The World’s Longest Collaborative Sentence is a classic internet art was commissioned by Lehman College Art Gallery in 1994 where people around the world can participate or contribute to the never ending sentence. It is an ongoing textual and graphic online performance. It was previously run using HTML and CGI where they had problem configuring the Korean characters, Hangul which appears as symbols. Now it is switched to HTML and PHP where Asian languages are able to be viewed on Windows computer only as there are still some problems on the Mac side. Participants can use words, photographs, graphics, videos, web links and sounds via their personal data, websites, etc. on this internet art. The world’s longest collaborative sentence is now preserve by Whitney Museum.

Douglas Davis, “The World’s First Collaborative Sentence” (1994). Detail.

Douglas Davis was the pioneer of video art. He collaborated with Nam June Paik and Joseph Beuys in 1977 where they took part in the first international satellite telecasts with the live performance ofThe Last Nine Minutes. In the 1980s to 1990s, he also explored with different types of interactivity through the use of various media. Douglas Davis was also a teacher in various universities and colleges, not only that he also wrote books about interactivity and media art.

There’s a quote in his essay “The work of art in the age of digital reproduction (an evolving thesis: 1991-1995) describes my feelings towards his work on The World’s Longest Collaborative Sentence when I see it.

“You’ll have to look hard in this collage of images, sounds and words at anytime, now or in the next century, to find a single universality. Each fragment, each image, each sound is unique, personal, quivering with the sense of self.”
Douglas Davis

Personally I am inspired by The World’s Longest Collaborative Sentence as it is another way of creating a collective narrative through the use of internet. It creates an environment which brings people together through the use of a simple idea of constructing a sentence that has no end. As I read it, the content seems to make no sense but at the same time it makes sense where it creates some sort of a narrative. It is chaos in order. 

The video of a section of The World’s Longest Collaborative Sentence (below):

I was thinking of creating an art piece revolving website and installation for my future project. After looking and researching about this work done by Douglas Davis, I can envision a similar approach of bringing people together to collaborate with each other through the use of internet art. 

In The World’s Longest Collaborative Sentence, the interaction through the use of internet cause multiple people to contribute to the sentence actively. They share a platform, the website and collaborate through the use of words, images, videos, links, sounds, etc. which shows super participation. Until now, people are still actively contribution to making the longest sentence ever despite having different sections. No one cared about grammar, the words said and how bizarre it got.

“The Sentence has no end. Sometimes I think it had no beginning. Now I salute its authors, which means all of us. You have made a wild, precious, awful, delicious, lovable, tragic, vulgar, fearsome, divine thing.”
Douglas Davis, 2000

Through the reading, I am amazed by the amount of work needed to be done to restore The World’s Longest Collaborative Sentence and when people are exposed to the web for the first time, they are excited to participate. Despite technological limitations, people did not stop participating and thought of ways to overcome the difficulties. I could also see that they invited those who are proficient with Asian languages to edit the work which also reflects another type of super participation. They also participate in the restoration work not only the contributing factor towards the sentence.

“Draw On! Goes Green,” Darien Library on March 21, 2014. Photo: Contributed Photo, Contributed / Darien News.

There is an art installation which I came across and it is called “Draw On! Goes Green” (above) displayed in the Darien Library. It was part of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum’s festival to inspire creativity where participants could create drawings, doodles and design with the use of discarded dictionary pages. It seems that they had the same approach to The World’s Longest Collaborative Sentence which allows interaction to collaborate through participation. This creates super participation in the physical space.

Overall, I am so impressed and excited about how internet art can create such a craze where people are still participating in the 1994 work. I see that no matter which era we are in, as long as there is technology involved people will be collaborating and participating which in turn creates an artwork.