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World's First Collaborative Sentence Links Immediately I thought of the keyboard, the means of interaction allowed by the Web but not by video or flat art. The big difference between broadcast TV and the Web is the keyboard: that people can say anything with it, they have full expressive capacity. This means a more intense and personal link could occur between me and the audience - and why not get the whole world together to write a sentence? --Douglas Davis, interviewed by Tilman Baumgaertel The World's First Collaborative Sentence -- while probably not what it claims to be -- was indeed among the first significant works of web-based art. Commissioned by the Lehman College Art Gallery as part of its "InterActions (1967-1981)" show, which examined Davis' early works, the Sentence is an ongoing collection of words, sounds, and images contributed by netizens worldwide. According to the Whitney's site for the project, "[a]s of early 2000, the estimated number of actual contributions neared 200,000 and incorporated dozens of languages." In January of 1995, the Sentence was purchased by Barbara and Eugene Schwartz (reputed to be the first actual purchase of Internet artwork by a collector). Following the passing of Mr. Schwartz that same year, the piece was then donated to the Whitney, which maintains effective ownership of the piece to this day. Of course, the very idea that a worldwide collaborative project could be owned by any single person or institution seems rife with contradictions, but that's part of my personal fascination with the piece. Both its conceptual seed and its nearly immediate commodification keenly anticipate the explosive growth of the market for web-based social spaces. I've long felt that the best new media art reveals the path ahead before we walk it. Submitted
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