents and adding a premium according to how many pictures have been sold already. Like most ideas, this one has already been copied: Do you have a minute? exploits the same concept but with the 1440 minutes of the day.

Wall of the world
This project, which wants to become the 8th wonder of the world, is a 26 km long wall in Latvia onto which the names of one percent of the world’s population (i.e. 65 million names) will be engraved. If you want your name to be on the list, click here .

Favcol
Favcol shows the average colour of FlickR by calculating the average colour of each photo tagged favcol. To participate just add “favcol” to the list of a photo’s tags and it will be taken into account.

Deleted Images
Deleted Images or the junkyard of art offers you to share the photos you would otherwise have deleted. A different view on photography… after all, the lomographic movement originated that way.

Google will eat itself
This project acts on the assumption that as, firstly, Google is listed on the stock market, it is technically (with lots of money) possible to become its proprietor. Secondly, on Google you can earn money via AdSense. The idea is simple: Google is to be taken over by using money earned via Google’s own sponsored links programme to at once invest into Google stocks, which would make Google eat itself. The aim is to completely own Google via the revenues created by Google itself. If this is to happen at today’s pace it will take 200 million years to do it.

Web2DNA
Web2DNA offers to display your blog’s or website’s DNA. Here the DNA of Culture-Buzz.

Museum of Modern Betas
The MoMB is a blog-museum that lists all beta version websites and shows a screenshot. The idea reminds of the club Terminus by TechCrunch which lists websites that are no longer in operation.

Bank of International Artmoney
The BIAM wants to bring some art into financial transactions. The principle: Once you have registered with BIAM you can create notes. These must be original works of art and measure 12x18 cms. Each note is worth 27 Euros with its value increasing by 5 Euros annually during the first seven years. It can be used to pay other BIAM members or anyone who accepts it (all explanations here).

Also to be named is the The Million Dollar Homepage, a performance of its own kind which owes its success to internet users’ participation. As does PostSecret which weekly publishes the secrets internet users send in by postcard.

Finally, as a last example of initiatives crossing art and web 2.0, there is the excellent blog Buzzeum which lists alternative marketing actions conducted by museums worldwide. The blog is edited by the author of the blog Du marketing plein les doigts. There is also a Google Maps mashup by Artscape of expositions in Paris, also available as widgets.