just came across this and immediately thought of some of the open source
art discussions that have been on this and other linux lists:
http://www.ontological.com/
it's richard foreman's (american experimental theater pioneer) website.
from the front page:
"I here make available my notebooks for the last fifteen years or so in
the hopes directors/writers will make use of the material as I do.
Choosing, arrangning, re-arranging, inventing situations into which the
dialogue can be dropped, and ending up with a theatrical poerformance."
i found this fascinating. it's not so rare today to find a writer that is
posting lots and lots of text on the web; in fact it's pretty easy to find
boatloads of texts that people have posted, although these people tend to
be "unknowns". what is rare and a bit startling to me, given american
culture in general, is that a very well known and widely respected
playwrite/director would do it. he goes on to say that there are lots of
typos/etc. it's basically a giant brain dump. free for use by all, with
just two catches:
"This material if offered freely. I ask no royalty. Because of the unique
way I generate plays-- this may mean I myself will still be using from
this pool of material in the future. I invite you to do so also.
The only thing I ask is that if you make use of this material in
performance
a) you simply notify me, so I can know if this material is stimulating
anyone.
b) any material used for production or publication displays in program or
title page-- relatively prominantly-- the statement that the text involved
is re-arranged material taken from the notebooks of Richard Foreman."
within the context of foreman's work it's really not so startling that he
would do this, as "experimental theater" is nominally all about not doing
things in the normal theater way. but still i think it's very interesting
to read his take on it. i wonder if he has had any contact with open
source software ideas. even if he has i'm sure that his thinking on this
is flowing from other sources/concerns. but it's interesting to see
something formalized in this way, especially something that has so many
parallels to someone posting open source code on a website and inviting
others to use it in their own "productions".
douglas
--
douglas irving repetto
http://music.columbia.edu/~douglas
http://shoko.calarts.edu/musicdsp
http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/dorkbotnyc
