[NetBehaviour] #memewars
#memewars
https://things.bleu255.com/memewars/
Before the 2016 American presidential elections, the subculture now
known as the "Alt-Right" waged an image meme propaganda war in support
of Donald Trump and white nationalist politics. Most memes were created
and published on the "/pol/" ("Politically Incorrect") boards of the
anonymous forums 4chan and 8chan, and from there spread into more
mainstream social media such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Next to "/pol/", 8chan also hosts the board "/leftypol/", founded in
2014 as a leftist general alternative to the "/pol/" boards.
"/leftypol/" is also active in the production and distribution of
"Leftist Politically Incorrect" image memes, from Porky to Žižek/Zizkek.
#memewars is a website that automatically downloads and juxtaposes the
last two images posted on 8chan's "/leftypol/" and "/pol/" respectively.
a.
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[NetBehaviour] XPUB Media Design Master Call for Application
Sorry for ><, please >>! Experimental Publishing (XPUB) is a new study path of the Piet Zwart Institute's Media Design Master programme. XPUB's interests in publishing are twofold: first, publishing as the inquiry and participation into the technological frameworks, political context and cultural processes through which things are made public; and second, publishing as the desire to expand the means of discourse circulation beyond print media and its direct digital translation. Current year themes have included scarcity, scores and notation, shadow pirate, and extra-legal libraries. Next year's themes (tbc) will be publishing as policy, squatting, community book scanners, bots and algorithmic publishing. XPUB core and recurrent lecturers and tutors: Delphine Bedel, André Castro, Florian Cramer, Aymeric Mansoux, Michael Murtaugh, Steve Rushton, Femke Snelting, Marloes de Valk. /// Final EU application deadline: May 15, 2017 http://www.pzwart.nl/master-media-design-and-communication/apply/ /// More information about XPUB? http://xpub.nl a. -- https://bleu255.com/~aymeric ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] PZI Master Media Design and Communication: Experimental Publishing
Hello! Sorry for ><, please >> // The final deadline for applying to the new Media Design and Communication Master study path Experimental Publishing is May 15th. // >From app stores to art book fairs and zine shops, from darknets to sneakernets, from fansubs to on-demand services, and from tweeting to whistleblowing, the act of making things public, that is to say publishing, has became pivotal in an age infused with myriad media technologies. In response, the new Experimental Publishing programme at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy (Rotterdam, NL), aims at challenging the protocols of publishing in terms that are social, technical, cultural and political; involving actors both human and algorithmic; mediated by networks of distribution and communication of varying scales and visibility. For more information, visit the Experimental Publishing course dev log at https://xpub.pzimediadesign.nl or git clone https://xpub.pzimediadesign.nl/.git // a. -- http://bleu255.com ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] Know Your Filesystem (and how it affects you)
Hello! Thanks Dave for the text and cheers to Furtherfield for publishing it as well as hosting this discussion. I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow's event. Actually, some of the points discussed in this thread so far, relate quite closely to the topic of my presentation for RWX, namely how nowadays modes of production and social structures are sandboxed both at a technological and juridical level. Some of my comments below are derived from this idea: Rob Myers said : > Xanadu was started a decade before the Star project, and Computer > Lib/Dream Machines was published in 74. There may be something to the > idea of epochs, or at least eras. :-) > > [...] > > UNIX's file/directory system is no more "natural" than DOS/Windows' > version with the slashes going the other way. They and the desktop > file/folder metaphors contrast with other historical filesystems: BeOS's > database, VMS's versioned file system, the Lisa's search system, the > original Mac's flat list of files. It's more weird that UNIX won than > that other systems do it differently. There has been a Cambrian explosion of OS research during the 60s up to the early 80s, but the rise of the computer industry made it so that such diversity was only seen as a pool of competitive products from which a few were meant to survive. The Unix-like operating systems won unintentionally this race because they had a simple way to implement portability, time-sharing, process interoperability and showed promises of standardisation (the latter which led to a big failure during the so-called Unix wars), but most importantly Unix benefited from a proto-free software distribution model in its early days, and this benefited a lot to AT to turn it into a commercial product once the telco, liberated from its monopoly position, was able to sell its UNIX branded software, after a decade of development and distribution as part of a "fellowship" (term employed by Unix authors themselves). Within this fellowship the social structure linked to the production of software was closely informed and reflected from news ideas in computer science, most notably the notions of library and utility (that were initially explored in Project MAC during the mid-60s), and became quite explicit with Unix, where cooperation and collaboration followed similar patterns of modularity and reuse in the couples software-software, human-software, and human-human. If Bell Labs had tried to turn Unix into a commercial product right away in the early 70s and if its development had depended exclusively on its immediate commercial success, I am not sure if Unix would have been so widely present nowadays. Maybe there is a parallel universe where smart phones are not Unix based (like Android, iOS) but instead Lisp machines? :) Anyway, from a technical perspective, as the preface of the UNIX-haters handbook says, from the top of my head, Unix won because it was "good enough", and that's also why an OS like Plan 9 which was supposed to replace Unix eventually never got adopted because Unix like systems were doing just fine with the odd duct tape fix every now and then. In fact it is quite interesting to realise that much of the smartness described below... Dave Young said : > > I find the use of the term "smart operating systems" strange. > > The term 'smart phone', like 'cloud computing', is the produce of the > dark arts of corporate tech marketing, happily echoed by the likes of > The Verge, Engadget, Guardian Tech, etc. > > [...] ... is built on top of development approaches where it is quite common to avoid qualifying tools as "good" but as "sucking less" than others, and where the playful cleverness of the hacker cohabits with crude hacks and piles of temporary fixes, and where ultimately, methods such as Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) contrasts with whatever smartness is added during the marketing stage. To some extend an automagical tech slogan like "it just works!" could easily be reversed to another interpretation as something that in fact *merely and barely* works. So indeed it should not be a surprise that todays computational culture is reduced to the making and polishing of fanciful user interfaces and user experience, UI and UX, and ... > I think we are really losing the entitlements that come with > user-agency and tool-ownership as a consequence of these > 'smart operating systems' and their reluctance to share their > dirty laundry (filesystems, background processes, > data-caching, and so on) with us - should we ask them to. ... as a strategy to hide the dodgy business behind these facades. In that regard the way Android permissions and sandboxing are implemented on top of the Unix user/group system is quite illustrative of both the crudeness and flimsiness of these things and how the notion of home folders and user files has became completely irrelevant in the age of smart phones being in fact dumb terminals for remote services. And of course this very
Re: [NetBehaviour] What is Free Culture?
Hello Ruth and NetBehaviour :) I'm replying a bit late... ruth catlow said : Please invite someone-or-two attendees to report back here, in some form or other! ... perhaps some videos of presentations, drawings from discussions, or general impressions etc etc. Many aspects of the discussion will be of interest to many people here. Yes. Eleanor Greenhalgh and Dave Young have written a bit about it, some works have been made and right now they are busy setting up their part of the exhibition for tomorrow night. It will take a bit of time to digest everything but we hope to come back with something to share at some point :) Also, there will be a video documentation of the whole thing tomorrow and a recording of the roundtable discussion about the outcome of this particular workshop (as well as all the other roundtables and the plenary debate). I'll definitively keep you posted as soon as we get something to share! See you! a. On 06/11/2013 16:06, Aymeric Mansoux wrote: Sorry for , please /// What is Free Culture? Three days workshop. 13th, 14th and 15th of November 2013, WORM, Rotterdam Limited Capacity, booking: i...@worm.org http://www.worm.org/home/view/event/7791 /// OK, so... What is free culture exactly? On paper, it seems a rather straightforward and simple thing: free culture is a social movement that promotes making works that can be freely copied, modified and distributed. Wikipedia, Linux, freely downloadable music by net labels are good examples. Everything should be accessible, used and reused anywhere for any purpose, without getting in trouble with lawyers, signing over stuff to Google or Facebook, etc. Simple. But is it so simple? In this workshop, we will critically investigate free culture and the relationships between people creating free culture projects. In specific case studies, we'll have a closer look at different communities around Flickr, Debian, YouTube, ... as well as communal religious movements. We'll look for answers to the questions: * Is there really such a thing as a free culture movement? * If yes, is it defined by specific ways of work interactions? And how can we characterize them? * Where do these models fall short? /// What is Free Culture? is a workshop facilitated by Eleanor Greenhalgh and Dave Young, with an introduction from Eric Kluitenberg and Aymeric Mansoux, and an experimentation on live visual documentation design by Loes Claessens and Bor Smulders. The workshop has been made possible through a partnership between WORM, the Piet Zwart Institute, the Willem de Kooning Academie and Creating 010, Hogeschool Rotterdam. It is the very official and exclusive WORM-up workshop of FREE?!, a one day event into the cultures of sharing, that will happen at Het Nieuwe Instituut, the 29th of November 2013, Rotterdam, where the outcome of the workshop will be presented, amongst many other things More information: http://freeculture.info BOOKING: i...@worm.org /// :* ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] FREE?! A one-day journey into the cultures of sharing - 29/11/13 - Rotterdam
Sorry for , please /// FREE?! A One-day Journey into the Cultures of Sharing Rotterdam, The Netherlands Het Nieuwe Instituut 29th November 2013 13:00-00:00 /// FREE?! investigates one of the great paradoxes of our times: While the fast paced development of digital media and the Internet has made the sharing and reuse of cultural products, like movies, music, books as well as their tools of creation, extremely easy. Yet at the same time, this same technological development allows intellectual property law to increasingly enclose culture behind privileged walls, thus tightly controlling and policing its access. Meanwhile, the debate that opposes the rights of authors and file sharing has been stifled into a virtual trench warfare. Is there a way out? FREE?! attempts to answer this question by looking at the alternative offered by the free culture movement, both exploring its potential and the obstacles it encounters. The concept free culture refers to all forms of cultural expressions that have been deliberately ‘freed’ by their legitimate authors from the limitations that current intellectual property law, such as copyright, impose on them. Free culture promotes the free distribution of works and tools to create the lowest threshold possible for the access and transformation of culture for an audience as broad as possible. To do so, free culture operates as a nested territory, in which different forms of cooperation and collaboration establish working environments and modes of production that are based on sharing and exchanging knowledge. This requires a new approach to the production, financing, distribution, and appreciation of culture. It is in this particular context that FREE?! explores the potential and limits of this alternative. The program divides into four sections: The Free Culture Brunch Club: a series of roundtable discussions around key themes that affect free culture: transaction systems, entrepreneurship, copyright reform, publishing, documentation and archives, as well as tools ownership and appropriation. A public debate about the position of creative entrepreneurs in the context of free culture and the fast paced development of digital media communication. With Timo Vuorensola (Iron Sky), Bruno Felix (Submarine), Ton Roosendaal (Blender), Jamie King (VODO), moderated by Felix Stalder (World Information Institute, Vienna). A multifaceted public evening program where the domain of free culture is explored guided by a Winter Night’s Copyright Fairytale featuring Dušan Barok, Andre Castro, Florian Cramer, Annet Dekker, Jan-Kees van Kampen, Gülşen Emre, Gijs Gieskes, Eleanor Greenhalgh, Paul Keller, Marcell Mars, Nikita Mazurov, Rob Myers, Luc Nagel, Manuel Schmalstieg, Femke Snelting, Nan Wang and Dave Young. Accompanied by the (Mis)Interpreting Free Culture exhibition of FREE?!, in which students and alumni of the Willem de Kooning Academie, the Piet Zwart Institute and WORM’s Parallel University are both reflecting and inviting you to interpret, as well misinterpret, what free culture is about. FREE?! is organised by Kennisland in cooperation with the Willem de Kooning Academy, the Piet Zwart Institute, WORM, Creating 010, V2_ and The New Institute. FREE?! Is made possible with support by the Culture Programme of the European Union and the Stimuleringsfonds Creative Industrie. /// Friday November 29th Free Culture Brunch Club: 13.00 hrs Plenary debate: 16.00 hrs Evening program: 19.30 hrs Location: The New Institute, Rotterdam FREE?! Tickets: http://freeculture.eventbrite.nl More information: http://freeculture.info /// :* ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] What is Free Culture?
Sorry for , please /// What is Free Culture? Three days workshop. 13th, 14th and 15th of November 2013, WORM, Rotterdam Limited Capacity, booking: i...@worm.org http://www.worm.org/home/view/event/7791 /// OK, so... What is free culture exactly? On paper, it seems a rather straightforward and simple thing: free culture is a social movement that promotes making works that can be freely copied, modified and distributed. Wikipedia, Linux, freely downloadable music by net labels are good examples. Everything should be accessible, used and reused anywhere for any purpose, without getting in trouble with lawyers, signing over stuff to Google or Facebook, etc. Simple. But is it so simple? In this workshop, we will critically investigate free culture and the relationships between people creating free culture projects. In specific case studies, we'll have a closer look at different communities around Flickr, Debian, YouTube, ... as well as communal religious movements. We'll look for answers to the questions: * Is there really such a thing as a free culture movement? * If yes, is it defined by specific ways of work interactions? And how can we characterize them? * Where do these models fall short? /// What is Free Culture? is a workshop facilitated by Eleanor Greenhalgh and Dave Young, with an introduction from Eric Kluitenberg and Aymeric Mansoux, and an experimentation on live visual documentation design by Loes Claessens and Bor Smulders. The workshop has been made possible through a partnership between WORM, the Piet Zwart Institute, the Willem de Kooning Academie and Creating 010, Hogeschool Rotterdam. It is the very official and exclusive WORM-up workshop of FREE?!, a one day event into the cultures of sharing, that will happen at Het Nieuwe Instituut, the 29th of November 2013, Rotterdam, where the outcome of the workshop will be presented, amongst many other things More information: http://freeculture.info BOOKING: i...@worm.org /// :* ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] Media Design and Communication Master at the Piet Zwart Institute
Sorry for please /// The Media Design and Communication Master is open for applications! Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academie Rotterdam, The Netherlands /// * Free culture and free/libre and open source software prototyping * A DIY / DIWO approach to media- and tool-making * Participatory media practices * Sound, film video editing skills * Practice-based thematic projects that focus on a particular aspect of the contemporary media ecology * Research methodologies which helps you position your own work within the current context * Archiving, recording and presenting your work /// For more information, student works, essays and course material, explore our public wiki: http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/About Deadline extended to June 1st for Dutch and EU students /// :* a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] open source new media art programs
Hi Mark, mark cooley said : Anyone know of any college new media art programs that focus on using open source software. I'm doing some research. At the Piet Zwart Institute (PZI), Rotterdam, the Netherlands, we have a long history of integrating FLOSS and free culture as part of our Media Design and Communication Master. http://pzwart.wdka.nl/media-design/ Practically speaking, this integration is done through prototyping sessions where free and open source software are essential, and to bring some context on such tools, there is a monthly seminar on free culture. Next to that, the culture of sharing is built as component of the course with the use of a public wiki for pretty much everything that relate to the curriculum and the students' projects. example: http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/Networked_Media_Sampler Last but not least, PZI is the postgraduate program of the Willem de Kooning Academy. The latter will introduce next year three new minors: data design, open design and digital craft which will be built around the theme of open source and will propose a similar approach to the BA as the way we deal with free and open source software in the Master program. If you are interested in the topic of free culture in art and design education (not limited to formal education), you might want to join the Eighty Column list where this topic is discussed from time to time. http://multiplace.org/mailman/listinfo/eightycolumn Best, a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] spicy sausage pasta
pro tip: cook with rice oil and invest in very good oil(s) (olive, argan, pumpkin seed, sesame, etc) to flavour food once cooked with just a few drops. Simon Biggs said : Depends on the olive oil. There's oil for cooking and oil for drizzling. best Simon On 25 Oct 2012, at 13:13, dave miller wrote: I think you shouldnt really cook with olive oil, add it once the food is cooked dave On 25 October 2012 13:07, Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: I'd question the use of mushrooms and the lid. Also, avoid adding cold olive oil to cooking food - it makes it greasy. Add raw ingredients to hot oil and, preferably, heat the bare pan before adding the oil. best Simon On 25 Oct 2012, at 12:57, James Morris wrote: spicy sausage pasta ingrediethod 3 x chilli sausages fry in pan with olive oil lemon drop chilli choped thrown in pan more olive oil because everything burn/stick garlic chopped throw in pan jalepno chilli chopped throw in pan more olive oil because everything burn/stick cillegia chilli chopped throw in pan white onion chopped throw in pan several mushrooms chopped throw in pan remove sausages when partly cooked and chop them back into pan small tin of chopped tomatos in juice in pan several cherry tomatos chopped in pan sprinkling of salt in pan sprinkling of ground pepper in pan chop herbs from garden and put in pan lid on put new pan filled with water on top heat wait for boilling write recipe on facebook decide not to put on facebook after all but email to inappropriate mailing list instead put pasta in boiling water wait for cooked eat go to work -- http://jwm-art.net/ image/audio/text/code/ ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype: simonbiggsuk s.bi...@ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.org.uk/ MSc by Research in Interdisciplinary Creative Practices http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees?id=656cw_xml=details.php ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype: simonbiggsuk s.bi...@ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.org.uk/ MSc by Research in Interdisciplinary Creative Practices http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees?id=656cw_xml=details.php ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] The SKOR Codex
Sorry for please /// July 12th, 2012, Earth, FIRST ARCHIVE TO HOST THE SKOR CODEX BOOK. /// On the chance that someone will be out there, La Société Anonyme has approved the placement of 8 books on 8 locations on Earth. The book, called The SKOR Codex was placed on Thursday (July 12, 2012) aboard the first of eight locations to host the portrait of the diversity of life and culture at the Foundation for Art and Public Domain (SKOR). The 1156 gram book contains greetings from the SKOR staff in 4 languages, samples of artworks from different artists and eras, and field recordings of the SKOR premises. The Codex contains binary information that an advanced technological civilization could convert into diagrams, pictures and sounds, including a message from SKOR managing director Tati Freeke-Suwarganda. Messages in the record were designed to enable possible decoding by future civilizations who might encounter the book in hundreds of years, hence the integration of some pictures of 21st century SKOR. The book will be encountered and decoded only if there are advanced civilizations on earth, said La Société Anonyme. But, as the beautiful message from managing director Tati Freeke-Suwarganda and web curator Annet Dekker indicate, Société Anonyme added, the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about art. La Société Anonyme chose the medium of book as a way of preserving the portrait because it can carry much more information in the same space then for example an engraved stone. Each book is made of acid-free paper, the sections have been sewn onto 4 bands of rameh, the spine is enforced with Japanese paper and the book is wrapped in an acid-free protective cover. It contains, in symbolic language, information on how the book is to be decoded. The book begins with photographs and diagrams in binary form, depicting the SKOR buildings, surroundings, artifacts, objects, office spaces, and some hint of the richness of SKOR's civilization. Included are schematics about SKOR, its location in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, photographs of Ruysdaelkade 2, bicycles, a large fax machine and desks. This is followed by spoken greetings in 4 human languages, including a spoken message by Annet Dekker, web curator of SKOR. The SKOR Codex next includes field recordings made at Ruysdaelkade 2. The artwork selection represents the cultural diversity of SKOR. The entire book counts 304 pages. The book is likely to survive more than a thousand years. Thus it represents a message into the future, a point referred to in managing director Tati Freeke-Suwarganda's message. Among the members of La Société Anonyme's committee and others who played a major role in devising The SKOR Codex are Dušan Barok, Danny van der Kleij, Aymeric Mansoux, and Marloes de Valk, the book was hand bound by the Wilgenkamp bindery. The book was commissioned by SKOR, and produced by La Société Anonyme. The first book will be archived at the SKOR archive hosted by Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The other books will be hosted at seven different locations on the planet. /// More information, photos and downloads: http://societeanonyme.la /// :* a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] TONIGHT: Exception Handling - PZI Media Design MA Graduation Show
Sorry for Please /// Exception Handling Piet Zwart Institute Master Media Design and Communication Graduation Show 2012 /// Opening: Friday July 6, 19.00 hrs, Rotterdam, Netherlands /// The show brings together Networked and Lens-Based digital media and presents work across an expanded diversity of disciplines. To reflect the breadth of media practices within the department, the graduation show is an ambitious co-operation between TENT, V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media and WORM and showcases work that ranges from short films, to radio broadcasts of an encrypted narrative, to steam powered analogue ‘holograms’, to many other media-hybrids in-between. /// Opening tour: 19:00 TENT 20:00 V2_ 22:00 WORM /// More??? http://pzwart.wdka.nl/media-design/ Best, a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] CREATIVE NOW!
CREATIVE NOW! Creative Industries Fair http://creativenow.nl/ /// June 30th 12-7pm at WORM, Rotterdam. /// Join us for a one-day show at WORM Rotterdam. 14 Media Design Communication MA students from Piet Zwart Institute present 14 experimental factories for the new Creative Industries. /// The creative industries are among the fast growing sectors of the Dutch economy. Aside from the creation of form, meaning or symbolic value, the core activities in this top sector concern the way in which these very activities are being designed - the creative innovation process. This top sector revolves around companies that are founded upon creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.The Media Design Masters program of the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academie Hogeschool Rotterdam presents 14 prototypes of factories for the production of film, images, social networks and design, providing inspiration and investment opportunities for all visitors. /// - Dissolute Image Factory by Eleanor Greenhalgh - Sustainable Publishing Factory by Petra Milicki - Unemployment Factory by Mano Daniel Szollosi - Paintshop Factory by Jonas Lund - Data Factory by Andre Castro - Train of Knowledge Factory by Marie Wocher - Identity Factory by Demet Adiguzel - Human Constraints Factory by Astrid van Nimwegen - Musical Factory by Dennis van Vreden - 3D Human Stock Factory by Janis Klimanovs and Javier Lloret - Director’s Cut Factory by Bartolomaus Traubeck - Assembly Mine Factory by Dave Young - Colour Tests Factory by Lucien Wester /// Meet and talk with the artists, and earn your drinks in the factories. a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] Morphology of a copyright tale
Rob Myers said : On 05/02/2012 10:27 AM, Aymeric Mansoux wrote: http://su.kuri.mu/0001/2012MORPHOLOGY_OF_A_COPYRIGHT_TALE/ Excellent! Since it's LaTeX, you could typeset the Propp forumla for that tale. It might make a good print. :-) hehe, true, could be nice. I'm also thinking about using each functions/scenes as some structure to point to external references (books, papers, news, etc) that relate to the different element of the story. All wrapped in a simple website. a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] Morphology of a copyright tale
A bit of procrastination... # INFO: # # This text is based on the work from Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp in # his 1928 essay Morphology of the Folktale. By studying many # Russian folktales, Propp was able to break down their narrative # structure into several functions, literally exposing an underlying # thirty one step recipe to write new and derivate similar stories. # http://su.kuri.mu/0001/2012MORPHOLOGY_OF_A_COPYRIGHT_TALE/ a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
[NetBehaviour] Facesponge workshop at Baltan - 23/05/2012
Hello netbehaviour, Have you ever wondered what is going on “behind the scenes” on social networks like Facebook? In this workshop we will explore our so-called social data and get a glimpse at how it is viewed by the company and third parties who access it. In order to break several myths about Facebook applications, you will be invited to take part in designing small programs that extracts and manipulate you and your friend’s online information. Nothing will be written back to Facebook at any time, we will only be reading existing data. No data will be collected or viewable by anyone else. No programming experience is required. Basic knowledge of javascript can be useful to explore more advanced possibilities of the Facesponge sandbox. This workshop is part of the Naked on Pluto project. more information + booking: http://www.baltanlaboratories.org/?p=3777 a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] Networked Video Performance
Antonio Roberts said : Is there such a thing as networked video performance? If so, are there any examples or literature surrounding this topic? oldies but goodies (?) Very old Pd HOWTO for networked video feedback: http://web.archive.org/web/20060621214337/http://yourmachines.org/tutorials/pdvideolan.html (missing pics here: http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~amansoux/yourmachines/) Interfacing radiotopia/keyworx: in 'Connected! Live Art' p.39 The rest of the book also has networked live performance related texts. http://sherdo.wordpress.com/connected-liveart/ a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] My Lawyer is an Artist: Free Culture Licenses as Art Manifestos.
Thanks for the nice feedback Rob! Rob Myers said : Copyleft: This work is free, you can distribute and modify it under the terms of the Free Art License. http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en I'm overdue on blogging about this, but I'm not convinced that the LAL is better for art than CC-BY-SA *unless* one is trying to keep art separate from the rest of society. Which is a defensible position but I'm from a more Pop tradition. ;-) I'd like to read/write more about that. I think it's an important discussion to have. My initial intention while writing about licenses as art manifestos was precisely to try to articulate how licenses can provide imaginary landscapes to build art upon. In that sense while the FAL/LAL and the CC-BY-SA have been flirting around technical compatibility for years already, their imaginary landscape, or more simply the historical context in which they are born, are quite different. I am not sure that the resulting art separation is deliberate though, I feel it's more like a by-product. a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] New service - thoughts/ideas welcome
Edward Picot said : My first reaction was Hang on a minute - I've seen something very similar to this before - and after a bit of brain-racking I remembered what it was - /The Digital Artists' Handbook /(http://www.digitalartistshandbook.org/). Having just visited the site, however, although the front page is still there all the links seem to be dead, which is a real shame. Is this because folly have had their Arts Council grant cut? Or is it a temporary state of affairs? Does anybody know? Thanks for spotting the dead URLs Edward, I'll check with Folly so that it can be fixed. The sad story of the handbook is that ACE rejected an application 2 years ago (around that time) that was needed to complete the handbook and also organize some workshops/talks around it. We were also planning to have a POD publication once complete, etc. If anyone has any idea on how to bring back the project to life, namely commission more authors for articles and some editorial work, please let me know! a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] Open Source Culture
Rob Myers said : On 04/04/11 20:19, Aymeric Mansoux wrote: But what I was more thinking of is in the case where people have a fairly good understanding of Free Culture, would you say it is possible, desirable, or even a necessity, to make a distinction between the technical and legal infrastructure that allow Free Culture, its usage and what is produced? And why? We can certainly identify legal tools, their community of users, and their artistic products by the same name. But they are all there to support the objective of free-as-in-free-speech (or -expression) culture. It's useful to be able to tell them apart so that when people start talking about inhuman concepts like commons, gifts, reputations and anything else that looks like people's freedom of speech should be curtailed to support Free Culture, we can explain why this is counter-productive. What is produced (free cultural works differentiates them better than free culture, although it's an unappealing phrase) has an interesting art theoretical status. It's art that we are identifying because of a non-aesthetic property, but that non-aesthetic property is one that enables aesthetics: http://robmyers.org/weblog/2007/06/21/why-should-the-licence-of-an-artwork-be-interesting/ Looks like you're reading my mind, as my question was driven by a broader interest in the way art and politics are being mixed up, and of course remixed, for the best and the worst in copyleft art. I'm starting a PhD at Goldsmiths that is quite focussed on this issue and my approach is to see the license as if it was an art manifesto. I am doing so in order to reverse engineer the artistic intention behind copyleft art and see why, how and under which circumstances it can or cannot work. I hope to be able to share some early texts about that in a few months. I made the licence an aesthetic property of the work with CC Ironies - http://robmyers.org/art/cc_ironies/index.html This is a hidden gem, love it. Thanks Rob! a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] Open Source Culture
Rob Myers said : On 03/04/11 09:17, Aymeric Mansoux wrote: @rob: Open Source culture / Free Culture tends to get mixed up with appropriation art, collaborative art and other ideas. Can you point to a text that develop this specifically, Well there's my essay at the end of FLOSS+Art, the expanded Open Source Art Again. :-) Oh? ;) or maybe elaborate a bit? I mean it in two senses: Firstly, artists tend to use philosophical and political ideas more as inspiration or metaphors than as rigorous and binding definitions. If an artist says that they're working in an Open Source way or they are inspired by Free Software, they may just be intending to collaborate with people or appropriate work in ways that don't fit the Open Source Definition or the Free Software Definition. So in this way the ideas tend to get mixed up as they are not used accurately, and so their meaning drifts into other areas. There's nothing wrong with that, artists must be free to work creatively with concepts. It can be frustrating when people are *almost* there but are using a non-free licence or saying that they are sharing or freeing work when they are obviously not, though. Yes. Secondly, artists who are interested in Open Source or Free Culture tend to be also interested in more general ideas of collaboration, appropriation, and free speech. When they talk or write about what Free and Open culture mean to them, they tend to also talk about appropriation, collaboration, anti-censorship and other vitally important ideas. Yes. So in this way the ideas tend to get mixed up as people have wider interests and don't single out Free and Open culture as a single topic of discussion. OK, this is all clear. But what I was more thinking of is in the case where people have a fairly good understanding of Free Culture, would you say it is possible, desirable, or even a necessity, to make a distinction between the technical and legal infrastructure that allow Free Culture, its usage and what is produced? And why? a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] Open Source Culture
Hey, Pall Thayer said : I had my students read the paper by thor magnusson in FLOSS + Art and they loved. Its a wonderful introductory text to open source and how it may affect/pertain to the arts. Yes Thor's text is really good. Some more FLOSS+Art related texts here: http://su.kuri.mu/0001/ (I'll put a few more this Summer...) and another here http://pi.kuri.mu/tools-to-fight-boredom/ @rob: Open Source culture / Free Culture tends to get mixed up with appropriation art, collaborative art and other ideas. Can you point to a text that develop this specifically, or maybe elaborate a bit? Thanks! a. -- http://su.kuri.mu ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] pure:dyne discussion
Hi James, james jwm-art net said : Hi Aymeric, everyone, Sorry reply is a bit late now.. mine too :) Concerning Debian, I can't recall if I mentionned it previously, our goal is also not to leave our packages in a nich repository, the mid term plan for the pure:dyne team is to start moving as much things as possible in Debian itself, so it will benefit to an even wider audience. Good stuff. But does this mean pure:dyne is a tempory project? Or will pure:dyne be more cutting edge than Debian? Certainly though, Debian is not tailored in the same way as the multimedia specific distros. pure:dyne is not a temp project. pure:dyne as a whole aim to produce a good environment for media artists to work and make art with free software, and that mean the operating system, but also a serie of workshop outlines and material publicaly available, and a collection of HOWTO and tutorial targetted to artist needs. On the operating system, we also focus on the live distro aspects, so how to build a system that can be used an booted in all kind of weird situations, on all kind of exotic medium and hardware (as long as it is x86 ... for now). As mentionned previously, pure:dyne is based on 3 repos Debian testing, Marillat's Multimedia repos and ours. So In the end it doesn't matter at all for us if a package is coming from our repos or Debian's, because the 3 are combined in the process of building the live distro. On the other hand we find important to not keep this stuff in a niche repos (like it is done with a lot of launchpad-like repos on Ubuntu) and we don't want to have to branch completely Debian neither (like 64 Studio does). So we just aim to contribute as much as possible to the mothership and only keep software in our repos that cannot be included in Debian. The live distro will always be available, like it is now, as a very specific system, build on top of Debian. As you said Debian is not tailored in the same way as some multimedias distro, it is beyond the scope of this email to try to explain why from the technical, historical and also political reasons, but to keep it short, yes Debian sucks for these type of things, but we're crazy enough to think that we can try to move things forward :) (and also help the Debian developers and maintainers who think multimedia is not only about playing pr0n DVDrips). There are no CD/DVD available to order, it's only available as direct downloads or torrents. http://code.goto10.org/projects/puredyne/wiki/GetPureDyne But, the next milestone, leek and potato, will be available as liveUSB keys that we will sell, we're still trying to figure out how to do that with as little extra cost added to make it cheap, but sustainable. For those in London tonight, you'll be able to get one or see it in action. I'm in the dark ages of the 'net here. No broadband and it's hassle to get friends to download ISO's for me, so a liveUSB key would be a good thing for people like me. Hopefully BT is (going to be/meant to be??) rolling out upgrades to it's exchanges in the not-too-distant future. Ah I see, if you subscribe to the GOTO10 list, we'll probably announce the liveUSB thingy there when it's ready to order. Also, if you send me your snail-mail address off-list I can post you an ISO of the latest dev version. you should be able to cat it in an ISO file later on, and rsync over the final one, should be OK on a dialup. a. ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] Team records 'music' from stars - Like Aphex Twin music.
marc garrett said : Team records 'music' from stars - Like Aphex Twin music. By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News. Scientists have recorded the sound of three stars similar to our Sun using France's Corot space telescope. The subtly pulsating, haunting sounds are very similar to artist Aphex Twin's minimalistic nineties album 'Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2,' only stripping away what little melody it had and leaving just the beat. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7687286.stm Reminds me of Lustmord He used such sounds in 94 as material for an album ARECIBO/Trans Plutonian Transmissions http://www.discogs.com/release/114042 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#Arecibo_in_popular_culture nice one if you like darkambient. a. ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] pure:dyne discussion
Hi James, james jwm-art net said : I'm curious about how pure:dyne might compare to other multimedia distributions. I have always gone back to Debian (stable) as my main OS, but have tried 64studio... and another, can't remember it's name, it used fluxbox as it's desktop but the distro died, but the desktop was fast and it all worked from go. maybe it was demudi? We used fluxbox in the very early pure:dyne iterations, but we quickly realised that during workshops we really need something that provides as much graphical helpers as possible. XFCE is good for that, it's very light and fast on modest machines and has a complete desktop. Also, even though fluxbox is really good, it's one of these desktop that is not minimal enough to provide a barebone wm, and it's too minimal to provide a user experience similar to what is available in typical desktop based wm. Concerning Debian, I can't recall if I mentionned it previously, our goal is also not to leave our packages in a nich repository, the mid term plan for the pure:dyne team is to start moving as much things as possible in Debian itself, so it will benefit to an even wider audience. Does pure:dyne come in 64bit flavour? (and any chance of ordering a live/install DVD btw?) pure:dyne is 32bit only at the moment, which of course works perfectly fine on 64bit CPU. We'll start exploring 64bit when we consider the live system and the environment that produces it, are stable enough and well documented. We are also in discussion with 64studio, who contacted us a while ago, to start to think about long term collaboration. There are no CD/DVD available to order, it's only available as direct downloads or torrents. http://code.goto10.org/projects/puredyne/wiki/GetPureDyne But, the next milestone, leek and potato, will be available as liveUSB keys that we will sell, we're still trying to figure out how to do that with as little extra cost added to make it cheap, but sustainable. For those in London tonight, you'll be able to get one or see it in action. Of course there are important variations within this field as well. For example an artist who can program might build an imaginary based on a very badly programmed, but creative software art, or an artistic interpretation of technology that would sound like pseudoscience. At the other extreme, a programer making art will have the tendency to focus much more be in the technical process and the manifestations of this underlying mechanics would be treated as side effects or illustrations of these. I found this quite interesting. If neither programming nor art is earning one a living, how can one tell if they're a programmer making art or an artist writing code? Hang on, there's a clue at the end of the paragraph... Yes I agree there, with the illustrations analogy. I think the issue with software art is that it is interdisciplinary, which is, at the same time, its greatest quality, but also its curse. It is still too often that today software artists are left in a academe/institutional limbo because they are either considered too geeky or too arty depending the point of view of the single discipline that examines it. But I think is a general problem for any (multi|cross|trans|inter)disciplinary practice and research :) a. ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] pure:dyne discussion
Hi Rob, Rob Myers said : 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. Do you think that artists should extend the freedom of free software into their artistic work? Is there an obligation or inspiration from free software for artists to embrace copyleft? Or is it only the case that artists should use and contribute to software freely? Well, artists are quite known to do whatever they want to do with whatever comes around, so this won't change :) (and it's a good thing!) So I think at the moment most artists are using and contributing to software freely, which as a consequence leads very often to paradoxes such as I use free software to make art, but I won't release the patch/code of my installation/performance. There is still this idea, that giving away the technology/software of the artwork, is giving away the income (maybe the soul too?). This is not true, as we know, media artists incomes are mostly coming from teaching, residency, comissions and manifestations of their art, whether it is performances or installations, certainly not selling software or registering patents (and we also know what this thinking brought us so far in other fields). But I have good hope, or said differently, I'm looking forward to the day where critical mass of artists making free software art will be reached, and hopefully will start to generate interesting things. Free software art is not making software art a better Art, but it will certainly allow it to develop itself in ways we can only speculate about right now, based on how it affected other domains until now. Also, just like the rest, the freedom of free software is a quite powerful virus, not just for the viral licensing aspect, but also for the mind. Artists who are operating for a while in its presence, very often start to introduce it in their work and their research, as an inspiration and method. a. ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] pure:dyne discussion
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 NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] pure:dyne discussion
Hi Bob, Marc, list Art forms have their technical aspects. Artists are forever learning, playing, working and experimenting with the technology at their disposal. Tools for the job. Means and ends. Artists are largely focused on the latter; the ability to use the tools is presumed. However when it comes to digital/new media/net art, discussion of the technical aspects still seems to predominate. Do you think that's in the nature of the technology? Or will there come a time when 'new media' artists won't have to talk like Formula 1 engineers? Short answer: There will be indeed a time 'new media' artists won't have to talk like Formula 1 engineers. But not because their discourse has changed, but because their lingo will have been absorbed in popular culture, or on the other hand made completely obsolete just like the technology they once used. (which is why it is always difficult to talk about new media without any context attached to it) Long (non)answer: As Heather just said, my previous post was a technical answer to a technical question, and indeed pure:dyne is a platform to allow us, and a few others, to make art or anything creative with artistic software. But this platform is not art. It's a software environment (and I won't get into the neoclassical code as craft thing either). Back to the question, I don't know if it can be answered or not. As it is formulated now, it's very difficult to come up with something that would be really satisfying because it might carry a couple of cans of worms attached to it. For example, I believe it is not possible to generalise on the fact that technical aspects predominate in new media art, without first making a distinction between, on the one hand, artists operating in the field of new media with a complete technology illiteracy and who need technicians to implement their concept, and on the other hand, artists who can code and coders who make art. That sounds trivial, but it's often forgotten or left as a detail from the art perspective. But in my eyes it's very relevant. In the 1st case the technological factor is little or not present because the artist see the technic as just a support or an enabler to illustrate an idea/concept. Nothing new, and it's something common no matter from which angle it is seen: from the relationship contemporary conceptual artists and designers have with craftmanship, or from the engineers/artists post E.A.T. collaborative dreams point of view. In the second group, though, artists who can code and coders who make art it is true that technology is predominant, but this *not* predominant compared to something else that would be in minority, such as art. It is predominant because it *is* art, the good old concept/technic dichotomy cannot apply here, and any attempt will end up in this deadlock where one will try to look for something which is right under his nose. Of course there are important variations within this field as well. For example an artist who can program might build an imaginary based on a very badly programmed, but creative software art, or an artistic interpretation of technology that would sound like pseudoscience. At the other extreme, a programer making art will have the tendency to focus much more be in the technical process and the manifestations of this underlying mechanics would be treated as side effects or illustrations of these. In real life, such extremes exists, but things are generally a bit more balanced, but what is important is that in both case software is seen as something much closer to a medium rather than something like a tool. It is up to an artist to stay in the safe frame of the materialtoolobject instruments and the multimedia metaphors (digital paint, virtual canvas, etc) or to decide to explore what software as artistic medium has to offer. In this situation the technology is either transparent or its structure used as platform to reflect upon an idea. The understanding of software as technology is mandatory here of course. But what seems to appear as a mass of overwhelming technical information is just language to express and explore ideas that cannot be expressed otherwise. a. PS: No idea how Formula 1 works ;) ___ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
Re: [NetBehaviour] pure:dyne discussion
Hi Rob, You mention that pure:dyne emerged from practical necessity and didn't have a grand plan. Did you design its user experience with any model or set of requirements in mind? It reminds me of the clean, pleasurable, no-nonsense environments of old Mac and SGI systems. Was that intentional or a product of evolution in a similar niche? It was a natural thing to do. We've always been working on minimal environments, which, to paraphrase the UNIX philosophy, needs to do one thing and one thing well. In the context of windows manager that implies to be able to spawn terminals and start applications, preferrably with as less mouse interaction as possible. Nothing else :) To give you an idea, the wm we like to use are: - evilwm http://www.6809.org.uk/evilwm - dwm http://www.suckless.org/dwm - ratpoison http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison - awesome http://awesome.naquadah.org Of course, the wms above can be a bit disorientating for people that come from an OS that has a wm built around the desktop metaphor. That's why we decided to provide by default XFCE, which is a desktop oriented windows manager, but comes with very little bloat. So although the other minimal wms are provided, we had to start right away with something that workshop participants could interact with, based on their experience with commercial operating systems, but at the same time light and to the point. It was discussed that we would just not use any desktop and even tried to run some workshops using one of these minimal wm, but it was too much of a shock. The good thing is that we converted quite a few users to these minimal wm anyway because they are very handy on a daily basis but also to provide a simple performance setup or an installation. The second aspect of this choice, whether it is with a minimal wm or a light desktop, is the need to have a system that takes as little ressources as possible. When we run insert-your-fav-software-here, we want the machine to allocate as much resources as possible to insert-your-fav-software-here and certainly not to a collection of 3D effects, twirling icons, wobbly windows and others industry sponsored gimmicks. Our aim was right away to provide a fully functionnal environment to systems as modests as an old Pentium III. For the gory tech details, we also use i686 optimisations when compiling and we have been the first to provide a RT kernel on a live distribution. We also try to make this effort available for others, for example our upcoming new release will feature a kernel which config will be used as a base config for an attempt to provide a unified linuxaudio kernel that would be shared amongst several multimedia distributions. (that is for those who are interested in this collaboration). And on a boring practical level, now that pure:dyne is Debian based can I just install Debian packages or is pure:dyne a different package universe? I'm using Fedora on my laptop at the moment and I'm frustrated by the lack of some music and animation software as packages for it. It' s not boring at all. It's a key characteristic of the new pure:dyne. pure:dyne is a mix of 3 repos, Debian Lenny, Debian Multimedia and our own repository, so you can use pure:dyne repos on a Debian install, and you can add Debian repos on a pure:dyne install. Afterall, this is Debian. With the previous version, our users, were either beginners or experts, so 2 groups with little common points and both at the extreme of a normal distribution. For beginners, pure:dyne was great to discover GNU/Linux and some of the exotic software bundled with it. But as soon as they wanted to make the switch to use the system more regularly or as main OS, they would miss several software that: - we were not packaging - and, we had no interest in packaging, or no time to do it - and, would require advanced knowledge to package themselves. So such users would only use pure:dyne for special case and never as main OS, due to the technical knowledge required to make it fit to their daily needs. We did package some generic stuff though, for example OpenOffice, but this is not exciting and a bit a waste of time. Just like I said in the previous mail, we were using pure:dyne as main OS so the choice of generic software and design was modelled around our own needs, and while the software we packaged was common to many artists, the environment itself is often a matter of taste and personal habits. With a Debian based environment we are now able to provide a system that is very modular and that more importantly grow as the user's knowledge grow. In a nutshell, we have now 4 levels of usability: - live* modes (liveCD, liveDVD, liveHD, liveUSB) provides a read-only system that can be booted from different medium and in which you can access to your hard drives to read/write files. - persistence modes, added to the live modes, they allow the user(s) to save their home content, or if configured, any changes done to the
