Two artists came together this past week for the first time to make physical their Google Sheet renderings for a new proposed mural in Bushwick, whose work was unveiled with a party on Wednesday July 20th at the corner of Thames and Bogart (on the Bogart facing brick wall of Syndicated).
The Art of Collaboration: From Sheets, to the Streets is a partnership between Refinery29 and Google—and is also a fierce, feminist hand-painted mural.
Designed to showcase the perceived limitations of working within the confines of Google Sheets and how a similar roadblock exists for women, the core of the piece conjures an empowering breaking through the glass ceiling-like bliss and was enacted at a technical level via hacking the spreadsheet itself.
Barcelona-based freelance designer and graphic artist Marina Esmeraldo and NYC based full-time designer Mallory Heyer were strangers when they collaborated over Google Hangouts just a few months ago when, for the sake of art, they were tasked with pushing through the confines of Google Sheets’ digital cells: “resizing cells into thousands of pixel-like squares, merging cells to create blocks, and creating vibrant color gradients with conditional formatting,” elaborates Google rep, a spokesperson for the artists.
From spreadsheet to bricks, Esmeraldo and Heyer’s alliance has resulted in a 13 by 34 feet hand-painted mural, the first piece of digital art in NYC history born of a collaboration between strangers working in different countries.
The mural will be up until mid-August, so we all have plenty of time to bask in some great feminist art:
