Latest news with #collaborativeart
The Verge
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
This collaborative doodling website is like Google Maps plus MS Paint
A new website that lets you paint over a world map with other users in real-time has taken the digital illustration community by storm. Wplace is a collaborative pixel art platform that serves as a spiritual successor to Reddit's r/Place April Fools' Day experiments, placing time restrictions on drawing tools that motivate users to team up to complete large or complex paintings. While r/Place provided its users with a blank white pixel grid, Wplace is layered over an interactive canvas of a world map made up of four trillion pixels, according to the website's launch trailer, making it feel like a mashup between Microsoft Paint and Google Maps. Wplace also appears to be a permanent experience, unlike r/Place, which Reddit has only made available for a few days every time it revives the experiment. That said, it appears to be straining under the weight of its explosive popularity, limiting its availability. The painting aspect of Wplace is made intentionally challenging — new users have a limited pool of 30 pixels that they can place, and regain one spent pixel every 30 seconds. Though the maximum pool size expands the more you draw, the recharge time remains the same. Those limitations mean that Wplace users either have to work extremely slowly and hope that nobody paints over their progress, or collaborate on large projects with help from other users. That makes some of the expansive paintings that have been shared across social media all the more impressive. Gaming and fandom-related content seem especially popular: fans of the NBC TV series Hannibal have littered images and quotes all over Florence, Italy, which is the setting for some of season 3, while Las Vegas, USA, is covered in homages to the Fallout games. Wplace itself has some gamified aspects too, such as leaderboards that track which countries are painted with the most pixels and which country has the most users who are contributing to the global canvas. The website has attracted more than a million users since Friday. Some functions are currently offline at the time of reporting; however, with Wplace saying that it's 'experiencing technical problems.' Existing users can add to the canvas, but new users are unable to create accounts, and the leaderboards feature isn't displaying any information. It's unclear when regular service will be restored, but for now you can still visit the website to scroll through all of the artwork that was placed over the weekend. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Jess Weatherbed Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Design Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Web
The Guardian
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Art Fund to launch £5m project for UK museums to share their collections
A £5m project in which 20 museums will share their collections and expertise with each other could revolutionise the touring model in the UK. Going Places has been developed by Art Fund, the charity that secures art for public collections while providing financial support for museums, and will will involve local people when the nationwide project launches in May 2026. Billed as 'the UK's largest ever collaborative touring project', several institutions will work together on themed exhibitions, while 'pooling resources, sharing expertise and working together'. Museums that wanted to take part met up and underwent a 'matchmaking' process where they identified themes that interested them before splitting into groups. Museums Worcestershire, OnFife and Penlee House Gallery and Museum in Penzance will collaborate on exhibitions ingfocus on the female artists within their collections. Aberdeenshire Council, Armagh city, Banbridge and Craigavon borough council and the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool take on the theme of 'journeys', encompassing 'migration and exile to the milestones, traditions and celebrations'. Blackwell Arts & Crafts House, Dovecot Studios, Tŷ Pawb and William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, east London, reconsider the arts and crafts movement as 'a starting point to consider the politics, social values, and new possibilities emerging around contemporary forms of manufacturing'. Art Fund's chief executive, Jenny Waldman, said the project was a way for museums to reduce costs at a time when many are facing funding squeezes. Waldman said: 'Our museum directors surveys told us 63% of museums want to work with other museums on ambitious shows because they bring in new audiences but they are expensive.' An exhibition at the Bowes Museum in County Durham. Photograph: Bowes Museum 'People can see the extraordinary collections we've got across the UK, museums can reach new audience and it is done in a sustainable way.' Local communities will also have the chance to collaborate with curators and decide what will be included in exhibitions. Waldman said the scheme was similar to the highly praised initiative by the Manchester Museum when it involved the local south Asian community in giving input into its £15m galleries that opened in 2023. Waldman said: 'The Manchester Museum showed that if the items and stories are interesting to the communities who are making the exhibition then its likely they will be interesting to other people too.' skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to The Guide Get our weekly pop culture email, free in your inbox every Friday Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Going Places is funded by grants, with £2.86m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £1.5m from the Julia Rausing Trust, the philanthropic organisation. Simon Fourmy, director of the Julia Rausing Trust, said the project represented an 'innovative collaborative approach in the creation of touring exhibitions', while National Lottery Heritage Fund chief executive, Eilish McGuinness, said Going Places allowed museums to 'share diverse and much-loved collections in a unique and dynamic way'. Last week the shortlist for the Art Fund museum of the year 2025 prize was revealed. It featured museums from all four nations of the UK, including Beamish in County Durham, Chapter in Cardiff, Compton Verney in Warwickshire, the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast and Perth Museum, home of the Stone of Destiny, in Scotland. A prize of £120,000 goes to the winner and an additional £15,000 is awarded to each of the finalists. Last year's winner was the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, east London.
