Photoshop tennis and SITO's PANIC
A comparison between the phenomenon of Photoshop tennis and
SITO's PANIC. For what it's worth.
What is Photoshop tennis?
According to Wikipedia (at the
time of this writing, anyway!), Photoshop tennis is a
game played on computers where:
The players pick a starting image, then one player makes some sort of
alteration to the image in any graphics manipulation package that
they like. They then send their altered image, usually via email, though
posting the image to a Photoshop tennis forum is another possibility,
to the other player, who then edits that image and sends it back to
the first player.
[Photoshop tennis entry]
Origins
According to several sources, including
an article
on Wired.com, the inventor of Photoshop tennis was Jim Coudal, who
created the game in 2001.
SITO began dabbling in something very similar to Photoshop tennis
way back in January 1994. It was (and still is) known as PANIC.
At its fundamental level, play transpires exactly as is described in
the Wikipedia excerpt above: players start with an original/base image,
and take turns manipulating it in subsequent "volleys". Like Photoshop
tennis, more than two players can be involved (in the case of PANIC,
this was common), however, unlike Photoshop tennis, there is no (formal)
competition or judging of final outcomes. Typical, though, players
would discuss (via IRC) the progress of each session and their results.
One of the first public announcements for PANIC can be seen in
this Feb. 11, 1994
Usenet post.
PANIC continues to this day, albeit
in a very casual manner and in the shadow of more popular Synergy
projects, such as Gridcosm.
Conclusion
SITO has no desire to try to claim inventing Photoshop tennis. We
merely want to point out our earlier, similar experimentations with
collaborative image games in hopes of adding to the recorded history of
electronic art. We know that art, and the countless methods of its creation,
are all part of a continuous timeline. SITO has always acknowledged that our
collaborative
projects build upon numerous ideas before us: exquisite corpse, cut-up,
collage, dada, etc.
We look forward to each new development in software and technology
that allows artists to work, play, and create with one another.
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