When Pixels Collide(sudoscript.com) |
When Pixels Collide(sudoscript.com) |
There's a LOT of space there, and it's extremely interesting to me to just scroll around and look at the various little parts.
Logos, flags, sayings, memes, beautiful patterns, pop culture references, memorials, jokes, and a ton more.
Some of my favorites being a fantastic section of hearts in various flags and patterns [1], and the various areas where the art that incorporated the streaks of rainbows into their creation instead of trying to overwrite it[2]. And just the overall cooperation between some groups (especially where the flags collided and decided to put hearts at their borders, one example of many at [3])
It's a really amazing creation!
[0] https://www.reddit.com/place?webview=true
[1] http://i.imgur.com/N6HlFOe.png
Take a look at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tT0F6ZPG-I
- Nathan, Ex Machina (2015)
In the beginning (and for some of the smaller subreddits), it was people building art. But for the most recognizable pieces, there were simply hundreds of bots enforcing a provided image.
I know in the art that I helped draw around around Rocket League, we changed the art around and added more stuff to it over time, and using bots made it slower for us. Pure determination and account-hopping is what worked for us.
To me, it's not more bot-created than a modern protest movement might be said to be Android- or Google- or Apple-created -- they are the extensions used to manifest a human will based on the combined creativity and values :)
... I assume.
And that's just one highly complex piece which evaded defacement.
Reddit users have names. Pseudonyms, often, but that's quite different from being anonymous, like on 4chan.
In particular, on /r/place, you could see the name of the user who placed each pixel, and this was relevant in diplomacy and conflicts between factions.
My favorite was the belgium flag which melts into a hotdog with ketchup and mustard with a beer tap on the black portion.
It was simply 100+ of us who told each others "alright, I'm protecting the pixel at xxx,yyy" and clicked that pixel all day all night.
EDIT: speaking of which, I wonder if reddit could use some of the data from this to detect sockpuppet network on reddit... I imagine communities of a certain type might have engaged (or not) with this phenomenon in a very different way than others
They created grids and coordinate numbers that told the groups what each and every pixel should be colored.
Then all anyone that wanted to "help" had to do was just look at the grid, and pick a pixel that was wrong to fix.
Like you said, each user had plenty of time in between pixel placements to look at the map and choose their next "fix".
Because the way the US flag appeared certainly looks artificial.
There were tools being distributed, but they were more to help with placement and location, they didn't do anything for you
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/MonaLisaClan/comments/630qjq/mona_l...
I may very well be wrong: people can and do get together and help with grand pieces of art; but Occam's razor points me towards a smaller number of people running bots.
Not to say there weren't bots, but keep in mind you could only place one pixel at most every 5 minutes, per user, and that new users weren't allowed to place pixels at all, to discourage people from amassing users just to draw things.
But you also need to remember that for the most part the vandals were unorganised. If you got a small group to choose a small spot on the massive canvas, they could get something together in 15 minutes or so, whereas it would take vandals much longer (unless they could somehow organise to completely wipe out one small part).
Even bots were still subject to the same rules.
Edit: here is the post on reddit that helped coordinate the mona lisa https://www.reddit.com/r/MonaLisaClan/comments/630qjq/mona_l...
No mention of bots, the only software being an overlay to help with picking the right pixels.
