Project
PLAZA 2, 12, 24, 36, ∞
Communal Gardens
2021—2022
Communal Gardens
2021—2022
Insight (Abstract)
There are few examples of low-risk communal creativity in the digital space, and those that exist are often more social than creative. It’s possible that Western art history has emphasized individual expression, as well as the pressing need for individual brilliance both economically and professionally. Gaming platforms like Minecraft and Animal Crossing, however, are territories where communal creation has shown surprising promise due to its decoupling from “serious” art. This is unfortunate, as ancient and indigenous art traditions were often natively communal, from medieval guilds, to the muralist movements in early 20th century Mexico to the Gee Bend Quiltmakers of Alabama. VSCO’s insights have shown that there is an appetite for real communcal creative activation. For over a decade, VSCO has engaged the community with in-real-life activities like photowalks, lectures and workshops all around the world, and qualitative and subsequent quantitative data has given signal for such an appetite.
Provocation
What might traditional human communal activations look within a digital space that de-risks the challenges of vanity metrics, social pressure, individualism?
Source Material
Learning Gardens
![Parc Güell, Barcelona]()
Two early power users of the associative research platform Are.na had theorized a concept of learning gardens - a grassroots effort to build on top of Ar.na a space of “inclusion, learning, and experimentation.” Their usage of the term “garden” appropriately invites the question of the function and role of the garden, from antiquity to modernity. Gardens are contested spaces - man vs. nature, public vs. private, royal vs. common, and so on. They are designed Parc Güell in Barcelona to micro gardens in a private residence. What kinds of gardens can exist in digital space?
r/place
In 2017, Reddit offered an idea as an April Fool’s Day joke called r/place- a single blank canvas that was open to the public, with no central authority governing creation and any user could place a colored pixel every 5-20 minutes. The project quickly became a viral sensation, with subcommunities forming to “occupy” slabs of real estate on the canvas. Over the 72 hours of the project, it became a digital palimpsest, full of cooperation, territorial battles, artistic expression and, of course, vandalism - all overwriting each other a la Walter Benjamin’s notion of the destructive character. Ultimately, it was like a garden gone wild but if offered insights into online cooperation, coordination and conflict resolution. The experiment demonstrated how decentralized communities could create coherent, meaningful work — a digital parallel to community gardens in physical space.
r/place
In 2017, Reddit offered an idea as an April Fool’s Day joke called r/place- a single blank canvas that was open to the public, with no central authority governing creation and any user could place a colored pixel every 5-20 minutes. The project quickly became a viral sensation, with subcommunities forming to “occupy” slabs of real estate on the canvas. Over the 72 hours of the project, it became a digital palimpsest, full of cooperation, territorial battles, artistic expression and, of course, vandalism - all overwriting each other a la Walter Benjamin’s notion of the destructive character. Ultimately, it was like a garden gone wild but if offered insights into online cooperation, coordination and conflict resolution. The experiment demonstrated how decentralized communities could create coherent, meaningful work — a digital parallel to community gardens in physical space.
Concepts and Sketches
No. 2 — Penpals
Prior to instant messaging services, and even with the ubiquity of voice phone calls, meaningful correspondences were often sent via postcard or letters. A particular phenomena emerged in the mid 20th century among students of writing such correspondences to a pen friend, or pen pal. An intrinsic feature of the medium was time: the speed of writing, sending, and waiting for receipt was on the scale of days and weeks, not microseconds. This allowed for more considered composition as well as greater anticipation. Writing your pen pal was a decidedly asynchronous task. While instant messaging is likewise asynchronous, the transmission speed is such that it functions more like a phone call in most use cases.
Penpals is a 1-to-1 (or 2 person) correspondence conducted solely with image, audio or video. Two people agree to become pen friends and can send one media at a time, before waiting for a response. It is a serial communication channel, akin to sending a postcard, and waiting for one back. The person must wait until they can send another. Once the session is over, the two can elect to save a transcript or discard it. This decision must be unanimous.
In the example below, one person shares their breakfast beverage of choice, and in response, the other shares an image of how they feel when they drink said beverage.
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Nos. 12, 24, 36 — Film Sessions
Analog photographic film is typically offered in 24 and 36 exposures for 35mm film stock, and normally 12 or 16 exposures for 120 medium format film depending on the frame size. Larger format films are typically shot per sheet. Prior to the digital cameras, not only were exposures limited, but they was the inherent time delay of waiting for film development and printing. Additionally, photos were taken without any way of previewing them in-camera, which has made the image much more disposable in the present age. Even “disposable” cameras of yesteryear still followed the same constraints.
Film sessions are time and exposure limited group sessions that ask a small group to contribute to an idea. Anyone can start a session and determine if it is to be a 12, 24, or 36 exposure roll. Exposures can be any kind of media the device is capable of capturing - a recording, video, photo, etc.. Once the number of exposures are reached, the session is over. Upon completion, in the spirit of photo printing, the group is given the option to choose the format of the final artifact, offering an infinite number of formats - from a zine, to a map, to a stitched together film.
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∞ — Worlding, or Chain Lettering
Chain letters are absurd streams of consciousness that any number of friends and strangers can participate in. Joining a chain letter means you will be invited to different chains to add your take on the thread. When it’s your turn, it’s your turn, make it fun!
In the example below, the chain originator begins the thread with a picture of oranges:
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For the series I Got Up (1968–79), Kawara sent two postcards every day to friends, family members, collectors, and colleagues. On each postcard, he stamped the date, his name, his current address, the name and address of the recipient, and the phrase I GOT UP AT (always in English and capital letters) followed by the time he rose from bed. Tourist picture postcards were always used, and the text was aligned in a similar way each time. Only the language and format of the date, the address, and the postage stamp changed, according to where he was at the time.
https://www.guggenheim.org/teaching-materials/on-kawara-silence/postcards-i-got-up
Prior to instant messaging services, and even with the ubiquity of voice phone calls, meaningful correspondences were often sent via postcard or letters. A particular phenomena emerged in the mid 20th century among students of writing such correspondences to a pen friend, or pen pal. An intrinsic feature of the medium was time: the speed of writing, sending, and waiting for receipt was on the scale of days and weeks, not microseconds. This allowed for more considered composition as well as greater anticipation. Writing your pen pal was a decidedly asynchronous task. While instant messaging is likewise asynchronous, the transmission speed is such that it functions more like a phone call in most use cases.
Penpals is a 1-to-1 (or 2 person) correspondence conducted solely with image, audio or video. Two people agree to become pen friends and can send one media at a time, before waiting for a response. It is a serial communication channel, akin to sending a postcard, and waiting for one back. The person must wait until they can send another. Once the session is over, the two can elect to save a transcript or discard it. This decision must be unanimous.
In the example below, one person shares their breakfast beverage of choice, and in response, the other shares an image of how they feel when they drink said beverage.
Nos. 12, 24, 36 — Film Sessions
Analog photographic film is typically offered in 24 and 36 exposures for 35mm film stock, and normally 12 or 16 exposures for 120 medium format film depending on the frame size. Larger format films are typically shot per sheet. Prior to the digital cameras, not only were exposures limited, but they was the inherent time delay of waiting for film development and printing. Additionally, photos were taken without any way of previewing them in-camera, which has made the image much more disposable in the present age. Even “disposable” cameras of yesteryear still followed the same constraints.
Film sessions are time and exposure limited group sessions that ask a small group to contribute to an idea. Anyone can start a session and determine if it is to be a 12, 24, or 36 exposure roll. Exposures can be any kind of media the device is capable of capturing - a recording, video, photo, etc.. Once the number of exposures are reached, the session is over. Upon completion, in the spirit of photo printing, the group is given the option to choose the format of the final artifact, offering an infinite number of formats - from a zine, to a map, to a stitched together film.
∞ — Worlding, or Chain Lettering
‘Today, collaborative making processes are increasingly facilitated by technological platforms. Inspired by Cadavre Exquis, we conducted a small experiment online. The goal is to reproduce a famous quote by Yoda, a fictional character from the Star Wars movies, among 160 members belonging to the same private social media group. The original passage reads, “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” The instruction I posted in the social media group is: Each new writer would contribute a sentence with the structure “____leads to ____.” The first blank is the last word from the previous writer. The second blank is a new word contributed by the new writer. This experiment extended for three days, transforming the original Yoda quote into a wildly expanded version:
“Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Sandwich. Sandwich leads to Truth. Truth leads to Boredom. Boredom leads to Impotence. Impotence leads to Wealth. Wealth leads to Separation. Separation leads to reproduction. Reproduction leads to Hotpot. Hotpot leads to Diarrhea. Diarrhea leads to Petting Cats. Petting Cats leads to Moving In. Moving In leads to Earth Quake. Earth Quake leads to Economic Crisis. Economic Crisis leads to Withdrawing from School. Withdrawing from School leads to Soda. Soda leads to Urbanization. Urbanization leads to Low Morality. Low Morality leads to Stock Market Shorting. Stock Market Shorting leads to Inflation. Inflation leads to Stupidity, and Stupidity leads to World Peace…”’
Zhenzhen Qi & Yang Wang (ZZYW) “Architecting Emergence.” Rhizome. February 2021. https://rhizome.org/editorial/2021/feb/17/architecting-emergence/
Chain letters are absurd streams of consciousness that any number of friends and strangers can participate in. Joining a chain letter means you will be invited to different chains to add your take on the thread. When it’s your turn, it’s your turn, make it fun!
In the example below, the chain originator begins the thread with a picture of oranges:
