Johannes Gees, calc Kulturlabor, Gino Esposto
Communimage

Calc Cultural Laboratory in collaboration with Johannes Gees & Gino Esposto

(Tomi Scheiderbauer, Teresa Alonso, Luks Brunner, Malex Spiegel und Roger Lüchinger)

Communimage is a collaborative art project on the web, initiated by Calc Cultural Laboratory and Johannes Gees. The website www.communimage.ch was programmed for Expo 01 in July 1999. Since then, it has been evolving into an expanding cartography of thousands of individual images that users from all over the world can upload. By the end of April 2023, over 26,000 images from more than 2,300 authors in 93 countries have been shared. The current size of the Communimage sculpture being printed would be about 165m2. The visual interface for uploading images is a coordinate system, in which each square field (128 x 128 pixels) has a fixed position. Users can choose the space for their images, drawings, photographs, texts, and text ribbons within the Communimage cartography. Each new image only needs to border an existing image on at least one side. They become both artists and curators, engaging in dialogue with the surrounding images. Simultaneously, they shape and alter the sculptural form of the sea of images with each new addition. The participatory and dialogical curatorial concept of the website has been in existence for over 20 years. Various stages of the project have been shared in numerous exhibitions worldwide.

Text by: Sabine Himmelsbach