R/place was a collaborative online art experiment hosted on Reddit as an April Fools' event. Users were presented with a blank square canvas and could place one coloured pixel at a time, with a waiting period of several minutes between placements. Over three days, communities of users coordinated to claim parts of the canvas, drawing flags, logos, memes and artworks, and fought over space by painting over each other's work. Armies of users from different countries, fan groups and online communities struggled for territory. The experiment returned in 2022 and 2023 with a larger canvas. It became a famous example of spontaneous cooperation and conflict online, and the final image is preserved in time-lapse form.
Before and after
- 26 February 2017I Can't Go On
- from March 2017 to August 20172017 Venezuelan protests
- 22 March 20172017 Westminster attack
- 31 March 2017Construction of Gazprom Arena
- from 1 April 2017 to 3 April 2017R/place
- 3 April 20172017 Saint Petersburg Metro attack
- 7 April 20172017 Shayrat missile strike
- 7 April 20172017 Stockholm attack
- 16 April 2017Turkish constitutional referendum, 2017
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The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 21st century.