Originally from a filmmaking background, Andy Deck makes Software Art and Net Art since the early 1990s. That is public art for the internet such as collaborative drawing spaces and game-like search engines.

Deck’s work is highly critical of corporate culture and militarism. Adopting the term ‘informative art’, Deck produces his work using open source software components, making visible the structure behind the interface and inviting others to alter it.

Screening Circle is a development from an earlier work by Deck titled, Glyphiti - A real time ‘graffiti’ wall on the internet. In a similar way to Screening Circle, the work asks users to add their own contribution in order to construct a collaborative drawing. Starkly black and white, the resulting images are periodically archived and the work constantly evolving as new users alter its design.

The term ‘glyph’ comes from ancient Mayan and Egyptian culture and refers to a symbol or an abstract unit of writing that is context dependent. The meaning of the character is changeable depending on the symbols that surround it. In the 1960s the concept of a ‘glyph’ was revisited by artists experimenting with early computer animation.

Screening Circle develops the collaborative drawing premise of Glyphiti and expands its potential into a motion-graphic composition by allowing uses to create new frames for their drawings. In this way Deck combines his interest in participatory online interfaces, open ended composition and film.

By allowing users to add meaning to his work through participation, Deck challenges the notion of author and artist. Launch the project (above) in order to add your own contribution or view the work of others.

Screening Circle has been commissioned in collaboration with artport, the Whitney Museum of American Art's portal to net art.