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When Pixels Collide

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Re: When Pixels Collide

#11

Post by devwastaken »

falcolas wrote: post #3

Yeah, less collaborative art, and more a competition between bots. 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.

Thats not entirely true. Many of the art pieces changed over time, and when the reddit servers became overloaded, the bots broke for a while because they actually had to query the server for every single pixel. When I tried https://github.com/grind086/PlaceBot It worked for a while, but if you're trying to use multiple accounts, page throttling will get to you. I had to keep going back to each tab, and I had to use multiple browsers so they didn't share the login info.

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.

Re: When Pixels Collide

#12

Post by Klathmon »

return0 wrote: post #9

I dont think there was a single piece of original art in there. It was art by committee

There was plenty of original art, you just need to look for it.

My favorite was the belgium flag which melts into a hotdog with ketchup and mustard with a beer tap on the black portion.

http://i.imgur.com/cM8h2V3.png

Re: When Pixels Collide

#13

Post by falcolas »

Klathmon wrote: post #10
falcolas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When every user is limited to updating a single pixel every few minutes, how else could any group of mere mortals create and maintain such a large picture of the Mona Lisa? It's not visually easy to see vandalism on such a complex construct, so expecting that mere people were able to almost instantly identify and fix graffiti is folly. And that's just one highly complex piece which evaded defacement.

Well it's actually pretty simple. 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".

Given the history of trolls defacing such mutable works of art, and their success at doing so (and how people get quite bored/frustrated at fixing it), I find this explanation a bit lacking. I'm sure there were many people interested in helping, but to counter vandalism on such a grand scale, for such a long period of time? Human nature doesn't seem to back that up.

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.

Re: When Pixels Collide

#14

Post by Klathmon »

falcolas wrote: post #13
Klathmon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's actually pretty simple. 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".

Given the history of trolls defacing such mutable works of art, and their success at doing so (and how people get quite bored/frustrated at fixing it), I find this explanation a bit lacking. I'm sure there were many people interested in helping, but to counter vandalism on such a grand scale, for such a long period of time? Human nature doesn't seem to back that up. I may very well be wrong: people can and do get tog…

But it's not like only the "creators" could run bots, the "vandals" could as well. so even if you really truly believe it was mostly run by bots, you are still back to square 1 in that you'd need many people working together for a single purpose to get anything other than noise.

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.

Re: When Pixels Collide

#15

Post by problems »

revscat wrote: post #8
falcolas wrote: post #3

Yeah, less collaborative art, and more a competition between bots. 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.

Which is interesting in itself. You seem to think that the bot usage took away from the overall importance of the effort. I'm not sure I agree.

It definitely does, viewing it as "collaborative art" when really it's just a bunch of people running bots to smash other people's shit turns it from "art" to a popularity contest of standard internet practice pretty fast.

Re: When Pixels Collide

#16

Post by falcolas »

revscat wrote: post #8
falcolas wrote: post #3

Yeah, less collaborative art, and more a competition between bots. 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.

Which is interesting in itself. You seem to think that the bot usage took away from the overall importance of the effort. I'm not sure I agree.

I don't disagree that it's still interesting (if a bit boring after the first few frames of an animated representation of the progress). But a piece of art created by a few dozen people with machines, when compared to the expectation that a piece of art was created by a couple hundred thousand people by hand; well, it just doesn't have the same impact.

Re: When Pixels Collide

#17

Post by Klathmon »

For anyone that wants to kill some time browsing the final canvas, you can view it at [0].

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

[2] http://i.imgur.com/lH1bNvO.png

[3] http://i.imgur.com/4ywu6zJ.png

Re: When Pixels Collide

#18

Post by rhencke »

falcolas wrote: post #13
Klathmon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's actually pretty simple. 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".

Given the history of trolls defacing such mutable works of art, and their success at doing so (and how people get quite bored/frustrated at fixing it), I find this explanation a bit lacking. I'm sure there were many people interested in helping, but to counter vandalism on such a grand scale, for such a long period of time? Human nature doesn't seem to back that up. I may very well be wrong: people can and do get tog…

When r/place was running, things divided into factions as art was placed, and subreddits were even formed dedicated to creating or maintaining a piece of artwork. There were a _lot_ of people, myself included, who really enjoyed being able to do their little part to create something bigger, or maintain it. It was only running for a few days, and was new and interesting for a lot of folks.

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.

Re: When Pixels Collide

#20

Post by Raphmedia »

falcolas wrote: post #3

Yeah, less collaborative art, and more a competition between bots. 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 can assure you that there were a lot of art pieces that were created and defended by hand.
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