Having directed videos for musicians like U2, Gnarls Barkley, and Kanye West, director Chris Milk has spent 2010 creating an entirely new category of music videos: interactive, crowdsourced, constantly evolving web-videos. His first such project ingeniously fused Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait” with user input, pop-ups, and Google Maps to create The Wilderness Downtown. Now, Milk has given the world the chance to work with him to produce an online music video for Johnny Cash’s last studio recording, “Ain’t No Grave”.

Calling it The Johnny Cash Project, Milk invited fans from all over the globe to contribute a frame in tribute to the late singer-songwriter. Users can click over to the project’s website and fabricate their own frame using a selection of drawing tools and images provided by the director. To date, over 250,000 people have added their pieces to the project. The result is a haunting, beautiful, and highly creative tribute film that never stops being formed. You can choose to watch the video as curated by Milk or opt for versions featuring frames rated highest by the community, abstract frames, recent frames, and more.

The sheer mass of artistic input and originality makes this project strikingly unique. The idea itself is wonderful, and the result is a true marvel. You can check out the video, which opens with a few contributers expressing their experiences, below. Direct yourself to the project’s website to see the other versions and to add your own frame to the story. Also, keep your eyes on this Chris Milk fellow; I have a feeling he’s going to be coming up with more powerfully interesting stuff in the future.