compoundEye began in September 2000. A year later, it has unfolded into a vibrant document of human emotion, creativity, and culture. What you see before you now is only how the project looks at this moment. It's very premise and shape is evolving as each new participant comes on board and contributes images.

The project starts with a core list of words and phrases:

1. Town Center
2. Self portrait
3. Mother
4. A memory

(There is a larger list, but at the moment, I've asked people to concentrate on the set above.)

People are asked to interpret those words/phrases visually, through an image. They are also given the option of writing something that parallels their images. This site is a record of audience participation so far. In the Gallery area, the images are indexed in two ways: (1) by participant, and (2) by the word or phrase that originally inspired them.

One reason I enjoyed compoundEye was because of its process, and how it evolved. I wanted a project where I would set a premise in place and then let the input of other participants shape its final form. I like collaborative projects that have a sense of random elements forming a final piece. With the participants of compoundEye, not only was there great pleasure from seeing the variety of their image responses, but they had also helped alter the rules and parameters of the project. A few examples include:

• When children from the Randal Cremer Primary school entered into the project, they drew all their images in Photoshop, which opened up the project to any type of image response, not just photography.

• Participants such as gyom80 in Paris, or Chris Gallei in Vienna used digitally altered photos to illustrate their visions.

• Upon the suggestion of Wendy Pye in Brighton, the category 'What does your mother look like?' was changed to simply 'Mother', which put the word into a wider context and allowed for a greater range of visual responses.

I love the idea of compoundEye growing from the input of other people, as well as from my own. This type of participation and interaction will keep this project evolving in the future, beyond the form it is now.

As an example of how the project can manifest itself in new ways, I have put together a short, 6 minute QuickTime movie called 'external/internal'. It is based on the relationships that participants described having with their environments, homes and towns. It also incorporates phone and instant message conversations with some of the participants. I hope to soon make it available to distribute, but unfortunately, at the moment, the file size is too large to stream over the web. However, to see screenshots, please click here.

While working on this project, as each participant's images arrived, I was always impressed by the creativity employed to answer the brief. As a collection, it's fascinating to see how the images play off each other, as well as the words/phrases they originated from. For example, when asked to visualize the word 'Quiet' one person presented a picture of his sleeping children; another used a tranquil image of plants at night; and someone else decided to use a photo of a crowded Chinese subway. There are many other similar connections that you'll certainly discover.

As this collection grows, I feel that it expands a sense of vision and intraconnection among the chosen words and phrases – and it does so in a colorful, fascinating, and often times, quite beautiful way. I hope you also find enjoyment in these images, and will maybe be interested in contributing some of your own. There are always more possibilities for where compoundEye can go from here.

Kind regards, Russell Hrachovec

To get started with the images, click here.

Above all, I want to thank the participants of compoundEye for their images and kind effort. I was always flattered to receive a new set of images, and impressed by their uniqueness and imagination.

Thanks also to my tutors at the University of Brighton: Professor George Hardie, Graham Rawle, Margaret Huber, Karen Morgan, and Jackie Batey. Their creative input – along with that from Brendan Walker, Martin Warren (no glass spider picture, Fig?), Kate Quale and many students on my course – has been incredibly valuable and has helped me develop this project into something I am very proud of. Thanks also to Sarah Elliott for writing a gazillion University letters for me.

© Russell Hrachovec, compoundEye, 2001

Top images, left to right:
Self portrait, Russell Hrachovec, ENGLAND
Look up, Zack Custer, Minnesota USA
Self portrait, Michael, Ohio USA
Skyline, Andres Feandeiro, SOUTH AFRICA
Self portrait, Brier Random, California USA