Bjørn Venø is an unusual artist you just have to know more about. Although originally born it Medway he has been living in Norway for most of his life but has now returned to his home ground. Bjørn Venø is a young artist, photographer and performer. He is signed to the Gallery Nettie Horn in London and has been in several Solo and Group Shows. He primarily works with questions of Male Identity but currently is running a very interesting online art project called PXSNATCH. Anyone with an internet connection can be part of this art project by destroying it.

When one snatches pixels from the art work, which is a photographic image, one becomes a snatcher and the sole owner of that part. It will cost the snatcher money to begin with, but he may end up making a profit.

At the end when the art work is destroyed, the artist will try to reassemble the image. He will be at the mercy of the snatchers who get to decide if they want to lend the artist their pixels or give him fake ones.

Putting the pixels back together again will not be easy. However it is made possible by the help of a map that shows where the pixels are located within the picture. Two copies of the map will be distributed, one to the buyer and one to the artist.

When the image is reassembled it will be exhibited and put up for sale. The profit of the sale will go to those snatchers who contributed their pixels. Nobody knows what is being destroyed. It may be a mediocre picture of a landscape or a sublime masterpiece.

For every snatch a 1:400 scaled version of the original will show what has been taken.

• What is being snatched:

20×20 pixels are snatched for £1 and if all the pixels are taken it will make the art piece worth £52496.

Venø hopes that the art work will be fully destroyed by 2012.

What prevents this from becoming a pixelated mess? The answer is in fact nothing, however Bjørn Venø will make a plea to the snatchers “Do you want to see the original artwork reassembled or do you want to destroy/distort it?”

Bjørn Venø says “I’m excited to see how many people will resist putting their own stamp on it”.

• Technical data about the image:

Pixels are dots that make up a digital image. The image contains 5440×3860 pixels. Shot on Hasselblad H1D which is a medium format digital camera used by professionals. The picture is saved with the colour profile Adobe RGB 1998 to ensure the best reproduction of colour. If the printed version of the image is ca 90x127cm at 109 PPI 20×20 pixels will represent ca 0.5×0.5 cm.

To find out more and to snatch some pixels please visit www.pxsnatch.com