Christoph Niemann and his Audience

"I fear that my most basic inspiration to draw and design is a genuine insecurity. Hence, there always has been a (more or less) defined character sitting in the back of my head giving me imaginary thumbs ups&downs. That character changes depending on the assignment: when I was sixteen I would usually think of one of the girls that I tried to impress with my drawings (I was usually spot on with guessing what they liked — except that they just liked the drawings but wouldn't make the leap to fall in love with me). By now I have fairly established set of avatars that are based on real people, that I run things by in my head. When I give a talk, I usually try to find out if there is someone in the audience that I know, and then turn that person into my mental target audience." [Niemann, in Frank, 2010]

Frank, Z. [2010] Christoph Niemann. [online] http://www.zefrank.com/audience/#christoph [31/03/2010]
Niemann, C. (2009) Over the Wall. [online] http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/over-the-wall/ [31/03/2010]

Ze Frank, Stumpy and Collaboration

I have emailed Ze Frank about the collaborative process of Stumpy. He said the project started at:
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/02/021907.html

This is the link to "the show". Frank had asked his viewers to contribute illustrations in a social network ORG that he managed. The show apparently was "one of the earliest video blogs to incorporate viewer action to create context", and was a "conversation between the host and the viewers of the program" [zefrank.com, 2010]. The show ran from March 2006 for a year.

Zefrank.com [2010] About the Show. [online]
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/02/021907.html
[24/02/2010]

Ze Frank, Viewers and Stumpy

Ze Frank has produced short story where he tells a story of a duck named Stumpy and had his viewers illustrate it (Frank, 2008). The result is many different styles of images illustrate the story. I have emailed Ze Frank to ask about his collaboration with his audience.

Frank has also hosts Frailty which he describes "a collaborative illustrated poem" [Frank, 2010]. Here, he has posted lines for the viewers to illustrate using Scribbler and to email him, to be posted as an online picture book in the future. Scribbler adds an effect to the images drawn, and unlike the images of Stumpy, give similar touches or strokes. This is my sketch of the Wall.

Frank, Z. (2008) Stumpy Movie. [online] http://www.zefrank.com/zesblog/archives/2008/09/stumpy_movie.html [20/01/2010]

Frank, Z. [2010] Frailty: A Collaborative Illustrated Poem. [online] http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/frailty/ [21/02/2010]