BIO
Rob Myers is an artist and hacker based in the UK.
I have been creating images of the contemporary social and cultural environment through programming, design software and visual remixing since the early 1990s. My work is influenced by popular culture and high art in equal measures. My interest in remixing and sampling has led to my involvement in the Free Culture movement. I have been involved in the public consultation regarding the Creative Commons 2.0 and CC-UK licenses. All my visual art is available under a Creative Commons license.
My interest in programming has led to my involvement with the Free Software movement. I developed the Macintosh version of the Gwydion Dylan programming language compiler. All my software is available under the GNU GPL.
I have been creating images of the contemporary social and cultural environment through programming, design software and visual remixing since the early 1990s. My work is influenced by popular culture and high art in equal measures. My interest in remixing and sampling has led to my involvement in the Free Culture movement. I have been involved in the public consultation regarding the Creative Commons 2.0 and CC-UK licenses. All my visual art is available under a Creative Commons license.
My interest in programming has led to my involvement with the Free Software movement. I developed the Macintosh version of the Gwydion Dylan programming language compiler. All my software is available under the GNU GPL.
Net 2.0 and new stuff
The artist must understand and be able to modify the construction of the tools they are using precisely in order to achieve the visual end product that they want. The opposite extreme to process wankery is technical ineptness, and it is no more interesting.
In contemporary art the ideal artist is a manager of outsourced production. Compared to this even getting your hands dirty with shrinkwrapped software is the wrong sort of work. So either refuse managerialism and hack the tools you need to make the art you want or embrace it and pay someone else to come up with your work. Acting out the role of the Mac Operator in art is a bit 1991.
Programmers aren't artists, they are engineers and/or mathematicians. That engineering and/or mathematics may produce art, though.
In contemporary art the ideal artist is a manager of outsourced production. Compared to this even getting your hands dirty with shrinkwrapped software is the wrong sort of work. So either refuse managerialism and hack the tools you need to make the art you want or embrace it and pay someone else to come up with your work. Acting out the role of the Mac Operator in art is a bit 1991.
Programmers aren't artists, they are engineers and/or mathematicians. That engineering and/or mathematics may produce art, though.
When you go surfclubbin', don't forget your hat.
What's a surfclub?
Do you have to plant pampas grass on your front lawn or something?
Do you have to plant pampas grass on your front lawn or something?
Net Ae 2.0 postmortem
Inventing dozens of different coloured wheels that all spin in the same direction is a product of the academic base of net art. There's nothing wrong with project-based work, but there is something wrong with the culture of the monetization of trivial differences that art threatens to share with mass culture.
Summer Reading Suggestions
Relational Aesthetics is good for making sense of contemporary art.
And in no particular order:
"Sweet Dreams" by Joanna Brucker
"Free Software, Free Society" by Richard Stallman
"Censoring Culture" by Atkins et al
"Free Culture" by Lawrence Lessig
"The Laws Of Cool" by Alan Liu
"Essays On Art & Language" by Charles Harrison
"OurSpace" by Christine Harold
"Collecting Contemporary Art" by Louisa Buck
"Rhythm Science" DJ Spooky/Paul Miller
"Purple Cow" by Seth Goodin
"The Dedalus Book Of Absinthe" by Phil Baker
And in no particular order:
"Sweet Dreams" by Joanna Brucker
"Free Software, Free Society" by Richard Stallman
"Censoring Culture" by Atkins et al
"Free Culture" by Lawrence Lessig
"The Laws Of Cool" by Alan Liu
"Essays On Art & Language" by Charles Harrison
"OurSpace" by Christine Harold
"Collecting Contemporary Art" by Louisa Buck
"Rhythm Science" DJ Spooky/Paul Miller
"Purple Cow" by Seth Goodin
"The Dedalus Book Of Absinthe" by Phil Baker
Video of Futures of the Internet Panel
Good post. No comments allowed though, so...
I moved off Mac a while ago and now use Ubuntu GNU/Linux. The software is more than good enough to do what I want to. People can install it on their Macs if they want, I was using an old iBook originally. Using Free Software is a very easy way of being progressive.
Sharky's comment about economics is the usual marketarian dogma, it's just useful idiocy for corporatism. His comment that there's no community around OLPC is also true for Windows software in third world schools. And quite how Windows will generate or leverage more social capital than OLPC I don't know, it's a bizarre claim to level against OLPC.
I'm finally reading Liu's "Laws of Cool", its thesis seems relevant to this.
I moved off Mac a while ago and now use Ubuntu GNU/Linux. The software is more than good enough to do what I want to. People can install it on their Macs if they want, I was using an old iBook originally. Using Free Software is a very easy way of being progressive.
Sharky's comment about economics is the usual marketarian dogma, it's just useful idiocy for corporatism. His comment that there's no community around OLPC is also true for Windows software in third world schools. And quite how Windows will generate or leverage more social capital than OLPC I don't know, it's a bizarre claim to level against OLPC.
I'm finally reading Liu's "Laws of Cool", its thesis seems relevant to this.
