PIXEL PATCHWORK:
A DIGITAL FOLK ART?
Brenda Danet
Emerita, Sociology & Communication
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Research Affiliate in Anthropology, Yale University
©Copyright Brenda Danet, December, 2003. Draft; please do not cite.
Pixel Patchwork: A Digital Folk Art?
©Brenda Danet, December 2003.
Draft; please do not cite.
ABSTRACT
This paper is about a novel form of grassroots playful performance on the Internet. In a channel
(chatroom) called “rainbow” on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), participants communicate in real time
mainly via images created from letters and other computer keyboard symbols. Images are
“tokens for interaction,” both “art” and “communication.” The paper reports on six years of
participant observation of this group. Materials analyzed include screen captures of images, semistructured interviews with players, email correspondence with channel leaders, and postings to
the leaders’ email list. Despite several seemingly anomalous aspects of this art, close
examination of its formal and iconographic features, the social context in which it is created,
shared, and displayed, and attitudes and practices regarding intellectual property issues argue for
recognition of rainbow art as an emergent form of digital folk art.
**********************
“Folk art”…is the expression of the common people, made by
them and intended for their use and enjoyment. It is not the
expression of professional artists made for a small cultured
class…It does not come out of an academic tradition passed
on by schools, but out of craft tradition plus the personal
quality of the rare craftsman who is an artist.
Horace Cahill, American Folk Art: The Art of the Common
Man in America, 1750-1900, 1932.
Folklore is true to its own nature when it takes place within
the group itself….folklore is artistic communication in small
groups.
Dan Ben-Amos, “Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context,”
1971.
People who know a community’s tradition can separate the
general properties of a style from its handling by an
individual….Works of art are never anonymous inside the
community; they become anonymous when they wander.
Within the community there is no need for a signature.
Henry Glassie, The Spirit of Folk Art, 1989.
This paper is about the activities of an online group that, unusually,
communicates primarily via images rather than words. At first glance, but only at
first glance, I suggest, the subject seems far from the concerns of folklorists. In a
channel, or chatroom, called “rainbow” on one of the major networks of servers
2
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for IRC—Internet Relay Chat,1 a popular chat mode-- participants greet and
honor one another in real time in a form of ritualized playful performance, via
images created from the elements of text—letters and other symbols on the
computer keyboard. Despite its novelty as an online, digital phenomenon, this
form of visual expression has much in common with traditional crafts such as
embroidery, weaving, and especially quilting. As in traditional quiltings,
individuals gather to assemble “patches,” except that here, the participants are
geographically dispersed and can’t see one another, and the patches are
intangible and “stitched” together in time, rather than space (Danet 2003). This
activity also echoes earlier forms of play with writing, including micrography—tiny
writing used to create images and designs, concrete poetry, in which the text of
the poem is laid out to create a visual image, and teletype art.2
In the first half of this paper I will summarize the distinctive features of this art.
In the second half, drawing on this overview and other materials, I will argue that-despite some glaring anomalies that seemingly argue otherwise--we should view
IRC art as an emergent form of digital folk art. More generally, the paper aspires
to show that these case materials are a useful means to rethink the meaning of
“folk” phenomena in the age of the Internet.3
1
This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting, American Folklore
Society, Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 8-12, 2003. For general information on the history of
IRC, see Senft (2003); http://www.irc.org/history.html; http://www.mirc.co.uk/help/jarkko.txt.
2
For an overview of the latter types of play with writing, see Danet (2001), chap. 5.
3
For a relatively early attempt to survey online phenomena of potential interest to folklorists,
see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1996). See also Dorst (1990); Mason (2001).
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Although IRC art has been featured in other IRC channels and networks, it
has particularly flourished on rainbow on the Undernet.4 The full name of the
channel is #mirc_rainbow. “MIRC” is the name of the shareware program that
enables participants using Windows 95 or later to take advantage of color and
other features not available in text-only versions of the software.5
Participants are mainly of blue-collar background and generally of high
school education. Most are Americans living in the South, West, and Southwest,
but there are also players from many other countries. About 60% are women,
and 40% men. Thus, while women predominate, men also feel comfortable in
this environment. All ages are represented, though the majority are in their 30s,
40s and 50s.6 The first leader was a male; the second and third have been
females.
METHODS AND TYPES OF DATA COLLECTED
This ethnographic, interpretive research draws on six years of participant
observation on rainbow. The channel was created in May 1997, when a group of
4
The Website of the Undernet describes it as “one of the largest realtime chat networks in the
world, with approximately 45 servers connecting over 35 countries and serving more than
1,000,000 people weekly” (documented October 30, 2003). See http://www.undernet.org/.
5
There is no substitute for viewing IRC art deployed online in real time. To do so, download
and install the shareware program ”mIRC” at http://www.mirc.co.uk; log on to an Undernet server,
and then type /join #mirc_rainbow.
There are two other programs that enable use of color on IRC: “IRCle” for the Macintosh (see
http://www.ircle.com/, http://www.ircle.com/colorfaq.shtml) and PIRCH for Windows
(http://pirchnevada.tripod.com/pirch.html; examples at http://pirchnevada.tripod.com/free.html).
Sporadic explorations of both suggest that these programs are less popular, and that IRC art is
much less developed in them than in mIRC.
6
More details on the players’ background are available in Danet (2001, p. 248-252) and
Danet (2003).
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dissatisfied players on another Undernet channel, #mirc_colors, defected to
start a new channel. Some 5000 images were captured during participant
observation online.7 Another 1500 were documented from sets distributed to the
players. This paper also incorporates materials from semi-structured online
interviews in summer/fall 2002 with 36 “ops,” operators--individuals who help run
the channel, and from postings to the ops’ mailing list and memoranda and
private email from group leaders. While hundreds, probably even thousands,
have participated since the channel was founded, I estimate that as of summer
2003, there were about 75 “regulars,” about two-thirds of whom are ops, many of
them among the founders of the channel in 1997. Most, but not all ops are also
artists. In this paper I attend to formal and thematic features of the art, to the
sociocultural context in which it is created, shared and displayed, and to the
functions of this activity for the players.
7
My database also includes images from #mirc_colors, collected during the first three
years of the study. Colors closed its virtual doors in December 2000. Thus, images collected
during an additional three years are from rainbow only. Many colors participants were active on
rainbow simultaneously, or moved to rainbow, bringing their art collection with them. Thus, I
speak in this paper of rainbow art, though some images were originally created for colors. I will
sometimes use the alternative expression “IRC art” for the phenomenon more generally. All
illustrations in this paper were documented for rainbow.
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FEATURES OF RAINBOW ART8
From ASCII Art to IRC Art
IRC art is an elaboration of an earlier form of text-based computer art called
ASCII art (Figure 1). “ASCII” (pronounced AS-kee) stands for “American
Standard for Information Interchange,” the text-transmission protocol for the
Internet that was established in the 1960s.9 ASCII images are made from the 95
basic typographic characters that we use in plain text across operating systems,
as in email.
Since the 1960s, tens of thousands of ASCII images have circulated among
hackers, computer geeks and professionals, and, increasingly, among ordinary
people, too. In the 1980s BBS (electronic bulletin board) subscribers exchanged
ASCII art images, and many BBSs featured colored images on their opening
screens.10 Today, large ASCII art collections are stored on the Web.11 Created
8
A more detailed exposition of the features of this art and its partial resemblance to traditional
quilting is available in Danet (2003). An earlier report on the first three years of fieldwork was
presented in Danet (2001), chap. 6, also available online as the sample chapter at
http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msdanet/cyberpl@y/. Stark’s Website is now usually inaccessible
because of the large number of people trying to access it; earlier versions of the site are archived
at http://www.archive.org/; to view her site, enter http://www.ascii-art.com/. A partial, text-only
version is at http://www.geocities.com/joan_stark/.
9
See http://www.usefulcontent.org/adlocum/dest/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?ASCII;
http://www.instantweb.com/D/dictionary/foldoc.cgi?ASCII.
10
Colored images were created via a DOS-level variation of ASCII art called ANSI art; see,
e.g., http://www.mjbdiver.com/ansi/; http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/4219/ansi.html;
http://www.geocities.com/jeff_robertson/bbs/gallery.html;
http://ansiart.org.ua/gallery.php?picture=151; Danet (2001), Plate 5.2. Greater computer skills are
required to create and display ANSI art than IRC art. There is continuing interest in ANSI art
among computer underground artists; the iconography of this art is very different from that of IRC
players, often featuring lurid imagery with sexual content and violence. On computer underground
art generally, see http://www.acheron.org.
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mainly by males until the 1990s, much of this art continues to be stereotypically
male, featuring aggressive themes (Figure 1). Since the 1990s we also
encounter softer, more sentimental works, especially by newly active women
(Figure 2). As we will see, IRC art has followed in the second direction.
Figure 1. Stereotypically male ASCII art,
artist unknown.
Figure 2. Feminized
ASCII art: “Teddy with
heart,” by “flump”
(Haley Jane
Wakenshaw).
11
See, e.g.,”The ASCII Art Dictionary,” http://www.ascii-art.de/; “The Great ASCII Art Library,”
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Marina/4942/ascii.htm; Christopher Johnson’s ASCIi Art
Collection, http://www.chris.com/ascii/index.html; StarTrek ASCII Art,
http://www.calormen.com/Star_Trek/ASCII/. For a discussion of mainstream vs. underground
ASCII art, see http://www.thuglife.org/start/styles.shtml.
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Both Abstract and Figurative Images
Unlike its predecessor, ASCII art, which is almost always figurative, about half
of IRC images are abstract (Figure 3).12 Whereas abstract artists create their own
designs, most figurative artists appropriate and adapt designs by ASCII artists,
notably, those of two women artists active in the 1990s, an Ohio housewife and
mother of four named Joan Stark, and a young English woman living in the
Netherlands named Haley Jane Wakenshaw (Figure 2 is her design). Figure 4
was adapted for IRC by <litty>, an Illinois housewife, from a teddy-bear design by
Joan Stark.13 Appropriation involves more than mere copying. In this instance,
the artist has established a demarcated space around the image, introduced
color for both image and background, designed a complementary border, and
added a mini-text at the top, “Huggles—with love.”14
12
In the published version of this article, illustrations will be in greyscale only; since color is
very important in a number of respects, I plan to make multicolored versions available on my
Website, with the journal’s permission.
13
All nicks of players mentioned are given in angle brackets, just as they conventionally
appear online on IRC. For Stark’s art, see the URLs in footnote 8. Art by Wakenshaw, also known
as “flump,” may be viewed at http://www.bornsquishy.com/flump/.
14
In ASCII art displays on the Web, individual images seemingly “float” in undefined space,
aggregated into larger files. See my discussion of these aspects in Danet (under review).
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Figure 3. An abstract design by <[blu]>.
Figure 4. Teddy bear adapted for IRC by
by <litty>, original design by Joan Stark.
Interactivity
A fundamental feature of this phenomenon is interactivity. This term means
many things to many analysts.15 Here, it means that people interact directly with
other people in real time via images, and not just with computers or with Web
pages. Many players use images created by others as tokens for interaction.
Images are of no commercial value but do have utilitarian value. In effect, they
serve as a “language of communication.”
Figure 5 is a screen capture of a series of greetings by three players called
<Pammie>, <shw>, and <Trisha>. For each image, the nick (IRC-ese for
15
See Laurel (1991); Rafaeli (1997; 1998); McMillan (2002) ; Kiousis (2002).
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“nickname”) of the player displaying the file16 appears at the left, as many times
as there are lines of text in it. Each player had selected an image from those
stored on his or her hard disk, and at the last moment inserted the nick of the
person he or she wished to greet.17
Figure 5. <Pammie>, <shw>,
and <Trisha> greet one
another.
The capture shows that
communication is primarily
via images rather than
words, and that greetings
are reciprocated. In addition
to spontaneous, improvised
everyday communication of
this type, the players also
put on scheduled shows,
that showcase the work of
individual artists or relate to
a theme such as Christmas or the arrival of spring. In the latter instances, the
16
The players call images “files;” images are tiny computer files.
This explains the presence of “doremi,” my nick, in the images in Figures 3 and 4. I had
displayed these images for myself while online and in a channel, in order to capture them.
17
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ability to interact is temporarily suspended, and the players merely watch the
show.
Intangibility and Ephemerality
As a digital phenomenon, rainbow art is intangible, and even more
ephemeral than ASCII art. Whereas ASCII art can be viewed offline in any textediting program, ordinarily, rainbow art can be viewed or displayed only when
(1) the viewer is logged on to the Internet; (2) the mIRC program is open; (3) the
viewer has connected successfully to an IRC server; and (4) has joined a
channel. Also, while one can print ASCII art directly, IRC images can be printed
only if they are first transformed into regular graphic images.
Brilliant Color
Another important characteristic of IRC art is the burst into brilliant color, in
contrast to ASCII art, which is monochromatic, usually shown in white on black,
or black on a white background (on early computer monitors it was displayed in
phosphorescent green or amber pixels on a dark screen).18 As in any Windowsbased program, 16 colors may be used in mIRC, including the three primary
colors, red, yellow and blue, as well as many other shades, along with black,
gray and white. Just as in ordinary word-processing, for each “slot” in an image,
one can choose the color both of the typographic symbol inserted in it, and of its
18
Colored ANSI art was the exception in pre-Windows days. See footnote 10.
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background. One can also create images consisting of just solid colors, though
this is much rarer. Most images are not just colored, but multicolored.
Sound: Miniature Multimedia performances
Rainbow images are often displayed together with a brief sound clip, turning
displays into miniature multimedia performances. Sound clips may be either of
songs or, less commonly, of real-life sounds such as something crashing or
laughter. Notice the lines below <shw>’s “HELLO ALL” file in Figure 5:
Sound request. Can’t find helllooo.wav.”
[shw. Sound.]
These are messages from the server indicating that along with his image, <shw>
played an audio file of someone saying “Hello,” and that, because I did not
already have this file on my hard disk, the server didn’t find it. Therefore no
sound accompanied the image when it was performed on my screen. Many
scheduled shows have sets of sound files to go with them, which the players
download and install in advance.
Image Form: Ornament, Pattern, Symmetry
One of the most distinctive features of rainbow art is the prominence of
ornament, pattern and symmetry, especially in abstract images, but even in
borders and fields of some figurative ones. This art is fundamentally geometric,
based on an underlying grid, as is true of ordinary typed text. Pattern is created
through systematic repetition of words (“hi,” “hello” or the recipient’s nick) or
12
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figurative motifs (both illustrated in Figure 6), or individual typographic symbols
(Figure 3).
Figure 6. Repetition to create pattern.19
The Grove Dictionary of Art defines ornament and pattern as “decorative
devices applied or incorporated as embellishment.”20 As the examples in Figures
3 and 6 show, the creation of pattern relies on three characteristics, a unit,
19
The nick <KprWorkn> is a variant of <Keeper>. Like many players, this person had changed
his nick temporarily to signal that he was away from the keyboard and at work; he had forgotten
to resume his basic nick when he returned to the screen. Rowan Crawford’s Koala Bear
Collections are at http://www.afn.org/~afn39695/crawford.htm;
http://www.xemu.demon.co.uk/art/koalas.html#Koalas_2;
http://media.berkeley.edu/~jpeng/Koala/kascii.html; the bears in Figure 6 were further modified by
other unknown ASCII artists. Some of Crawford’s designs are also apparent in images in Figure
5.
20
This definition comes from the online Grove Dictionary of Art, at http://www.groveart.com/.
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repetition of that unit, and a system of organization. According to Phillips and
Bunce, graphic designers, a pattern is
a design composed of one or more motifs, multiplied and arranged in an orderly
sequence, and a single motif as a unit with which the designer composes a pattern
by repeating it at regular intervals over a surface. The motif itself is not a pattern,
but it is used to create patterns. (Phillips and Bunce 1993, p. 7).
Play with pattern generates many forms of symmetry, the correspondence in
size, form and arrangement of parts on opposite sides of a plane, line, or point.21
My analyses suggest that the turn to pattern and symmetry in rainbow art has
deep psychological and social roots, and expresses aspirations for a sheltered,
even quasi-magical space in which the players feel safe and loved. In particular,
they have a predilection for vertical bilateral or mirror symmetry, the best known
of 17 types of symmetry, as in Figures 3 and 4.22
Extended ASCII Typographic Characters
A striking feature of rainbow art is the use not only of ordinary typographic
symbols, but of so-called “extended ASCII characters”--symbols that require
eight bits to code them, rather than seven, and that therefore do not occur in
ASCII art. Many of these symbols are from other languages and writing systems.
21
This definition is from the Random House College Dictionary. See, e.g., Weyl (1952);
Boas,(1955 [1927]), pp. 32-38; Washburn (1988); Bier (1996); Math Forum (1997).
22
In a previous paper (Danet under review) I suggested that the players strive for good
gestalts, via the cultivation of certain aspects of the form of images. The notion of gestalt pertains
to our tendency to perceive a stimulus as "whole" even if some portion of it is absent, or to prefer
"wholes" to stimuli that are less than whole. A basic assumption of gestalt theory is that people
naturally strive for “good gestalts.” See, e.g., Kohler (1929); Koffka (1935); Arnheim, (1954;
1974); Gombrich (1984); Kreitler and Kreitler (1972), chap. 4; Solso (1996).
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Thus, in Figure 3 the artist has used just four extended ASCII characters to
create a striking pattern--the Japanese Yen sign ¥, along with æ and ð, both
symbols in Old English, and a letter “a” with a line under it. Symbols are
appreciated not for their conventional meanings, but for their interesting graphic
shapes and potential as design elements. Less often, they are used to decorate
nicks and mini-texts in images, as in Figure 4. The players call the latter practice
use of “fancy letters,” thereby domesticating an originally transgressive practice
among hackers, the intentional cultivation of difficult-to-read text via eccentric use
of typographic characters.23
Iconography
Figurative images tend to be childlike, naive, two-dimensional, static, and nonillusionistic, reflecting artists’ strong attraction to these qualities in the ASCII
creations of Joan Stark and Haley Jane Wakenshaw. Although there are many
humorous images, sentimental ones are more common, made even more so by
their accompanying mini-texts, as in Figure 7.
23
As part of their underground stance, hackers used eccentric typography transgressively, to
be subversive and to signal elite membership. See Danet (2001), chap. 1.
15
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Figure 7. Non-illusionistic animals in figurative rainbow art.
Some imagery comes from very specific sources such as familiar fairy tales
(Figure 8). However, most motifs from folklore and fantasy are generalized, and
include generic angels, devils, witches, unicorns, dragons, etc. An inventory of
sources and themes appears in Figure 9. Other categories include conventional
motifs from American holidays, characters in children’s literature, TV series,
cartoons and films, nature (especially “roses” created from ASCII characters),
etc.24 In many if not most instances, IRC artists have coopted these designs from
24
ASCII “roses” already circulated among creators and collectors of ASCII art. Participants
from countries other than North America acquiese in the domination of imagery from American
16
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Joan Stark. One artist with native American roots often creates geometric and
figurative designs reflecting this background. The “Mona Lisa,” long ago co-opted
by popular culture, was the subject of an entire rainbow show.25 Most images
cannot, however, be linked to specific sources. It should be evident that imagery
is almost entirely of a “feel good” kind, child-like and even regressive in this
context of communication between players who are almost entirely adults. A rare
exception is an image that invokes Hannibal Lecter.
8a. “The Princess and the Frog,” artist(s) unknown.
8b. “Alladin and His Lamp,” original by
Joan Stark, IRC artist unknown.
holidays. The prominence of motifs from TV and cartoons also attests, at least in part, to the
Americanization of global popular culture.
25
Each artist adapted the same ASCII version of the Mona Lisa in a manner he or she saw fit.
The variety of results was remarkable. On the Mona Lisa as universal icon, see Sassoon (2001).
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8c. “The Ugly Duckling.”
ASCII artist unknown, IRC
adaptation by <nightrose>.
Figure 8. Images incorporating motifs from fairy tales.
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Folklore & fantasy-general: unicorns, dragons, devils, angels, mermaid, witches, ghosts,
castles, dreams, pot of gold, magicians, wizards, aliens
Animals: anthropomorphic renderings of real-life animals—teddy bears, rabbits, puppies,
kittens, dogs, cats
Children’ s literature:
Fairy tales: “Princess and the Frog”); “Ugly Duckling;” “Alladin & Lamp”
20th-century: Peter Pan (Tinkerbell), Wizard of Oz (rainbow—name of channel, Toto),
Winnie the Pooh, Raggedy Ann; Story of the Dancing Frog
Adult literature: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth
Mass media:
TV series: “Sesame Street,” “Simpsons,” “South Park,” “Star Trek,” “X-Files”
Cartoons: Disney: Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Tweety;
Peanuts (Lucy, Snoopy)
Films: Disney: Bambi; StarWars series; Hannibal Lecter
Popular songs: “Puff the Magic Dragon”
American Holidays: New Year (champagne, fireworks, baby), Valentine’s Day (hearts),
Easter (bunnies, eggs), Fourth of July (flags, Statue of Liberty), Halloween (pumpkins,
ghosts, witches), Thanksgiving (turkeys), Christmas (wreath, Christmas tree, decorations,
Santa Claus, candy cane, presents, snowmen)
Nature: flowers (ASCII “roses”); trees, beach scenes
Material culture of everyday life:
Technology: computers, diskettes; stereo, cell phone,
Toys: Teddy bears; Raggedy Ann doll
Food and drink: coffee, tea, coffeepot, mugs, champagne, wine glasses, candybars,
M&Ms, beer, wine, champagne, popcorn, cookies
Other: native American arts & crafts; high art co-opted by popular culture (Mona Lisa)
Figure 9. Sources of themes in rainbow imagery.
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Images feature cute animals far more often than people—especially bunnies,
teddy bears, birds, kittens and puppies; cute dinosaurs and dragons also occur.26
Note how the real-life aggressiveness of the bears in Figures 4 and 7 has been
suppressed, as in toys (Brown 1997, p. 20), illustrations in children’s literature,
and many varieties of traditional folk art and craft (Glassie 1989; Lavitt 1990). By
adding mini-texts which appear to emanate from these animals, IRC artists
transform ASCII drawings of just a generic “bunny” or “teddy bear” into
anthropomorphic creatures who speak on behalf of the person displaying them.
In this respect rainbow art resembles traditional animal fables (Jones 2002, pp.
9-10, 33-34), greeting card imagery (Brabant and Mooney 1989), and illustrations
in children’s literature (Derby 1970; Markovsky 1975).27
There are also endless variations on the theme of hearts or Valentines, a
prominent motif in American and European folk art and in contemporary popular
culture. 28 It is no exaggeration to suggest that on rainbow it is Valentine’s Day
365 days a year. Two images out of hundreds in my corpus containing the heart
motif appear in Figure 10.29
26
I am using the term “cute” descriptively. In a more extended treatment (Danet in
preparation), chap. 5, I approach cuteness analytically, asking, for instance, what features of
images invite the label “cute.” See Morreall (1991); Sanders (1992); Morreall (1993).
27
Note how these anthropomorphic creatures are genderless, a feature that further makes
them neutral, non-threatening.
28
See Staff (1969); Barth, (1974); Peesch (1983); Emmerling (1988); Lichten (1974);
Weygandt (1954); Schaffner (1984).
29
The second image was displayed during an online celebration of the 1999 birthday of
<texxy>, rainbow’s first leader. The abbreviated, repeated text in it is “HbDaYtexXy.” See also
the hearts in Figures 2 and 4.
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10a. Heart image by <puriel>, adapted from
a design by Joan Stark.
10b. A heart-shaped birthday greeting for
<texxy>, by <patches>.
Figure 10. Images with the heart/Valentine motif.
ANOMALOUS ASPECTS
I turn now to my proposal that we view rainbow art as an emergent form of
folk art. At first glance, this may seem utterly misguided. For one thing, this art
has been in existence less than a decade, and given the rapid development of
Internet technologies, it is impossible to predict whether it will even exist in
another five to ten years, or will have morphed into something quite different.
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This stands in stark contrast to the involvement of generations of individuals in
families and groups handing down knowledge and practices over long periods of
time.30 A related point is that traditional folk art practices are handed down orally
in local face-to-face interaction. The position of many folklorists has been that
folklore “has to pass through time at least partially via the channels of oral
transmission. Any other medium is liable to disqualify the materIal from being
folklore” (Ben-Amos 1971, p. 5).
We have seen that rainbow players are dispersed geographically around the
globe, invisible to one another; most have never met in the physical world, and all
communication is by typing. In addition, there has been considerable turnover
among the players, with hundreds, perhaps even thousands passing through the
channel, only to move on. How, then, can this phenomenon qualify as “artistic
communication in small groups,” to recall Dan Ben-Amos’s (1971) popular
definition? Moreover, since this art is intangible, some would say that the
sensuous satisfactions of the handmade, so central to traditional crafts, are
egregiously lacking, therefore disqualifying the phenomenon as a folk art.
WHY A FOLK ART AFTER ALL?
Despite all of the above apparently anomalous aspects, a host of factors
combine, in my opinion, to justify considering rainbow art as an emergent or new
form of folk art, after all.
30
See, e.g., Ames (1977); Glassie (1989); Vlach (1992).
22
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Social Background of the Players
One feature that fits the folk art paradigm is that most participants are
members of relatively uneducated non-elites, untutored in art, just as artists
called “folk” generally are, engaging in amateur artistic activity. Also, I know from
interviews with ops that many reside in small towns and secondary cities of the
South, West, and Southwest, not their urban centers. However, social
background alone cannot be a sufficient condition for the identification of a new
form of folk art, as this would not differentiate clearly between folk and other
phenomena better termed “popular” or merely “amateur.”31
Formal and Thematic Features
More important for present purposes are the formal and thematic features of
the art itself. Figure 1132 compiles the distinctive formal and thematic features of
folk art, drawing mainly on Henry Glassie’s (1989) Spirit of Folk Art, Sheila
Paine’s (1990) Embroidered Textiles: Traditional Patterns from Five
Continents, Wendy Lavitt’s (1990) Animals in American Folk Art, and
Reinhard Peesch’s (1983) The Ornament in European Folk Art. My overview of
rainbow art has just shown that this compilation largely fits rainbow too, and
that in visual and other features this art strongly resembles traditional crafts such
31
32
See my discussion of “folk” versus “popular” at the end of this paper.
This chart was adapted from Danet (2001), Figure 8.1, p. 352.
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as weaving, cross-stitch and other embroidery, as well as quilting and other
forms of folk art and craft.
1) “Craft” important as well as “art;” appreciation of the handmade, skill,
virtuosity
2) Utilitarian for in-group as well as “art”
3) Idealized types, not individuals; portrayed two-dimensionally, statically,
frontally, non-illusionistically, in a reductive, simplifying manner
4) Love of decoration, brilliant color
5) Emphasis on geometric design: repetition, pattern, symmetry.
6) Popular themes: stylized, non-aggressive people, animals,
flowers, heart motif
7) Unambiguous, direct, clear
8) Affimation of traditional values
Figure 11. Formal and thematic features of folk art.
I learned from interviews and email correspondence that quite a few artists
have been active in crafts in the past, or continue to do so, a factor that is likely
to foster their attraction to this new medium and to influence their creations.33
<sher^>, rainbow’s most popular, most prolific artist, an Illinois housewife
married to a coal miner and rainbow’s current leader, was involved in crocheting,
knitting and embroidery, but had to give them up because of rheumatoid arthritis.
The previous leader, and manager of the channel Website, significantly
nicknamed <patches>, originally a professionally trained classical musician, is an
experienced quilter who claims to have sold commissioned quilts for thousands
of dollars.34
33
Joan Stark, whose work inspires many figurative artists, has crocheted, and done crossstitch and other embroidery.
34
See Danet (2003), Figure 5 for an example of an American quilt pattern translated by
<patches> into an IRC image. She is the only rainbow participant whom I have met in the
physical world. She showed me some of her quilts.
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Whether sweetly sentimental or humorous, figurative rainbow images
generally affirm conservative traditional values of family, friendship and love, as
Henry Glassie (1989) has noted is true of folk art. There is little that is
transgressive or subversive, though risqué sexual innuendo is occasionally in
evidence, particularly in the creations of <puriel>, an Illinois housewife.
Reduced Importance of Group Size; Compression in Time
Dan Ben-Amos’s definition of folklore stresses “artistic communication in
small groups (italics added).” Taken out of context, it is easy to assume that by
this, he meant groups small enough for communication to be face-to-face and
local. But as Henry Glassie has noted, while not thinking at all of new digital
technologies, “The group called ‘small’ is only as large as it can be while it
continues to be constituted by the artistic communications of its shifting
membership” (Glassie 1995, p. 401). Those unfamiliar with sustained group
interaction online may find it difficult to accept that size of group per se is often
far less important online than in the physical world. What is more critical is the
commitment and ongoing participation of an inner core of members, as is indeed
the case on rainbow.
Similarly, it can be disconcerting to acknowledge that on the Internet, social
processes are often tremendously speeded up. Many conceptualizations of
folklore assert or assume that it has to exist for a long time, that generations of
individuals have to be involved. However, Dell Hymes suggested that we “root
25
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the notion [of tradition] not in time but in social life” (Hymes 1975, p. 353; cited
in Ben-Amos [1984], p. 116; italics added).
On the Internet, two related factors greatly alter the importance for social
processes of group size, physical propinquity and time itself. One is instant ease
of sustained real-time interaction among multiple individuals—even of the
reduced variety enabled by IRC.35 The other is a strong sense of co-presence
(Lombard and Ditton 1997; Jacobson 2001, 2002). Group norms and practices
can crystallize in months, not necessarily years. Though not thinking of the
Internet, Ben-Amos (1971, p. 14) noted, “The artistic forms that are part of the
communicative processes of small groups are significant, without regard to the
time they have been in circulation.”
Those unfamiliar with the Internet, or who only use email may be unaware
that typed communication online marks a partial return to patterns of
communication in oral cultures. In large part, this is what makes folk-like
phenomena possible on the Internet. Participants experience an immediacy
we have associated in the past with oral encounters (and secondarily with
telephone conversations). Many users report that typing “feels like” talking.
Synchronous chat modes like IRC, and even asynchronous modes with very
active participants exchanging mutliple messages on any given day, including
35
Compared to the richness of face-to-face interaction, with its nonverbal cues, paralinguistic
aspects of speech, etc. supplementing the verbal content of speech, both text-only and visually
rich varieties of communication on IRC are clearly limited; researchers influenced by information
theory call this “reduced bandwidth”
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private email, listserv discussion lists and Usenet newsgroups, all have a
dynamic quality.
Scholarly analysis of linguistic and other features of computer-mediated
communication demonstrates that, in contrast to earlier forms of writing, typed
online communication is characterized by many features formerly associated
primarily with speech.36 Thus, the virtual nature of interaction by no means
prevents collective learning, the creation of social bonds, or the codification of
group knowledge, norms, and practices.
An “Instant” Tradition
In short, rainbow beliefs and practices crystallized much faster than Eric
Hobsbawm (1983) probably anticipated when he introduced the term “invented
tradition” to refer to “new” traditions. Although no one knows who started the
practice of text-based image-making on IRC, rainbow players are keenly aware
of their own history and engage in canonization practices.
I noted earlier that every May, the group holds shows celebrating channel
anniversaries. Another event indicative of the self-conscious passing of time is
the fact that on January 1, 2001 (less than four years after the channel’s
founding), the group devoted a show to the “first art” of 36 artists. The
introductory image included the message, “Let’s have some fun, let’s take a look
36
See, e.g., Maynor (1994); Yates (1996); Baron (1998; 2000); Herring (2001); Danet (2001),
chap. 2; Crystal (2001).
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back at how we all started.”37 A set of images distributed for basic communication
online, probably as early as 1998, only a year after the group’s founding, was
named “classics.mrc.” Also, <patches> uploaded a list of milestones in rainbow’s
history to the channel Website.38
GROUP-BASED NATURE OF THE ART
Visual Representations of the Group-based Nature of the Art
By far the most important reason for recognizing rainbow art as an
emerging form of folk art is its inherently social, group-based nature. Two telling
images bring home the inextricable intertwining of social and aesthetic aspects.
One is the logo on the channel Website between 1998 and the spring of 2002
(Figure 12).39 Underneath an image of outstretched arms encircling nine little
faces were two lines: “We love everyone here on #mirc_rainbow,” and “Come
join us and enjoy the rainbow of colors.” This logo brings home that the channel
37
<patches>’ concluding message was, “Everyone who even colors or tries it will tell you
the fun comes in sharing it with others” (italics added).
38
The more recent Website does not include this feature.
39
This logo had been placed on the rainbow Website by <patches>, when she was leader
and Webmistress.In May 2002 she left rainbow and this Website was taken down. It was
evetually replaced by a new one, at http://www.mirc-rainbow.net/, which does not include this
logo. The design of outstretched arms encircling faces had originally been designed by Joan
Stark and was adapted for IRC by <diedra>.
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offers instant, unconditional acceptance and love to all comers, and that this love
is expressed via the multicolored art.40
Figure 12. Logo of the
rainbow Website, 19982002.
Figure 13. Entwining friends and colors, an image by
sher^> celebrating rainbow’s fifth anniversary.
A later representation of the same idea is a
design by <sher^> for the show celebrating
rainbow’s fifth anniversary in May 2002 (Figure
13). The interlocking squares in this interlace
design aptly symbolize the friendships that have developed behind the scenes.
One-on-One Tutoring
As John Michael Vlach has noted, “The concept of group art implies, indeed
requires, that artists acquire their abilities, both manual and intellectual, at least
40
The notion that “we love everyone” on the channel is a myth. For a discussion of the
applicability of the anthropological concepts of play, ritual and myth to rainbow activities, see
Danet (in press).
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in part from communication with others” (Vlach 1992, p. 19). This fits the present
case precisely. “Newbies”--newcomers, learn how to display and create images
in one-on-one tutoring.41 Typically, when visiting the channel, they ask, “How is
that done?” Or, “How do you play popups?”42 One of the ops then invites the
person to another channel or a private chat for instruction. Thus, teaching and
learning occur in an apprentice-like context, just as in traditional arts and crafts.
The fact that participants happen to type, rather than speaking in person, is
secondary, for the reasons described above.
Utilitarian Value
Recall also that images have utilitarian value, as in many traditional arts and
crafts—most are made to be used in real-time communication by “insiders,”
group members. Only a small minority of artists’ creations are meant to be
viewed solely as “art,” and these are generally displayed only in scheduled
shows. The art has no utilitarian function for outsiders, not involved in IRC.
41
Occasionally rainbow leaders organized online classes, both for newbies, and for ops
interested in learning new skills, but generally, these are poorly attended, and one-on-one
teaching continues to dominate.
42
“Popups” is the term used loosely to refer to files displaying images, which appear to “pop
up” suddenly, almost magically. The term also refers to very small files of three to five lines, such
as several in Figure 5, which quickly give others the “floor.”
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The Importance of Sharing
An especially important point is that artists always share their art with
others.43 <patches>’ concluding message at the end of the “first art” show was
that “Everyone who even colors or tries it will tell you the fun comes in sharing it
with others” (italics added). Group norms require the players to share the art; it
would be unthinkable not to do so. 44 In Peter Kollock’s (1999) terms, images are
tokens in a digital gift economy, where the interests of individuals are largely
nonrivalrous, and the art is primarily a public good. Individual images are
sometimes shared on the spot; individuals copy or receive them from those who
have just displayed them. After scheduled shows, entire collections are
“released” to all.45 The players engage in a ritual of repeated requesting and
receiving the file.
Thus, in Figure 14, <sher^> has just finished a show of her 2000 Christmas
art. Immediately, she displays a small image containing the instruction, “PasteÆ
“Sher^ XmsSongs.” <slaps> and <Nicky> also display the mini-file with the
instruction. Six players enter the required command. Eventually, automated file
transfer begins, and <shw> is the first to receive the file, indicated by the
43
Notice that in the material world sharing means giving or giving up some part of an object, in
order for others to have it. Digital phenomena are very different in this respect. An infinite number
of copies can be made, without diminishing the first one at all.
44
Even artists whose work is used by others also use images other than their own, in
interaction with other players.
45
The use of the term “release” imitates its use in connection with the launching of software,
or new versions of programs, and encourages anticipation of the event.
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messages from the server in the last four lines of the image.46 The value placed
on sharing is thus made visible to all. The ritual simultaneously affirms the
contribution of the individual artists or group of artists whose work has just been
shown, and reinforces the importance of sharing. The process is analogous to
what Robert Jarvenpa (2003) calls “collective witnessing” in antiques and estate
auctions, except that, instead of transforming commodities (e.g., household
objects in estate sales) into valuables, the collective witnessing here transforms
private art into public goods.47
46
Others also received the file eventually; the process takes time because of multiple
demands on the server. Things are speeded up when there is little or no lag between when one
hits enter after typing a message and when the outcome appears on screen. <Cyberpop> and
<Trisha> repeated the command, to make sure it would work. <kassy> and <Chances>
requested the file from <Nicky>; evidently she had displayed the command previously (not shown
in the illustration). Details regarding the meaning of the last four lines are not important; what
matters is that the server acknowledges for all that the new file is now ready for use on <shw>’s
computer.
47
Also, at this writing, the channel Website offers over 260 collections for downloading.
Estimating conservatively that each contains 100 images, at least 26,000 images are currently
available to anyone who knows how to download and use them. The downloads page is at
http://www.mirc-rainbow.net/downloads/downloads.html.
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Figure 14. The sharing ritual
after <sher^>’s 2000
Christmas show.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUES
Credit for One’s Art: Attitudes and Practices
An intriguing aspect of rainbow art and communication is the casual attitudes
of the group toward intellectual property issues, which follow from the insideroriented, group-based nature of this art. Artists usually hide their nick or initials in
the offline coding of images, so that when images are displayed, the inscribed
identity of the artist is not visible. Figurative rainbow artists also usually hide the
initials of ASCII artists whose work they appropriate, in partial compliance with
the request of ASCII artists of the 1990s and later, including Joan Stark and
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Haley Jane Wakenshaw, that others using their art leave their names or initials
on images.48
One possible explanation for this practice has nothing to do with intellectual
property rights, or relations between individuals and the group. Images are very
small, relatively speaking, so that initials or signatures could seem overly
prominent if part of a displayed image. Generally, images take up only a small
part of the computer screen--just a relatively few lines vertically and less than half
the width of the screen horizontally. The mIRC window can display up to 23 lines
of text, but most images are only five to ten lines long.49 While the absolute size
of images displayed varies with size of screen and resolution, most can be
thought of as digital miniatures. This means that signatures, nicknames, or initials
would be far more prominent than, say, on a large canvas hung on a museum
wall. However, in what follows, I attempt to show that this factor alone does not
account for hiding initials or nicks in offline coding.
48
Stark’s initials “jgs” are visible in Figure 16, below; those of Wakenshaw (“hjw”) are visible in
Figure 7.b. Stark’s initials are hidden in Figure 4, but with effort can be located in its offline coding
(Figure 15 below).
Earlier ASCII artists often did not sign their work, and those copying it often removed
signatures or initials. In general, concern with ethical and legal aspects of appropriating images,
even among ASCII artists, emerged in the 1990s, though few actively police others’ use of their
art. For a sophisticated treatment of the issues, by Andreas Freise, an ASCII artist who is a Ph.D.
student in physics, see http://www.ascii-art.de/info/copyright/. Both Freise and another ASCII
artist named Veronica Karlsson maintain pages compiling the signatures of as many ASCII artists
as possible; see http://www.ascii-art.de/ascii/uvw/who_is_who.txt and
http://www.ludd.luth.se/~vk/pics/ascii/junkyard/misc/who's_who.txt. Managers of Web-based
collections ask visitors to help identify art for which the artist is unknown.
49
Players are encouraged to participate using small (short) files of only a few lines, in order to
share the visual “floor” with others. Therefore “popups” are very popular.
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In August 2002 I sent the ops list a question asking why artists embed their
nick or initials in hidden coding, instead of signing them visibly. Of the 10
responding, one artist, <puriel>, claimed, imprecisely, that
Nothing can stop someone from taking ascii…. There IS NO copy right on it…. You
can't SUE if someone takes your ascii, or colors like you do or takes a border it took
you hours to come up. You just deal with it and move on trying to think up
something new.
She was the only one to bring up the issue of copyright at all, though she is
misinformed--digital objects, including rainbow images, are copyrighted once
they are in a “fixed” form.50 All those replying stated in one way or another that
credit should be given, a position which does not jibe with the folk art paradigm,
or at least with a simplistic notion of the folk artist as anonymous (I will elaborate
on this, below). Yet, most are unaware of, or do not care about the niceties of
copyright.
One explanation given for hiding credits was that insiders know where to
look for the names of artists, thus implying that only insiders need to know.
<puriel> added, “Most IRCers KNOW where to look for the credits. Those that
are new soon learn.” <MistyDawn>, a female op from Mississippi, added, “most
50
Legally, all digital objects are by definition copyrighted, once in a fixed form--even if that
form lacks tangibility; whether or not one can effectively enforce the copyright is an entirely
different matter. See, e.g., Litman (2001); Harris (1998); Cavazos and Morin (1994). Especially
stringent interpretations claim that even a document temporily stored in RAM (random access
memory), such as a Web page or software program, is “fixed” and therefore potentially in violation
of copyright. See Samuelson (1994; 2000).
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anyone who knows about us and our files knows to SCROLL over the art if you
want to see who made what or who colored what.”51
But insiders don’t need to do this: they learn to recognize the style and
content of individual artists without having to see a signature, as in folk
communities. “People who know a community’s tradition can separate the
general properties of a style from its handling by an individual….Works of art are
never anonymous inside the community….there is no need for a signature”
(Glassie 1989, p. 184).52 Thus, Chamula women weavers in Chiapas, Mexico
can identify each others’ work by the density of the weave, type of wool, and
other factors constituting individual style (Cerny 1984, p. 35).53
It is generally when commercial interests become involved in marketing
objects to outsiders that weavers, dollmakers, carvers and potters are
encouraged by dealers and middlemen to append a signature to their creations
(Graburn 1976; Glassie 1989; Chibnik 2003). “The existence of a signature on a
[Oaxacan] wood carving…draws attention to the creator of the object and away
from the community the maker comes from (Chibnik 2003, p. 58).”54 What
51
By holding down the spacebar and simultaneously wiping the cursor over a displayed
image, one can obtain a temporary, black-and-white view of the image that renders initials and
nicks of artists visible.
52
See also Graburn (1976), Introduction.
The same point was made in Graburn (1976, p. 21), cited in Cerny (1984, p. 35).
54
Chibnik cites Néstor Garcia Canclini:
53
The use value and the sense of community that crafts hold for the village that both
produces and uses them…practical [or] symbolic…are neutralized by the
signature….thanks to the signature, the meaning of crafts…is no longer
comprehensible in terms of their bond with nature or social life, but must instead be
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Charlene Cerny says about folk artists fits rainbow artists too: “The folk artist’s
role is to serve…as a representative for his group’s corporate view of life. His ego
is not erased, but his identity instead merged with that of the group” (Cerny 1984,
p. 35).
Another rainbow artist, <kiera>, a Canadian housewife, wrote:
I hide them [nicks, initials] cause I think it looks better because if you have alot
[sic] of clutter it messes up the popup…imo [in my opinion] it looks a lot
better…the less clutter the better (italics added).
Her remarks, representative of those of several other artists, suggest that
creating a “whole,” unspoiled design with no distractions, a good gestalt (Danet
under review), was more important to her than making a strong claim for credit
via a signature visible to outsiders.
There were several other ways that some rainbow artists claim or receive
credit for their work, some visible, some not so visible. One was an unintentional
by-product of combining multiple images in collections, which are given the
ending “mrc” (short for “mIRC”). When individual images from collections are
activated online, the name of the collection, often containing the artists’ nick, is
displayed below it, as in Figure 4, above. Another was intentionally
“watermarking” images by repeating one’s nick over and over in the hidden code,
making it difficult to erase it (Figure 15).55 Few artists followed the practice of
interpreted in relation to the creator’s other works. (Garcia Canclini 1993, p. 63; cited
in Chibnik 2003, p. 57).
55
Unusually, this artist uses multiple nicknames, and they are all in the watermarking.
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<tera>, adding a few lines below the displayed image specially for credits (Figure
16), a strategy that resembles practices of fine artists.
Uniquely, <nuffers>, a Florida pre-medical student, often incorporated a small
figurative motif or visual signature in her creations, a tiny winking face (lower
right corner, Figure 17). This practice resembles that of weavers in the Maya
villages of Chiapas, Mexico who adopt personalized symbols (Cerny 1984, p.
36), which may not necessarily identify, but merely confirm what everyone
knows—every member of the inner group, that is.
Figure 15. A “watermarked” image by <litty> (offline coding of Figure 4).
Figure 16. Credits on a work by <Tera>, original design
by Joan Stark.
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Figure 17. <nuffers>’ signature wink.
It is likely that the impetus for the latter
forms of “signing” one’s work came from
outside the group and outside IRC—mainly,
from the demands of recent ASCII artists
whose work is appropriated to keep their
initials on the image. Rainbow leaders have acquiesced in the practice of hiding
credits not only because they share the players’ interest in good gestalts, I
suggest, but, more importantly, because they share the group’s norm of viewing
the art primarily as circulating in a collective, and only secondarily as the product
of individual talent.56 In short, despite their novel aspects, these attitudes and
practices resemble those of traditional folk groups more than those of either
modern fine artists or formerly folk artists whose work has become
commercialized.57
Negotiations about Illustrations in Publications
My own negotiations with the group regarding use of their art as illustrations in
publications are also indicative. The players are pleased to have me give the real
56
See Danet (under review).
For analyses by law professors of the problematics of applying concepts of copyright and
intellectual property to traditional folk materials, and to phenomena on the Internet, see Rose
(1989); Chon (1996); Farley (1997). Many aspects of their analyses apply to rainbow art.
57
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name of the group in my publications, rather than inventing a pseudonym for it.
No rainbow artist has ever denied permission to use a work as an illustration.
They are eager for credit as a group with known, locatable, though solely virtual
addresses on IRC and on the Web,58 and want individuals to be credited for
specific images, yet, at the same time, individual artists wish to remain
pseudonymous.
Pseudonymity is not at all the same thing as anonymity:
In the virtual world, many degrees of identification are possible. Full anonymity
Is one extreme of a continuum tht runs from the totally anonymous to the
thoroughly named. A pseudonym, though it may be untraceable to a real-world
person, may have a well-established reputation in the virtual domain; a
pseudonymous message may thus come with a wealth of contextual
information about the sender. (Donath 1999, p. 53).
In backstage communication among themselves (in private chats, occasional
phone conversations, rare face-to-face meetings),59 and even occasionally in the
main channel, ops and others use their real names in addition to or alongside
their nicks. In email to me, they typically sign email messages with their real first
names, or both real first name and nick.60 I know that many members of the inner
circle share details of their personal lives, including their troubles, and that for
58
The URL of the current Website is in footnote 39.
59
A good deal of verbal chatting goes on in #mirc_rainbow2, the subsidiary channel where
tutoring is done. Monthly ops meetings are also held in this channel. Here, verbal communication
takes precedence.
60
<angltooch>, the professional artist, always uses her real name when communicating with
me privately, though, unlike the 35 other ops interviewed, she revealed no personal information
other than her profession and the fact that she lives in Hawaii.
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some, rainbow serves as a support group.61 Almost half my interviewees
spontaneously used the metaphor of “family” in one way or another to describe
the significance of rainbow for them personally, an outcome that could not have
taken place under conditions of total anonymity.
In general, then, despite the novelty of pseudonymity vis-à-vis the outside
world and the unusual form of claiming credit for accomplishments, both of which
differ from traditional folk art, in essentials the “folk” essence persists. Most
players are unaware of, or do not care about the niceties of copyright regarding
digital images. Recognition for the group as whole is more important to them than
credit for individuals.
IMAGES AS ART AND CRAFT
Artists and Their Art: Not Autonomous Aesthetic Objects
Although rainbow artists call themselves “artists” and speak of their “art,”62
by and large, they do not relate to their creations as autonomous aesthetic
objects. While this has been hinted at in material presented earlier, I also have
direct evidence: in May 2003, via the ops’ mailing list, I asked artists if they had
ever printed and hung their art on a wall, or used it in some way other than to
61
Some players log in each morning before work, just to say hello, see who’s there, and
receive a friendly greeting or two, in return.
62
In this respect rainbow artists do differ from many traditional folk artists, who do not
necessarily think of themselves as artists at all.
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communicate online. We might have expected at least the most popular, most
skilled and prolific artists to do so, but this was not the case.
<sher^> had once printed two of her favorite series of castle designs (Figure
18), for which she was quite famous among rainbow participants, and had hung
them on a wall for a while. But she commented, “They seem to lose their depth in
printed form,” indicating that they looked less impressive when printed, and that
she had no interest in doing this again.
Figure 18. One of <sher^>’s castle
series.
Even <angltooch>, a senior
op and, unusually, a
professional artist and potter
with an MFA and a studio
attached to her home in Hawaii, had never printed any of her many IRC images,
though she had printed some computer art she had created with Photoshop.63
“No,” she said, “I enjoy the art in the way it was intended to be viewed, as on
63
There are technical obstacles: in order to print an IRC image with all its colors, it must first
be converted to a regular graphic image. A few artists do upload graphic versions (.jpg or .gif
files) of some of their art to their personal Websites, but this tendency is quite limited. See, e.g.,
<redmoon>’s Website, http://members.tripod.com/~redmoon7448/ascii.html, and that of another
channel, #mirc_texts4play, one of whose leaders, <gigi8>, is also active on rainbow, at
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/5637/sample.html. No rainbow player has created an
extended online gallery of art, though for a while <patches> did include pages documenting a
small number of images. Neither has the channel ever included a link to my Website for
Cyberpl@y (Danet 2001), which incorporates many examples of IRC art, and which calls the
attention of outsiders to this art in an entire chapter, available online as well as in the book.
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IRC.” <puriel> commented in her no-nonsense style, “Heck no, IRC is just that,
IRC...the art is…just for IRC.” When she abruptly withdrew from rainbow in
anger over a demotion in her status as op, she erased all her art from her
computer’s hard disk.64
One exception was a brief attempt to incorporate rainbow art in digital
greetings (birthday greetings, get well greetings, romantic, etc.) on the Web by a
Dutch female artist nicknamed <Nicky>. Greetings could be used by anyone, not
only participants on rainbow. However, this service never became popular,
either among rainbow players or the general online population, and was
discontinued.
Digital Craft
As for the ostensible lack of satisfactions of the handmade in IRC art, both
IRC artists and the ASCII artists whose work they often appropriate use the word
“handmade” to describe images that are “drawn” (their word), typographic
character by character, for instance in Notepad, in contrast to those generated
via programs for automatic conversion of graphic images into text.65 Malcolm
McCullough (1996) argued persuasively that we need to recognize a new stage
64
Since collections of some of her art continue to be available for downloading on the group’s
current Website, http://www.mirc-rainbow.net/, she could, in theory, retrieve her art at any time.
65
For this very reason, an ASCII artist named Allen Mullen who used a conversion program
called his creations “pictures,” rather than art. See Danet (2001, pp. 230-231). Mullen’s Website
was recently taken down, but can be retrieved at the Internet Archive, www.archive.org/; enter the
URL http://www.inetw.net/~mullen/index.html. Mullen’s version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”
is still visible at http://www.edvard-munch.com/Paintings/other_artists/scream_ascii.htm. A detail
of his transformation of Picasso’s “Guernica” is available in Danet (2001), Fig. 5.33, p. 231.
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in the history of craft, that of digital production. He suggests that a variety of
types of activity done via computers get “’crafted’ when experts use limited
software capacities resourcefully, imaginatively….To craft is to care…acting
locally in reaction to anonymous, globalized, industrial production (McCullough
1996, p. 21; italics added).
Using the elements of text in a creative manner that goes beyond what they
were designed for, as rainbow artists do, is similarly resourceful and creative. In
this respect rainbow art is an outgrowth of the creativity and virtuosity that have
been valued in hacker culture (Raymond 1996; Danet 2001, pp. 26-29), although,
ironically, as we have seen, artists have domesticated this medium, eliminating
its more transgressive aspects.
As in traditional crafts, eye-hand coordination continues to be important, even
if images are intangible. Moreover, in many instances, even with respect to
handmade material objects, tools of some kind are involved. Only a small
number of material-based crafts, such as basket-making, involve direct contact
with the material being transformed without the use of tools. To cite McCullough
again, “Continuous control of process is at the heart of tool usage and craft
practice” (McCullough 1996, p. 66). This is as true of rainbow art-making as of
traditional crafts. The satisfactions may be somewhat different—there is no silk or
straw or clay to touch or smell--but there are satisfactions, nonetheless.
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DISCUSSION
The Expression “Digital Folk Art”
To date, there has been little serious consideration of the possibility of a
digital folk art on the Internet, though the term is beginning to be used, generally
rather uncritically. Xeni Jardin started the “SARS Digital Folk Art Project” to
document popular aesthetic responses to the SARS epidemic. Her project
generated a debate as to whether the art was truly of a “folk” nature, because
professional artists contributed to it as well as ordinary, untrained people, and
because many images did not coincide with commentators’ stereotypes about
what constitutes folk art.66 Participants on Nettime, an online discussion list for
artists and intellectuals interested in net.art, digital art by professionals, have also
used the term.67 A site called “Homespun” claims to offer a timeline of digital folk
art, but it too includes works by professionals, albeit of no commercial value.68
In 2001 the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico held
an exhibit called “Cyber Arte: Tradition Meets Technology.” This exhibition
included works of tangible substance by four contemporary Hispana/
Chicana/Latina artists, and was, as far as I know, the first by a folk art museum to
66
Boing Boing is at http://boingboing.net. The SARS digital folk art project is at
http://www.sarsart.org/. See also Harmon (2003) and an online exhibit at the Shanghai Art
Museum (in Chinese, though the images are accessible):
http://www.cnarts.net/cweb/arts/yishubaoz/exhibition/show/antisars/zuopin.asp.
67
It was used in a posting February 18, 2002; see http://amsterdam.nettime.org/ListsArchives/nettime-l-0102/msg00194.html.
68
Personal email communication frm Victoria Westhead, the New York University student who
created this project, November 9, 2003. See http://wiredheart.hispeed.com/index.html.
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acknowledge works created with computers, though the potential impact of the
exhibition was cut short by controversy.69 Just as fine art museums now
recognize net.art and other forms of digital art by professional artists,70 it should
be only a matter of time before more folk art museums take account of
developments involving amateurs, computers and the Internet.
Alternative Terms?
In theory, there are many other possible designations for rainbow art,
including “self-taught,” “outsider,” and “popular.” In my opinion, none of these fits
as well as “folk” art. Regarding the label “self-taught,” John Michael Vlach has
commented,
No genuine folk artist can ever be completely self-taught. Certainly folk artists may
work alone, even in seclusion, but they will work within a socially sanctioned set of
rules for artistic production which they expect will insure the acceptability of their
completed pieces. Thus they are mentally connected even if physically isolated
(Vlach 1992, p. 20; italics added).
While Vlach did not have the Internet in mind when writing the essay from which
the above citation was taken,71 his remarks are very applicable: participants in
crystallized groups like rainbow are also mentally connected even if physically
69
The controversy was over a digital print of the Virgin Mary by Alma Lopez. An account of the
controversy, which had nothing to do with its digital nature, and the print itself are available at
http://www.almalopez.net/.
70
Among museums with major commitments to net.art—art that exists only on the Internet-and other forms of computer art by professionals are the Whitney Museum of American Art
(exhibits called “Bitstreams” and “Data Dynamics,” 2001); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(“Art in Technological Times”), http://010101.sfmoma.org/; and museums specializing in digital
art, such as ZKM: Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany, http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/e/.
71
This essay first appeared in the first edition of Folk Art and Art Worlds (Vlach and Bronner
1986), a publication resulting from a 1983 conference, and thus predated widespread use of
email or the Internet by academics or, indeed, by most anyone other than computer hackers and
professionals.
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isolated. With the exception of <angltooch> rainbow artists are self-taught, but,
at the same time, are heavily dependent on others much like them who are only
steps ahead of them, or who have similar knowledge and skills, and who share a
common set of expectations. They constantly teach each other new tricks.
We have seen that most participants are from non-elites—housecleaners,
truck drivers, wives of coal miners and auto salesmen--many of them quite lonely
and socially isolated, somewhat marginalized geographically, or coping with
serious personal or health problems. A half dozen are recovering alcoholics and
drug addicts. Might we then think of rainbow art as a digital form of outsider art?
Clearly, my answer is “no:” “folk art says ‘We are,’ but the works of [outsider
artists] cry ‘I am’” (Crease and Mann 1983, p. 91, cited in Dubin 1997, p. 39).
These are not eccentric individuals working alone with a strong inner need for
self-expression, like Adolf Wölfli in Switzerland, or Howard Finster and Henry
Darger in the United States.72 Rather, these are people quietly making art to be
used in communication with others within their group.
As for the term “popular,” in the broadest sense, rainbow art is, of course, a
form of popular art—art of “the people.” But this very general term includes many
other forms of amateur aesthetic expression online that are significantly different.
I am thinking, for instance, of sites like Renderosity or Poser Forum, where
72
On outsider art generally, see Cardinal (1972); (Maizels 1996); Zolberg (1997); Hall (1994).
For Wolfli, see Wölfli (1976); (Morgenthaler, Esman, and Spoerri 1992); Spoerri (2003); for
Finster, see Finster and Patterson (1989); Turner and Finster (1989); for Darger, see Darger
(2001); Darger (2000). Major commercial interests have become involved in connection with
many outsider artists, as dealers sought and promoted new works for growing markets.
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amateurs (and some professionals) create three-dimensional, high-resolution
computer art. These artists by no means fit the folk mold: they are using
expensive commercial software to create art that they wish to sell, and they are
in competition with one another.73
A phenomenon that more closely resembles rainbow art is digital friendship
quilts on the Web. Participants create assemblages of digital “patches,” with
sentimental verbal messages lilke “Friends forever.”74 However, these quilts
reveal little interest in pattern (patches are almost entirely figurative). Imagery
appears to be mainly from greeting cards and other forms of popular culture, with
little formal resemblance to traditional friendship quilts other than the use of
patches of standard size.75 Moreover, social relationships are tenuous, dyadic,
cultivated primarily by private email, and invisible to outsiders. This phenomenon
is better labeled as popular, rather than “folk.”
Summing Up
Despite the anomalies that I have acknowledged--the fact that rainbow art is
intangible, that most players have never met in the physical world, and that this
73
See http://www.poserforum.org/; http://www.renderosity.com/. As is true for many forms of
digital artistic activity, the line between amateurs and professionals is increasingly blurred. For
examples relating to digital font design, see Danet (2001), chap. 7.
74
Patches look like figurative imagery on paper greeting cards. See, e.g., “Random Acts of
Kindness Quilts for the Cause,” http://theraokgroup.com/RAOKQuilt/; “Susie’s Cyber Cloud
Quilts,” http://suzieque.net/quiltindex.htm; “Lady Kree’s Quilt World,”
http://www.ladykree.com/quilts/.
75
See, e.g., Clark (1986); Lipsett (1997).
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phenomenon is less than a decade old--the inherently social, non-commercial76
nature of this art, its formal and thematic features, and the group’s attitudes and
practices regarding intellectual property issues together make it more folk-like,
even—I dare say--more authentic a form of cultural expression than much of the
commercialized tourist art that is circulating in world markets today.77 This
phenomenon should neither be romanticized as “pretty,” “charming,” or
“heartwarming,” nor dismissed as “merely decorative,” or a pathetic, childish
substitute for real-world social ties and for artistic creations having rich,
unmediated appeal to the senses. In today’s fragmented world, this research
suggests, virtual groups can respond to human needs via new forms of cultural
expression that, at least in some circumstances can also successfully provide
continuities with older concerns, values and practices. Previous case studies
have shown how virtual groups cultivate friendships and create a sense of
community via typed text.78 This study is the first, I believe, to document that this
can also be accomplished when online communication is primarily via visual
rather than verbal means.
I have also attempted to show in this paper that the recent positions of many
contemporary folklorists on what constitutes folklore and folk art today can be
76
Of course the phenomenon is dependent on the Windows operating system and access to a
PC, so it is not 100% free of commercial elements, but I have argued that in essentials, noncommercial elements predominate.
77
I am well aware that the term “authentic” is much debated. See Graburn (1976); Errington
(1998), chap. 5; Chibnik (2003).
78
See Markham (1998); Cherny (1999); Baym (2000); Sveningsson (2001); Kendall (2002).
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read as making room for new digital phenomena of the kind described in this
paper. Beyond the ethnographic particulars of this case study, my research
demonstrates that new forms of digitally based creativity force us to rethink our
categories and our understandings about the nature of creativity among ordinary
people and the conditions under which it can thrive. Finally, this paper has
aspired to show that face-to-face communication between researchers and their
subjects is not vital to online research.79 Long-term ethnographic research and
triangulation of methods can produce valuable results in research conducted
online, just as they do in research conducted in the physical world.
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