This Internet based project invites a possible ten thousand participants to select pixels on a web page, choose a colour and then "switch" on this block of virtual space. Visitors are also able to include their name, location and a link to either their own web site or one they find interesting.

The image created will grow online and be visible here until the end of 2010.

Not only will the finished screen result in an abstract image made by thousands of people, but act as a 'catalogue' of links to web sites around the world.

The project uses software and structures normally associated with Internet advertising. In 2005 Alex Tew, a student in the UK, set up a web site so that he could sell each of the pixels on his page to advertisers for $1.00 per pixel. In return the advertiser was able to place an advertising image in the pixels they purchased.

Alex Tew made over a million dollars in 5 months and started a 'gold rush' on the internet. There are now thousands of sites selling advertising space and trying to duplicate Tew's success. Because of this a new industry developed to provide pixel advertising software. One Million Points of Light takes advantage of these programmes which have become available to explore a visual, none advertising, model. Is it possible to 'sell' a rectangle of light which will build up into a collaborative visual statement?