Crowdsourced Lincoln - Shortlisted by the Barbican in Google's 2014 Dev-Art Competition
Crowdsourced Lincoln - Shortlisted by the Barbican in Google's 2014 Dev-Art Competition
2014, AI on Canvas, 16"x20"
This crowdsourced portrait of Lincoln helped the CrowdPainter project get shortlisted in Google's Dev-Art competition. Over 400 people from around the world participated in its creation, all fighting for control of the robot until in the final strokes a couple of users played tic-tac-toe on his face.
The crowdpainter project was made with the help of a friend and was one of the first times my artwork reached a global audience. I consider this one of the important works to emerge as I have been steadily turning my painting robots from printers into painting machines.
Pindar
This crowd sourced portrait of Lincoln was a semi-finalist in Google and the Barbicans Dev-Art Competition.
Half way through the video you will notice that sometime in the early afternoon of the second day, things get interesting. This must have been when this project got featured on DevArt - a competition we have put our painting robot into. Multiple users from around the world appear to be battling for control of the brush strokes. Two separate vandals put an "X" on Lincoln's face and an anarchy symbol in the background. Someone says "HI". Another person signs their name multiple times. Near the end, a friend's son signs his name down the side and plays Tic-Tac-Toe on Lincoln's face.
The coolest thing to happen, however, is that most of the people just work on the portrait. Someone even spends a good bit of time attempting to repair the "X" that disfigured Lincoln's face. Watching this painting get crowd-sourced was like watching a battle between order and chaos. At the end of the second day, something in the middle prevailed.