Stef Lewandowski
Create something every day

It’s official - the West Midlands, UK has made the world’s biggest photo-montage according to the Guinness World Records officials.

I’ve been working on the web site for a large scale public art project called The Big Picture this year, and after about ten months it has come to an end with a big success!

112,896 photos were brought together by thousands of people from across the region, via the site we built, through workshops and events, and by people literally sending in their old photographs to be scanned in.

The result was a huge 30 by 30 metre mosaic made up of all of the images arranged so that at a distance they formed one single image, which itself was one of the images submitted to the project.

That image was one of a handful of images that were shortlisted to be turned into the mosaic and it was only when the final thing was unveiled at Millennium Point this weekend that the winner found out that it was hers that was chosen.

And the image has a story itself - it’s an image of a turn of the century boxer called Arthur James Bunce and not a contemporary image (which I was expecting).

Here’s the moment the winner, Lucy Moore, found out that an image of her granddad Arthur was now the subject of a world record breaking photography montage , captured by Nick Booth:

Watch until the end for the reason she’s so emotional about winning. Amazing stuff.

And here’s what Arthur James Bunce’s great-grandson had to say about it all:

WHEYYYY!!! When my mom told me that Luce had won I think my exact words were “Sure mom yea…” THEN I saw the news!! I was amazed! I wish I was there an not workin hehe I’d have been blubbering along with her! But WOW! It’s incredible to think that so many people have contributed to a photo of my great grandad!!! I am just so glad she entered it and hope people can appreciate the photo as much as our family do now

View a fully zoom-in-able version of the mosaic.

The whole project has generated something of a debate on Nick’s site around the question “Was the big picture about the artist or the community?”

I’m quite interested in this because I think that we’re entering an era where the distinction between artist and audience are blurring. Much in the same way that consumer electronics has adapted to a new market phenomenon of the ‘prosumer’ (an ugly but apt word) I think that the success of the big picture points towards the possibility that with social media comes greater connectivity with art, and a greater sense of ownership over a collaborative artwork like this vast montage.

I think this could just be the tip of the iceberg. What happens when the Arts Council start twigging to the fact that there are huge audiences to be had on MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter?
Channel 4 already seem to be moving in this direction with 4IP, but what about our arts organisations?

Niches are coming together in interesting ways online and people are increasingly not just using the web but producing with it. That’s a given - I won’t labour the point.

I think this project points towards an interesting opportunity for cultural organisations to reach new audiences that might be interested in what they do but might not be geographically close, or where there are traditional barriers for self-expression, or where there are technological innovations happening around us that change the way we perceive the word ‘culture’.

So I think this points towards a very positive new area that needs huge development if the ‘cultural industries’ want to continue to be relevant to an audience that is increasingly hyperconnected, mobile and technologically aware.

My advice, based on the success of this project - go to where your audience is (with their family), doing something that is already familiar to them (taking photos), using technology that is already widely available (a camera phone and the internet) and do something interesting on the back of free stuff other people have done before (use Flickr and Wordpress) to make something inspirational with a sense of competition (who’s image will be chosen?) for a specific geographic area (in this case the West Midlands) or a niche (people who like taking photos.

The website part of this project wasn’t without its glitches, and we had problem after problem with using Flickr and Wordpress in conjunction with eachother. However, the principle is there, and with some refinement I’m confident that toolkits will become available for arts organisations _within the year_ (for example see Squarespace and OpenSocial) that take the technological headache out of doing exciting artistic projects like this to reach large audiences with little effort.

I see a rosy future for cultural activity online that reinforces and generates exciting stuff that happens offline, and that’s where it really matters.