Just briefly to add to what Aymeric is saying here (brief because we're preparing for our pure:dyne event tomorrow night, 23rd at 6:30pm - please join us! - at Mute HQ in London, and Aymeric has said lots here that I agree with). Coincidentally I've just been doing some work around this for an upcoming exhibition at FACT on (un)sustainability issues, taking a wider view of environmental sustainability in this present moment - from peak oil to peak credit - and while maybe its not obvious at first, FLOSS communities do have a place in this debate. Chris Carlsson quotes Will Doherty at the opening of one of the chapters in his book Nowtopia: "The open source community is pretty much tech support for the revolution, if you will, or tech support for the new society". As Aymeric calls them, the 'grow-your-own, do-it-yourself, open and free cultures', FLOSS being one of many, do something besides provide products that will be accessible to all in the wake of economic recession - they build a network of individuals gaining practical experience organising outside of this particular capitalist framework. Read the FLOSS chapter of the Carlsson book if you come across it, its decent at talking about this with specific reference to Marxist thought, since Marx has come up now. :)
aymeric mansoux wrote: > Hi Marc, > > marc garrett said : > >> Perhaps East Germany is an easy target for declaring that social >> change is occuring, but there is something in the air. So, considering >> the current state of things and the impact of economies collapsing >> around us, do you think that this climate adds extra weight for more >> people to use (FLOSS) Free/Libre/Open Source Software and pure:dyne, >> if so why? >> > > Well it's obvious that the current situation is an occasion for all the > grow-your-own, do-it-yourself, open and free cultures to be under the > spotlight. Although during this process there will be a lot of > reinvinting the wheel and re-discoveries, it's still of course a very > good thing and might present alternative future for our societies, by > breaking down hierarchic glass structures into more "meshy" robust > heterarchic systems. > > Unfortunately, maybe I am bit too pessimistic, but I suspect that just > like usual, only the most educated groups will benefit from this. The > masses will be served the usual soup. "we will do everything we can, to > fix the issue, and it's together that we will get out of this crisis" > will be copy/pasted all over the place, which usually means introducing > more contol and less freedom to ensure the well-being of a few. Panem > et circenses, over and over again. > > >From the cultural and artistic institutions point of view, things might > be much better though. The obvious economy crisis and the current lack > of funding/support for media arts (in its broadest definition), make > platform like pure:dyne very attractive to run a multimedia lab using > shiny imacs or just a bunch of recycled PC. Even if FLOSS get introduced > only for cost reasons, it is still a good thing as it will show it has > more to offer in the long term. From a social point of view a FLOSS lab > is more ethical as well: your budget, even if grandly reduced, will go > to a part-time admin, a freelance developer, a GNU/Linux hacker, who > will in turn contribute back to the development of the software you use. > In such a case you are supporting directly a human being with direct > feedback in the community, instead of injecting more money for company > shareholders. > > The position of the artist, on the other hand is probably the most > ambiguous. The way I see it, is that artists would use FLOSS for 3 > different reasons (non-exclusive). > - money saving > - technological advantage > - politics, activism > > Now the problems is that in fact money saving is not a problem. Let's be > honest most artists are attached to their digital tools ... but not as > much to their licenses. The majority of artists always find a way to not > have to pay for a license, and nowadays you don't need to belong to a > private torrent tracker community or to scene top site to get your daily > dose of binaries, anyone who knows how to formulate a search expression > in Google can get virtually anything in a click. So the advantage of > FLOSS here is very little. > > Another problem is that, it is very likely that if an artist is at the > same time already an activist and fond of technology, we can safely > assume he knows about FLOSS and already uses it. I don't remember seeing > any Microsoft hacktivist ... ever ... :) > > So in the end what could bring an artist to change his > toolset/environment is to access a new field of possibilities. This > doesn't mean the two other situations are completely leading to a logic > dead-end, but we can assume they are not the most important cause. In > such a situation the economic context would have very little > influence. To embrace FLOSS, artists must be able to see what is has to > offer that is not available elsewhere (from practical issues, to > social aspects and knowledge sharing) and this only needs curiosity > and a good dose of self motivation. > > a. > > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > -- Heather Corcoran Curator FACT 88 Wood Street Liverpool, L1 4DQ t: + 44 (0)151 707 4425 f: + 44 (0)151 707 4445 http://www.fact.co.uk Bookings: +44 (0)8707 583217 Information: +44 (0)151 707 4450 FACT is proud to be in LIVERPOOL, EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE 2008 _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
