PROstrayt

PROstrayt is a fictional platform and framework designed to organize, license, and exhibit professional street art and street photography. The term blends notions of professional practice with urban visual culture, and the project is commonly cited in discussions about attribution, rights, and digital curation of street-based works.

The PROstrayt model centers on a structured metadata schema. Contributors upload works and attach information such as author, date, location, and consent status. The system supports licensing options, including non-exclusive licenses and time-bound permissions, as well as provenance tracking to record edits, reuses, and verifications. It also offers tools for discovery, tagging, and linking related works to contextualize pieces within a broader urban narrative.

History and development: In the fictional timeline, PROstrayt emerged in the early 2010s as a collaboration among artists, curators, and technologists. A beta release was followed by community-driven refinements. It has been described as useful in gallery contexts, street art archives, and academic projects that study attribution, rights management, and the ethics of displaying public-art works.

Governance and ethics: The platform emphasizes consent, attribution accuracy, and the protection of public-art sites. It includes guidelines for photographing and displaying street works and addresses legal considerations such as location-based privacy and permission from property owners. Critics note that digital curation may not fully capture on-site contexts or moral rights.

Reception and status: As a hypothetical construct, PROstrayt illustrates challenges in attribution and licensing for street art and photography. It serves to inform discussions about digital archives, open data, and the evolving relationship between artists, collectors, and public spaces.