The Biggest Art Collab On The Internet in History (A Sociology Study)

Today we will talk about Sociology: The Biggest Art Collab On The Internet in History! 

So here's the question: What Will Happen If Network Users Are Given Freedom Of Actions And A Little Bit Of Free Space?

Basically, a creative collaborative project in the form of pixel art on Reddit started on April Fool's Day 2017. It was a social experiment launched in the form of a subreddit called "place" or r/place. 

They invited internet users to draw on a blank online canvas by choosing pixels and changing their color. Each Reddit user can choose a color from the color palette and mark a pixel dot on the canvas. Each year, the color palette availability changed. Each user had to wait for a cooldown ranging from 5 to 20 minutes before they could mark another pixel.

🟡 Watch the video here:

https://youtu.be/dYMk-cq1cXc?si=1fZlWg8tN-EzZSEa

While it might sound complicated, it led to a group of Redditors, or so-called 'creators,' banding together to create intricate drawings. It became a big art war to successfully get a space on the canvas. Meanwhile, other groups painted different parts of the blank canvas with the same color. 

So-called 'guardians' also sprang up who saw it as their role to 'protect' the canvas from any destructive misconduct. A lot of Reddit groups formed a Discord group and planned the design or drawing they would try to create on the blank internet canvas.

At the start of the 72-hour-long project, the 'creators' or Redditors let their creativity and imagination loose to create complex drawings. All with the help of the 'guardians' who protected their artistic endeavors. 

The 'guardians' started to pick and choose which drawings to protect and which ones to leave open to the destructive forces of chaos. Eventually, this led to infighting. Some Redditors began painting random pixels black and wreaking havoc where they could. However, just like a forest fire, this opened up the space for new drawings and creations.

It was ended by Reddit administrators about 72 hours after its creation, on April 3, 2017. Over a million users edited the canvas, placing a total of approximately 16 million pixels, and, at the time the experiment was over, over 90,000 users were actively viewing or editing the canvas. 

The experiment was commended for its representation of the culture of Reddit's online communities and of Internet culture as a whole.

The final formed creations are achieved and identified one by one by the use of mapping, in which there is a separate site called the r/place Atlas. In which the artworks are mapped, and identified, and all information about this big social experiment is documented.

Reddit relaunched the r/place art collaborative project on July 20, 2023, under the tagline "Right Place, Wrong Time", amid several unpopular decisions made by the company that had soured Reddit users, including one that led to the API controversy that affected Reddit's third-party apps. 

During the final hours, users were limited to placing grayscale-colored tiles. Users coordinated to spell out "FUCK SPEZ!" in giant white letters in the center of the board as part of the protest.

It all started back in 2017, and then it happened again in 2022 and 2023. Would it happen again in the future? Well, we never know. This is a historical event in art history where people of all social statuses can freely participate on a freedom wall. Now, how cool is that?

🟡Artworks:

🟡 r/Place Internet Art Collab 2017

🟡 r/Place Internet Art Collab 2022

🟡 r/Place Internet Art Collab 2023

About the Author

Arabella Eloise Sveinsdóttir, a.k.a. Arabella Elric from Reykjavík is a visual artist, actress, writer, model, content creator, voice actress, and vlogger of Íslendingar-Mongolian heritage and Filipino nationality. She is an active volunteer for different organizations and humanitarian groups, and an advocate for mental health.

🩰 Visual & Performing Artist 🟡

Email: arabellaelricart@gmail.com | https://linktr.ee/arabellaelric