Arrr! Take the Plunge, Matey

Alternative forms of information and property regulation are increasingly visible in mainstream culture - whether it's IBM's recent promotions of the Linux operating system or the mass popularity of peer-to-peer 'sharing' technologies such as Kazaa. How are these beliefs about cultural ownership shaping and being shaped by art production? 'Dive,' a Kingdom of Piracy ('KOP') book/CD-ROM project edited by writer/curator Armin Medosch, represents one multifaceted attempt to engage the technology and ideas of the free software and copyleft movements. 'Dive' includes a broad sampling of works, ranging from essays to net.art to free alternatives for proprietary software apps. As KOP's name would suggest, a fair amount of discussion is devoted to the concept of 'piracy' in our current context. But 'Dive' doesn't just throw you a theoretical life-preserver, the CD-ROM also includes a bootable version of Dynebolic, a Linux OS designed for multimedia production. -Ryan Griffis