Re: [-empyre-] seeing yourself a prototype - the limits of open source
..on Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 06:07:24PM -0500, christopher sullivan wrote: definitions, I think we are not all talking about the same thing. so here are my worst case and best case definitions of prototyping. [..] what is your definition? (earlier) Prototyping is any test of expectation or: Prototyping is practicing real. or: Prototyping is an attempt to reverse engineer the imagined. We could go on forever while forgetting that prototyping itself escapes definition. This is because it itself is the very process of definition, of 'defining'. To recurse, your email was (expressly) a Prototype Definition. Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com Quoting Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com: ..on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 03:10:01PM -, Johannes Birringer wrote: Davin wrote: At one point in time, discrete objects were things that were considered prototypes that could be thrown into an existing system and tested. Increasingly, it seems like the prototypes are geared to test individual and collective consciousness. In other words, maybe we are the prototypes? Being tested so that we can be effectively processed, shrink-wrapped, labeled, bought and sold Hmm, This statement from Davin confused me also. I thought it was fairly clear that any act of learning - or any 'attempt', which all action is at it's root - simultaneously produces the self as a prototype, even if only for the duration of that act. The very notion of a prototype assumes a platonic and eventuating objecthood, a finished thing. When are people ever so singularly resolved? Second order prototyping is the work of other people, especially aquaintances, marketeers and those that resource people. Beast, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre Christopher Sullivan Dept. of Film/Video/New Media School of the Art Institute of Chicago 112 so michigan Chicago Ill 60603 csu...@saic.edu 312-345-3802 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] seeing yourself a prototype - the limits of open source
The software might be free and the prototype might be free, but you, the creator are not. You are bound in a panopticon where anonymous others can observe and scrutinize your creative output. How can you not mediate your behavior aware of this scrutiny? Is the prototype a tentative confirmation of conformity that announces a productivity that funds the panoptican? ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] seeing yourself a prototype - the limits of open source
..on Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 11:34:49PM -0700, adr...@cnmat.berkeley.edu wrote: The software might be free and the prototype might be free, but you, the creator are not. You are bound in a panopticon where anonymous others can observe and scrutinize your creative output. How can you not mediate your behavior aware of this scrutiny? Is the prototype a tentative confirmation of conformity that announces a productivity that funds the panoptican? hehe ;) Well writing Free Software tends to offer a rewarding 'panopticon' for those that excercise their freedom to give away what they make, the courage to allow their work be so widely peer-reviewed, the open-mindedness to allow it to be re-purposed and the humility to allow it to be improved. It is a model of productivity yes, a socially productive selfishness. If their's any behavioural alteration in having countless thousands read your source-code, it's to get better at writing source-code. Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
[-empyre-] // The Emperors new source code //
The reality is that very few academics and artists actually know what Open Source is, where and why the term was introduced, the difference between Free Software and Freeware yet are more than happy to talk about it all ad infinitum; Open Source has been a academic cash-cow and a great cultural love-in for the media-art scene. 'Open Source' sounds a little bit technical - a bit 'digital' - contemporary and a lot more fashionable than the word 'participatory' which is, in fact, the word they're looking for.. The result is a vast number of talks given on Open Source Architecture (what?) the postulation of Open Source Governments (que?) and countless blogs on Open Source Cooking (umm..) and Open Source Crochet (wass?). Papers given on Open Source hailing its messianic power as a design model are given in publically-funded university conferences on closed-source operating systems (OSX/Windows), the PDFs of which are locked up in pay-per-use services like JSTOR under non-pro-copy-Copyright licenses. In the absense of /actual/ source code, the term Open Source has been so widely abused it makes little real sense anymore. It has become absurd. The term 'participatory' however has lost little of its shine. Who's brave enough to use it? -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
[-empyre-] empyre archives on open source
I thought you all might enjoy looking back to the February, 2003 archived discussion of Open Source moderated by Melinda Rackham https://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2003-February/msg4.html Renate Renate Ferro Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Art Cornell University, Tjaden Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 Email: r...@cornell.edu Website: http://www.renateferro.net Co-moderator of _empyre soft skinned space http://www.subtle.net/empyre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre Art Editor, diacritics http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/ ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] confused no
just because someone does not agree with you, or does not share your enthusiasm for Open Source, and free exchange, does not mean they are confused. I usually run into this in discussions with believers and non believer..I.E. you don't believe in God? you will in time. similar to the language of new media open source. you are surely confused to imply that free software, might contain, the gene for free culture. and perhaps your crits are based on prototypes, mine are not. I will go away for a while. chris. Quoting Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com: ..on Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 04:34:05PM -0400, Cynthia Beth Rubin wrote: I offered the critique system of artist-to-artist discussion as evidence that the artist dialog is generally based on Prototypes, and generally Open Source. Art, in any format, real or virtual, can be considered as a manifestation of ideas and the synthesis of insights, and each iteration (each new work) can be considered as a prototype for further iterations. Few of us are interested in repetitively reproducing similar works over a lifetime. As for the Open Source aspect - - ideas, insights, responses, suggestions, connections, all of these are exchanged when artists get together to discuss work using the critique model. This way of discussing is not limited to academia, but that is where many of us learn it. I felt that I needed to point out that this is not true Open-Source in the academy because it is not technically free. Nonetheless, generally we not change how we speak when are not being paid, so in some sense it is still an Open-Source exchange of idea, insights, etc. I think you've confused a few concepts here. First of all, something /can/ be Open Source yet restrict modification. As a computer programmer I come across this fairly often, code released freely as Open Source means that it is code you are allowed to read, nothing more: the source is open for reading yet is not allowed to be modified or redistributed. It merely refers to the fact that the information, not the rights, are shared. The OSI has a different definition but it's not always attended in practice. Open Source is a confused, confusing and difficult term. In my opinion is better not used, along with 'copyleft' which suggests so-called copyleft licenses are anti-copyright, polarised by principal. This of course simply isn't the case. The term âopen sourceâ has been further stretched by its application to other activities, such as government, education, and science, where there is no such thing as source code, and where criteria for software licensing are simply not pertinent. The only thing these activities have in common is that they somehow invite people to participate. They stretch the term so far that it only means âparticipatoryâ. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html Free Software (and perhaps Free Culture) are definitions strategically independent from Open Source for this very reason. Hence there can be Open Source software that is truly free: Free (Libre) Open Source Software (or FLOSS). This is software released under a pro-copy Copyright license that declares it free to be read, redistributed and modified. This kind of software I've used almost exclusively in my practice for around 12 years, from the operating system to 3D modeling packages, video and image editors. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html I agree that artists in countries with true poverty artists face a different situation. In wealthier economies we often live from the academy, but also where the standard of living is so high, artists can afford to compromise in ways that artists living in countries of poverty cannot (the choice to live in a small apartment and not a huge house is a choice that is irrelevant when the norm is crowded living quarters). In countries with few academies, artists become photo-journalists, they become web designers for someone else's web sites, or they work with patrons in mind -- producing prototypes and perfecting them with feedback from buyers. Still, when I was in Senegal for an extended period, I found many artists who embraced the critique model with other artists in terms of concepts, in a way that I experienced as different from how they told me they interact with patrons. They knew the difference, we all know the difference, between talking about art as the manifestation of ideas and insights and talking about product for sale. Regarding the sale of art artefacts, just because something is freely given away does not prohibit one from making money from that thing. Regardless, FLOSS software art is absolutely sellable. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html The Free Software philosophy makes a valuable distinction
Re: [-empyre-] seeing yourself a prototype - the limits of open source
and Julian your definition was perfect, towering over all other possible attempts, you must understand the small mind I have to work with.. Chris. Quoting Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com: ..on Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 06:07:24PM -0500, christopher sullivan wrote: definitions, I think we are not all talking about the same thing. so here are my worst case and best case definitions of prototyping. [..] what is your definition? (earlier) Prototyping is any test of expectation or: Prototyping is practicing real. or: Prototyping is an attempt to reverse engineer the imagined. We could go on forever while forgetting that prototyping itself escapes definition. This is because it itself is the very process of definition, of 'defining'. To recurse, your email was (expressly) a Prototype Definition. Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com Quoting Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com: ..on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 03:10:01PM -, Johannes Birringer wrote: Davin wrote: At one point in time, discrete objects were things that were considered prototypes that could be thrown into an existing system and tested. Increasingly, it seems like the prototypes are geared to test individual and collective consciousness. In other words, maybe we are the prototypes? Being tested so that we can be effectively processed, shrink-wrapped, labeled, bought and sold Hmm, This statement from Davin confused me also. I thought it was fairly clear that any act of learning - or any 'attempt', which all action is at it's root - simultaneously produces the self as a prototype, even if only for the duration of that act. The very notion of a prototype assumes a platonic and eventuating objecthood, a finished thing. When are people ever so singularly resolved? Second order prototyping is the work of other people, especially aquaintances, marketeers and those that resource people. Beast, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre Christopher Sullivan Dept. of Film/Video/New Media School of the Art Institute of Chicago 112 so michigan Chicago Ill 60603 csu...@saic.edu 312-345-3802 Christopher Sullivan Dept. of Film/Video/New Media School of the Art Institute of Chicago 112 so michigan Chicago Ill 60603 csu...@saic.edu 312-345-3802 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
