Serving up some free layer cake at Hampden Gallery

“The Layer Cake Project” is not a cake-distributing group. It’s a digital art experience. It starts as a group or “Cake” of four to six people, each with a digital image of some sort. Each piece is then circulated around the group, and every member makes changes to the other pieces of work. The result is a grid-like display called a layer cake, where one can trace the alterations of each image as it passes through the group.

“It is great to watch each layer cake evolve,” said Ryan O’Donnell, project co-founder. “You get to see the impact of different people’s thought processes interacting with each other.”

Along with fellow University of Massachusetts graduate, Christine Texiera, O’Donnell started the “Layer Cake Project” as a game played between friends in the Fine Arts Center.

The project has now expanded to include more than 30 people throughout the United States, Italy and Spain. There are currently three “Layer Cakes” on display in the Hampden Gallery, and each will remain open to the public through the end of February.

All the images in a “Layer Cake” are digitally altered; each is as unique as the person that changed it. In one series on display, a radiant and colorful sunburst becomes a psychedelic treasure troll figure, that in the next image is a classic glass soda bottle.

“Work like this would be impossible to do with any other type of media,” O’Donnell says. “We did not choose digital art just because it was easy or in style; we are using it to push the limits of chaos and collaboration.”

If seeing just three layer cakes is not enough to satisfy you, then you can get your fill at layercake.com. There you will find a multitude of “cakes,” as well as bios about the people behind the art. New cake makers are welcome to apply through the website for a chance to participate in the “chaos” of layer cake creating.