ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an ethnographic study of two Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels in which the players communicated not by typing words, but by displaying striking text-based, visual images in real time. IRC art shared with graffiti a preoccupation with “getting up” - becoming visible, making one’s mark. IRC images are even more ephemeral than real-world graffiti: once we log off, they are gone forever. IRC art differed from the earlier art, first of all, because it was interactive. A second important difference between ASCII art and IRC art is that the newer art employed brilliant color far more extensively than was possible before. In the IRC context, the author suggest, one can pursue closure in a number of ways: by creating certain types of files offline and then performing them online and by developing and cultivating categories to manage one’s collection offline, much as a collector works at organizing and reorganizing his/her collection of pipes or porcelain.
