Collaborative Art

Eco talks about the way Pousseur addresses the idea of openness of collaborative work as a positive aspect of the production, "recasting the work so as to expose it to the maximum possible 'opening'. This statement to me is extremely powerful. The notion that artists' works are their finished product and that by adding anymore elements or removing anymore elements is a matter of destruction is one rigid view of art production that we have been engineered to take as the truth. We also have learned to see art production as a controlled, meticulous process. Collaborative art is the rebel that intends to break down our stereotype and expectation of art.
Collaborative art is not laziness or meaningless chaos; it is not an open canvas that is a freebie for anyone who wants to participate. Collaborative art takes the inescapable element of art, which is openness, into its hand and utilizing it to the benefit of the art work. For example, the Jackson Pollack website is not an open, meaningless canvas, even though it may seem like so in the beginning. The amount of the black paint that is allowed to come off the mouse is calculated and controlled to achieve potential aesthetics and an experience that simulates Pollack paintings. Like real paint brush, there is not an unlimited amount of ink that will keep coming off the brush (or your mouse, in this case). Best of all, the participants can experience the effect of motion on paint.
Most importantly though, is that collaborative art uses the inescapable "limitless interpretation" into its benefit and the scope of the artistic intentions. The Sheep Market is an example of such change in artists' view of 'openness'. Instead of creating the one perfect "sheep with the muzzle facing left," Aaron Koblin expends the project to an open source of creativity, letting collaborators offer their interpretations at a reward of 2 cents. Although Koblin is later criticized for exploitation by selling the sheet drawings at a price of $20, and I do not applaud the commercial intentions behind collecting the drawings, Koblin was able to turn the frustrating aspect of art that people can interpret a piece in thousands of ways into an additional source of creativity for his project.