@ Platea Project VIII: Tree-Blogging

On Twitter we “retweet.” On Tumblr we “reblog.” On YouTube, videos go “viral” and are often “embedded” into other sites. On Facebook, we “share” others’ words, images, and links. In these ways, discrete works circulate and spread, pushing roots and branches across the Internet.

We also sometimes “remix.” We create mash-ups and digital collages. We rework others’ works into something of our own and share it, knowing that it too may be reworked by someone else. In this way, our creative expressions spur other creative expressions and grow organically, like a tangled hedge, like a tree, like a forest.

For this @Platea project, we plan to investigate the intangible tangibles of connections between art works. We encourage participants to make work out of each other’s work and to create links between sites where these works are shared. We hope to grow a conceptual art tree through reblogging, to fill its branches with the music of retweets, albeit reworked more than simply repeated.

Procedure:

On January 10, we will post some prompting material (sound file, image, text, etc.) to this web site as a trunk. Participants can use this material to branch out and make their own art on their blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, etc. As the event proceeds, participants can also use the material produced by other participants. Post a link-forward to your work in the comments section of the participating site(s) where you borrowed inspiration material. In posting your work at your site, include a link-back to the inspiration material.

With the obvious exception of Twitter (or other microblogging sites), where you post your work should include a comments section, preferably one that allows active hyperlinks. This will allow any folks who use your work to post a link-forward to their re-working. In Twitter (and similar microblogging sites), the reply function will be the best way of indicating link-forward, although a shortened URL could be included in the Tweet for a link-back.

If you are planning to use Facebook, LinkedIn, Ravelry, or other restricted social networking sites, you can include information for joining your network in the comments below. Or, if you prefer, you can allow branches/roots to cross into your private domain and disappear from public view. This happens all the time with real trees, right?

Your work can be in any media that you can share on-line: text-based, image, video, sound, or any combination of these. How you “sample” the inspiration materials or others’ works is completely up to you, from mash-ups to meditations. If you take the branch/root in a puzzling “new” direction, that is great!

Documentation:

To the best of our ability, we will attempt to map the growing network of linked works. Our plan is to produce an interactive map that will allow users to link directly to the work being produced while also demonstrating the connections between works. As with all cartography, we expect some discrepancies between the map and the territory.

Event Dates: Monday, January 10 to Friday, January 14.