Serial Authorship

23/02/13

Street art is conventionally framed as a series of separate and individual artists and crews creating works in the urban space. This model tends to pit all practitioners against each other; we’re all competing for space, recognition and if applicable, gallery patronage. An alternative is to regard street art as a single collectivist effort where all artists are unified in refining a final metropolitan palimpsest. The imaginings and creative impulses of our community indelibly write themselves into the urban memory, on the surfaces of our city.

I constructed works that encourage serial authorship and interactivity amongst strangers in the community. I hope to cultivate an atmosphere of permissivity to encourage the more risk-averse to engage in the public space and help foster our creative community. Sometimes these involve elaborate games and successional story-telling. Sometimes it is as simple as offering an invitation to draw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea for this work was in part inspired by an essay I read on the blog 'And those were the reasons'.

 

 

Some of the results:

I think this serial story telling has produced the most interesting and entertaining result so far.

 

Serial contributions didn't always come in a form that was expected or intended.

 

While walking past one day, I saw people contributing to the word ladder. It was surprising how excited I got on seeing this. I had an almost overwhelming desire to join the game and contribute. I created the 'Make a request / Complete a request' game after realising how affecting and rewarding it is to see someone else contributing to your project.