I grew up watching a lot of flash animation on sites like Newgrounds. That experience is what turned me into such an animation fanatic and I love that we have the tools for amateur animators to share their creations with the world. Flash was the tool of choice for most short animated films, but HTML5 might be the new leader one day.
To kickstart the HTML5 art and animation revolution, Google has partnered with the Tate Modern in London to create This Exquisite Forest. It’s a collaborative art project where users are encouraged to work together “to create animations and stories using a web-based drawing tool.”
The project already features animation from seven well-known artists of the day including Bill Woodrow and Mark Titchner. They have created what Google is calling “short ‘seed’ animations” that anybody else can expand upon to continue the story started by them. It’s a concept that’s been done before, but never in this format. The really cool part is that as the stories continue, they branch out into trees with multiple paths that leaves each story with a different ending each time you view it.
If you create anything for This Exquisite Forest, it has a chance of showing up at the Tate Modern on July 23. The gallery will be using large-scale projectors to show off the creations from the seven artists as well as those contributed by the public. If you visit the gallery in person, you can contribute your own animation on the spot at a drawing station.
The technology behind this new art project is pretty impressive. It’s powered by Chrome’s HTML5 and JavaScript features that helps to emulate the kind of experience you would see in Flash. Potential artists can also use the Web Audio API to create music that will accompany their submission.
If you want to contribute to the project, head on over to the This Exquisite Forest Web site. There are some stories that don’t have very many branches yet and could use some love.