The Philippines managed to get represented in a massive internet art project on the discussion website Reddit.
On April 1, millions of users on Reddit called Redditors gathered on a forum called r/Place to create any type of colored pixel art on a white canvas.
The finished art project was uploaded on Reddit’s Facebook page on April 6.
The canvas was filled with colorful shapes, images and other types of art forms contributed by different communities of the forum.
“Before r/place pixels turned to white, essentially getting erased by its own creators, the canvas was stunning,” the post reads.
Some users of r/Philippines, the subreddit for the Philippines and all other topics related to Filipinos, informed the community that their digital artworks made it to the r/place project.
One Redditor posted a collage of these artworks on April 5.
“Thank you to everyone who helped r/Philippines on r/place!” the Reddit user said.
The collage includes the Philippine flag, the popular raised fist icon called “Tumindig”, the traditional jeepney and the Philippine tarsier.
The Tumindig icon is a character created by Filipino artist Kevin Raymundo or “Tarantadong Kalbo” to encourage others to voice dissent, inspiring others to stand up for the nation. The icon is still being used by Filipinos until today.
READ: Artist Tarantadong Kalbo releases interactive Tumindig site for 2022 voters
Some Redditors, on the other hand, also shared their favorite artworks.
An interactive map called “the 2022 r/Place Atlas” of this art project could still be accessed via this link.
On the map, users can explore the creative, colorful pixels and the creators behind them.
They can either hover the mouse over a certain area or search through the “Show List” drop-down box at the side.
According to the list, there are 44 entries tagged “Philippines” on the r/place project.
Most of them came from r/Philippines and the subreddit of the University of the Philippines called r/peyups.
What is r/Place?
The subreddit started out as a social experiment in 2017. It was launched by Josh Wardle, the same person who developed the popular Wordle game.
According to some reports, the platform ran for only 72 hours and the subreddit itself lasted for only five days.
It was also only exclusive to Reddit users back then.
Years later, on April 1 this year, the r/Place returned again. This time, it welcomed other online communities from Twitch, Discord and Twitter.
An article by Esquire offered an explanation of the rules of this initiative.
“r/Place offers a giant, open canvas that allows anyone and everyone to place one colored pixel. Each pixel has its own timer, meaning no individual or group can endlessly spam their shapes, which forces either coordination between users (if you want beauty), or absolute chaos, if that’s what you’re into,” the article said.
As of writing, the subreddit r/place itself is still open with 5.2 million members.
Its description reads: “Some have visited a canvas before. A place where togetherness created more. Now in numbers far greater, taking more space, it falls upon you to create a better place.”
