Breaking the Frame: Cultural Motivation in the Production of an Online Artwork--the Case of Boyblack (Report‪)‬

Abstract This article explores the agency of independent cultural producers in new media spaces, though a specific case study: BoyBlack.co.za, an artwork created by two young South Africans in 2003. This site is self-described by its creators as a work of 'freestyle pixel art' that allows each viewer to create a 'pseudo-unique experience' through its various interactive elements. Based on interviews with the artists in 2007 and 2009, the article argues that artworks such as BoyBlack.co.za enact a form of resistance to an aesthetic and cultural hegemony--that of the global creative industries. The article is theoretically framed by sketching out the characteristics of both industrial and expressive cultural products. The former have been conceptualised largely in pessimistic terms as limiting agency and manipulating creative expression, while the latter offer the possibility for individual creative empowerment. It is argued that the artwork is an example of expressive cultural production and that it resists industrial cultural production through four strategies of 'breaking the frame'. The first is the framework of the standardised web browser, which is challenged through the scale-free space of the artwork. The second is the metaphor of the mainframe and the mainframe itself, which are challenged through subject matter that explores human-computer interaction as well as one element of the artwork that has the potential to slow down a hard drive. The third is the frame of correct coding, which is resisted through an ethic of leaving coding mistakes in and considering them equally valid elements of the artwork. The fourth is the design framework of aliasing, which is undermined through a celebration of the materiality and aesthetic of the pixel. The article concludes by asserting the potential of expressive cultural products like BoyBlack.co.za to forge alternatives to the dominant consumerist aesthetic.