SwarmSketch is a collaborative drawing application created by Peter Edmunds at the University of Canberra, he says on the about page:

“SwarmSketch is an ongoing online canvas that explores the possibilities of distributed design by the masses. … Each user can contribute a small amount of line per visit, then they are given the opportunity to vote on the opacity of lines submitted by other users. By voting, users moderate the input of other users, judging the quality of each line. The darkness of each line is the average of all its previous votes.” The projects tag line is “Collective sketching of the collective consciousness.”

I find the resulting aesthetic fascinating, reminiscent of toilet grafitti as often is the resulting subject matter - a friend I showed it to described the resulting drawings as the “definition of mediocrity” - which I think is harsh. But it is a challenge I’m hoping to overcome with inkoid - how to facilitate group think and obtain high quality artistic results.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Related projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.