[-empyre-] seeing yourself a prototype - the limits of open source

[Cynthia Beth Rubin]

svd and all ..

a few thoughts -

I offered the critique system of artist-to-artist discussion as  
evidence that the artist dialogue 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.

We are all also Open Source artists whenever we show our work.   
Artists get ideas from other artists, and many of us embrace the  
feedback that we get from others outside of academia and the  
marketplace. And yes,we all need to live somehow.  That is the  
dilemma of all Open Source, be it software, design, or art.  People  
can be interested in more than one aspect of a prototype, and they  
can function in more that one arena.  Photographers might make  
pictures for a client to earn money, and then take the very same  
camera and shoot a few pictures based on their own interests.  And  
each of these can be considered as an iteration of a series of  
ongoing "prototypes". And one can feed the other.

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.

Cynthia

Cynthia Beth Rubin
http://CBRubin.net


On Mar 19, 2010, at 4:54 AM, sdv at krokodile.co.uk wrote:

> cynthia/all
>
> The logic of open-source seems to work in subsidized environment like
> academia where they are paid for teaching and perhaps a little  
> research
> - but external to the academy how would an open-source artist  
> survive ?
> I can see how the economics of it would work in West, with a false
> economics of scarcity and with rich patrons investing in art objects -
> which rather obviously are not open-source objects, but still without
> these how would the economics work ?
>
> Is that it ? That the art academy supports artists, so that when  
> the few
> produce art objects for patrons, they in turn then support the
> generation of ideas for the spectacle ?
>
> Or is the model something else ?
>
> s
>
>