Since May 1997 I have been studying a new form of digital art on IRC, or Internet Relay Chat

designs or figurative “drawings”. This art and two groups that create and use it were the subject of one of five studies in my recent book CYBERPL@Y: COMMUNICATING ONLINE (Danet 2001). I will summarize the main points from that study, and then present new material from research now in progress. Like its predecessor, ASCII art, IRC art is a form of aestheticized play with writing. Artists use letters and symbols not to communicate verbal meanings, but to create and share visual images. I call this an avant-folk phenomenon, because of the striking juxtaposition of fairly advanced technology and skills with a naïve form of expression. In Cyberpl@y I wrote about two groups or channels on the Undernet, called “rainbow” and “colors.” Colors was the “parent” channel, founded in February, 1997; a group of players defected from colors in May 1997 and founded rainbow. Colors ceased to exist in 2000; rainbow, on the other hand, continues to flourish. In this paper I will speak mainly about rainbow. The current leader of rainbow is a woman nicknamed “patches.” She has a B.A. in music, and as her nickname hints, is an experienced quilter. She oversees the channel and is also Webmistress of its Website. “Texxy,” the former channel leader, is the customer service manager in an office supply store in Texas. “Sher,” the group’s most popular, most prolific artist, is a housewife married to a coal miner. Most of the players are Americans, concentrated in the South, West and Southwest, of 1 My research on two groups on the Undernet that communicate primarily via images is presented in Chapter 6 of Cyberpl@y. This chapter is available as the sample chapter on the Companion Website to the book, at http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msdanet/cyberpl@y/. In the Internet Explorer version of the site, all illustrations—both black and white and color plates—are included. The Netscape version of the chapter is text-only. A .pdf version of the chapter can also be downloaded. 2 Paper presented at AoIR 2.0, Minneapolis, Oct. 10-14, 2001. ©Copyright Brenda Danet, November 15, 2001. moderate education and employed in lower-middle-class and working class occupations; there is a smattering of players from around the world too. About 60% are women, and 40% men. The two main functions of this art—social and aesthetic-are discernible in two motifs that used to be on the rainbow Website. In the upper image we see archetypal outstretched arms encircling many little faces; underneath are two sentences, “We love everyone here on #mirc_rainbow,” and “Come join us and enjoy the rainbow of colors.” A second motif urges, “Click on the above image to step into a world where dreams do come true. The next slide shows that images serve as both “art” and “communication.” The nicks of all the players in the channel appear at the right. A player nicknamed “Motosume” arrives, deploys an image to greet the others, and is greeted in turn by “slaps.” “Slaps” and “steakie” each greet “bizbille,” and “puriel” greets “dholli.” Sets of images are stored on players’ hard disks, and can be activated from a menu that can be displayed on screen. Just before playing the selected file, the player inserts the nick of the recipient. The nick of the sender is repeated at the beginning of every line of the image, thus confirming that this is basically text art. Besides ordinary, spontaneous online communication, the players also hold scheduled events, including art shows, holiday celebrations, celebrations of the channel anniversary, and birthday parties for individuals. Despite its intangibility, this art has many affinities with real-world crafts, including quilting, needlepoint, freehand embroidery and woven, knotted or hooked carpets and rugs. The similarities derive primarily from the geometric