Steve Smith wrote at 10/04/2013 08:52 AM:
I think this is (finally) the nut of the discussion? But isn't the attention given to an
artifact/idea precisely what gives it value in a marketplace? I admit that the market
is a fickle bitch sometimes and some of the best ideas or artifacts likely get ignored
forever. The very phenomenon of artists (and sometimes writers) not being
"discovered" until after their death is one example.
Isn't the actual attention given something like the kinetic energy with a
latent attention it deserves being more like potential energy? This is all
relative of course... many ideas (and the artifacts grown from them) are
perhaps before their time or out of cultural context.
To me, this puts the cart before the horse ... the horse is the thing and the
cart is thought about the thing. Of course, I sound like a broken record.
Thought is useless. It's action that matters. Along those same lines, what
allows artists to be discovered after their death is the fact that they
constructed tangible, lasting artifacts. And, further, it seems to me that the
good artists I know refuse, almost on principle, to corrupt the artifact by
yapping about it the way art critics do. I infer from this that they consider
the art[ifact] primary and any attention it may [not] receive secondary.
Now, the ur-meaning of openness relates fundamentally to this sense of the artifact. I
know some artists who object strongly to the kind of "post-modern" funging of
Art(TM). Somehow, the artifact they call art is supposed to be sacred... it is as the
artist designed it and should remain so. But most of the younger artists (and many of
the older ones) tend to be more dynamic. They enjoy it when some other person comes
along and adds to what they've done, even if it changes the sense of the artifact
entirely.
It's in this light that I see most of the maker community and a large portion
of the open software community. If you take time to fork my product, then I'm
flattered by the fork, not offended because you didn't follow my vision or
preserve my use cases.
Anecdotally, I feel the same way about graffiti. It's stigmergic, and way more
interesting than something static or "artificial" (in the denigrating sense of
the word).
The work I have done in scientific collaboration was at least partly about
unlocking some of that potential by helping practitioners in normally disjoint
fields find common language and models to exchange their best (or most latent?)
ideas.
Right, but if I may be so offensive, I'll suggest that you're not doing what
you think you're doing. ;-) You're not helping them exchange _ideas_. You're
helping them do stuff and make stuff. It's the stuff that matters, not the
ideas. I know you know this. But I have to practice stating the obvious,
otherwise I might lose my certification.
--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
This body of mine, man I don't wanna turn android
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