Software (tools and utilities) for artistic collaboration [19990226] Painting together Whiteboard apps are for collaborative drawings. The usual approach is to provide a set of simple painting tools and a switch between participants. A chat channel can also be available, but if not the IChat or ICQ applications will provide it (you can run more than one connecting application at the same time). For whiteboard apps check http://www.shareware.com or your nearest TUCOWS for your platform. [19990226] The most sophisticated commercial painting offering would have to be Fractal Design Painter (http://www.metacreations.com, see review IA Feb 98). Fractal’s approach is to transmit not the image, but the commands used to create it – and given that Painter’s brushes are usually pretty complex this makes for smart work, as the only necessity becomes the sending of coordinates and a note as to which tool is being used. Microsoft use a similar approach with NetMeeting. These and similar programs retain control by one collaborator – other participants are limited to comments on the chat channels whilst someone else works. To find someone to collaborate with, check out the Painter message board http://desktoppublishing.com/painter/paintertalk.html. Advertise the sort of project you are interested in, and then set up a mutual time to meet and paint together. Don’t rely on Painter initially for communication during set up – have a back up such as ICQ in case the initial connection doesn’t pan out as expected. Much of on-line collaborative art is not live, however. Most of it requires you to take existing art and mutilate or alter it in some fashion and re-post it. A good place for sequential collaboration with a known artist is Kaleidospace http://kspace.com where an artist in residence creates, say, three panels of a comic and then Internet viewers are invited to add panels, working towards a collaborative comic book. Another is Online Mutilation for the Silent Postman, which is all about mutating existing pictures http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/steve_kean/Online.htm. Then there are the projects with off-line ends in sight: Global Collage http://www.globalcollage.com intends to gather art from around the world and cover a real life wall in San Francisco with it (in addition to displaying the pieces on-line). If music’s more your style of working together there are options open here as well, although the collaborations here are even less likely to be as immediate as chat. But if you have a MIDI recorder, or a RealAudio or Shockwave encoder, you can join in the collaborative music action. [19990226] ResRocket Surfer http://www.resrocket.com is the touchstone of on-line jamming. It doesn’t get any funkier than this. The group has some terrific global sounds already on display and is actively looking for new participants. Bored with exchanging files by FTP, ResRocket founders wrote software to make live collaboration possible. All you need to do is download the software – called DRGN (Distributed Real-time Groove Network) – from the site and get involved. The gang even has an album available, consisting entirely of music recorded during net sessions. There are now so many ResRocketeers that the crowd has divided into bands which meet for theme jams. Check out the schedules page to find out who’s playing what and when. You can (of course) start your own band here too. [19990226] The Living Room http://www.livingroom.org is part music and part multimedia collaboration. Although much of what’s available in The Living Room itself is archives of older performances, you can pop into the Meeting Room and talk about projects. World Band is a music project for school students: each school has an electronic music studio with MIDI synthesizers and computer sequencing software. Using the Internet, students collaborate on studying music composition, sequencing and creating their own sounds. [20020121] SodaPlay http://www.sodaplay.com. "Looking at the fluid, lifelike way these creatures walk and roll and slink across the screen you might think that there must be some very complicated stuff going on behind the scenes. well fear not, it's actually very simple. it only looks complicated because lots of simple bits are working together." Build your own or play with others'.