MICRO-PROJECT 2 – CROWD-SOURCED ART

What is the content of the work and who is creating it?

For this micro-assignment, my group has decided to use Instagram as a platform for crowd sourcing and the crowd-source community we are targeting are the followers on 2 of our members’ private Instagrams and the followers on one of our public art accounts on Instagram. We tagged on the poll function on Instagram story and drafted questions for our followers to answer and these questions start from general questions and slowly become increasingly more private and personal. At the end of the 5 questions, we prompted our followers to tell us a secret using the short answer function on Instagram story.

 

We wanted to test out the response level for each question, and observe to see whether the responses will differ across the different questions. The percentage bars that result from the polls can be then used to collage into an art piece. Each account’s responses are different, so each art piece generated from this questions from one Instagram account will differ from the other. This then requires our follower’s responses in order for us to rearrange the question bars and make such a collage, hence this project leverages on the Do-It-With Others (DIWO) concept.

There is, however, another ‘art’ we would like to bring out, which is the freewill to the right to their answer to such questions. Although there is a disclaimer at the start of questionnaire that the survey would be 100% anonymous, once the answer is submitted, the organise now has his/her own choice whether to keep the answers a secret or tell everybody about it. Hence, our group thinks that there is beauty in the transference of such rights and answers and also the physical manifestation of trust.

We also gave our followers choice to either answer all the questions, answer a few and skip those they do not want to answer, or not answer at all. As we have expected, the number of people who answered each progressive question got lesser and lesser. This brings out the social aspect of our artwork, where some topics are still taboo to some people in society.

Where does this work take place?

This work takes place on Instagram itself, an online social media platform. This means that this work takes place in a virtual online space, accessible only to those who has internet as well as an Instagram account. With this in consideration, we are aware that there will be certain groups not representation in this questionnaire because of certain ‘privedges’ that those who have access to the internet have.

How does this work involve social interaction?

This work involved social interaction as people react and interact with our Instagram stories to contribute to the percentage bars (Refer to pictures below) for each question.

This allows the interaction between the organiser and the participants, allowing the participants to join in and aid in creating the art piece alongside the artist.

How is your crowd-sourced project different from one that is created by a single artist/creator?

In an artwork presented and created by only one single artist/creator, the artist or creator himself/herself is the only person working on this object and hence all ideas for such piece will only be from the artist themselves. The final piece will only allow the audiences to be able to see the artist’s work.

However, crowd-sourced projects tags on the usage of public opinion and also ideas other people may have. This makes the artwork that is to be done a lot less predictable and the artist will then lose some of this control over the artwork itself.