mahr'svierteljahrsschriftfürästhetik
9 (2006), Nr.4/December
L’art philosophique
“Wie Gold der Quell nun floß” (Eichendorff). Preliminary reflection concerning open source arts, radio and tv. With thanks to Peter Schober, today with Zentraler Informatikdienst der Universität Wien, for his support
over the years. 7554 characters.
The arts festival Styrian Autumn 2007 prepares
for an attempt to open source theater (Medak 2006, 145). In 2006 the festival had already
supported similar concerns with respect to visual software art (in this article
not referred to), particularly with reference to Processing as initiated by
Casey Reas und Ben Fry (see Further Processing at http://www.steirischerbst.at/2006/english/calendar/calendar.php?eid=45).
Indeed, browsing through „open source <+ one of the arts>“ shows a variety of meaning/use of “open source” if though of minor importance
most of the times. What about succulent fostering and sharing in gardening art?
Or want alter poetry on http://osp.bbkstudio.com/? For painting
“open source” is a metaphor for a painting program and an image retouching
program on the pc. At second glance it doesn’t surprise that open source
sculpture gravitates to “real” bodies, to show value, sex sites and teen magazines.
With music, the usual napster/mp3/file sharing comes up as well as the vast
score archive of http://www.mozartforall.org/. Architecture
websites express expectations toward an egoless, cooperative and evolutionary
practice. Opera in the internet is as dated as to give way Opera Software used
for instance as a mini Web browser for mobile phones. With cinematography “open
source” seems to nourish primarily the desire for free downloadable movies as
fulfilled by German "Route 66"
in 2004, a fact to which corresponds animation movie "Elephants
Dream" released in 2006 with providing “production files” accessible with
open software, for instance 3D animation program "Blender". Of course
there is podcasting Open Source Radio in
It is still difficult to even outline an overall theory of an open source
art comprising all of the singular arts as addressed
by philosophical aesthetics. So a hint may be in order. (There is a design, a
plan, an idea for an artwork: sketches for a painting,
a score for musical performances, an outline for a novel, a script for a movie.
All of these are programs. What may be at bottom together with software programs?)
According to former philosophy student and artist Lawrence Weiner – see his
1991 piece “(Im Frieden der Nacht) Smashed to Pieces (In
the Still of the Night) Zerschmettert in Stücke” painted on the whitened top of a bunker tower in
one of former Third Reichs's towns, Vienna – , his Statement of Intent, in: ARTnews,
fall 1968, runs as follows: "(1)
The artist may construct the piece. (2) The piece may be fabricated. (3) The
piece may not be built. [Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the
artist, the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion
of receivership]". Expanding Weiner's definition as once set up for the
sake of his own art to art in general I would like to render it the following
way. Consistent with the intent of the artist or receiver a work may (2) but
need not (3) be realized by the artist or´anyone else
(1). In short: Upon intention of the artist-proprietor a work of art may be
realized. Now, what can be realized is by definition separate from intention. It’s
crystallized into a program, a conception. The old author’s intention returns. It’s
not a translation into materials or appearances though. Therefore fallacies are
excluded (Wimsatt/Beardsley
1946).
It is purely digital, in any case not analogue. It’s just like a chain of
words, signs. Like a program, a conceptual art. The same with
conceptual art proper.
The Free Software Foundation on its turn has been defining "free
software by whether or not the recipient has the freedoms to: * run the
program, for any purpose (freedom 0) * study how the program works, and adapt
it to your needs (freedom 1) * redistribute copies so you can help your
neighbour (freedom 2) * improve the program and release your improvements to
the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3) <.> It also
notes that 'Access to the source code is a precondition' for freedoms 1 and
3." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_definition) A more simplified
version may be as follows: Under the precondition of open access to the source
a program may be used (0), adapted (1), modified (3) and multiplied (2). In other
words: Under the precondition of the possibility of open source or participation
a program may be used by anybody (multiplied, adapted, modified). There is no
difference to art: the program – if used and applied or not is of no importance
– is not conceived for any specific purpose. The purpose may be abandoned for a
while of for good. The concept here – contrary to conceptual art – is allowed
to be modified, slightly or strongly. And it is allowed to be given to others. The
latter is not allowed with Weiner or other early conceptual artists. The former
with Weiner is deflected by the possibilities of design.
Apart from the fact that Lawrence Weiner did an open sourcing of art however
with retaining art in the form of property there are some striking similarities
between (post)avantgardist art and free software. What
is written or conceived is exactly what is executed – no secret here – however idealiter to be sure
because the design of execution is given to different hands of any person available.
Is this to cause a new, albeit happy confusion? Art used to be conceived
as welcoming secrets, intended or not, technically or programmatically. Yet
what is a secret is not hidden or vice versa. Therefore a long
hermeneutic tradition. The code is present, but requires appropriate reading/interpretation.
That was taken up in more recent times by psychological or sociological readings
of works of arts resulting in the final revelation of the psychological or
sociological system of aesthetic experience and artistic production. Is now another
stage of enlightening arts and technology dawning with aiming at discovering fully
transparent and immanent forms and ways of programs and artworks?
Over the times, conceptual art was left of all pop, minimal, process,
performance or object art of the 1960’s. Already a strong underpinning (of
justification) of all art endeavours in the 1970’s, conceptual art took shape
in 1980’s postconceptual object-oriented art called appropriationism or simulationism.
With the disappearance of 1980’s neoist painting and
sculpture and the rise of artistic investigation into art as a social system
now fully developed by media and commerce it was conceptualism that became the
focus of the analytical framework of art theory in the 1990’s. So when Tomislaw Medak recommends rethinking
„production as a particular social practice with its own institutional
framework ... on the radar of the art-as-system debate“ (Medak
2006, 145) this kind of reflection may be traced back to discussions in the
mid-1990’s as Volker Grassmuck reminded us (Wulfen (ed.) 1994; Grassmuck
2004).
In difference to commercialized art critical art as well as software has
entered a state of seemingly pervasive social organization today. Is art and software
today just a new form of social organization (Medak
2006, 145)? Is free software just a continuous process entertained by a multitude
of people (Grassmuck 2004, 235)?
Is it possible that we producers and consumers sustain together a
non-hierarchical individual as well as collective production? What kind finally
of transparency has open source art to offer as an art? These are questions
that will be answered in the course with technology and art that will be more developed
than today. We enter interesting times.
References:
a. (2006): The Free Software Definition, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_definition dl
Grassmuck, Volker (2004): Freie Software. Zwischen Privat- und
Gemeineigentum, = Schriftenreihe 458, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische
Bildung.
Medak, Tomislaw
<2006>: Open Source Paradigm in the Arts, in: <Mårten
Spångberg, ed.> The
Adventure.
Wimsatt, W. K./Beardsley,
M. C. (1946): The Intentional Fallacy, in: The Sewanee Review 54, 468-488.
Wulfen, Thomas (ed.) (1994): Betriebssystem Kunst - Eine
Retrospektive, in: Kunstforum International, Januar/Februar, Bd. 125, 49-229
Peter Mahr © 2006
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