Categories
Free Culture

An Interesting Question From openbusiness.cc

openbusiness.cc have a questionnaire for artists at the moment. One of the questions is “Have you ever used a CC work without incorporating it into your work? E.g. listened to CC licensed music”

Is this free-software-style concept of “use” of a cultural work a useful abstraction or a distortive import? Is it good to regard the consumption, propagation and creation of culture as “use”, or is there better terminology to be had?

Categories
Aesthetics Satire

Geek Aesthetics 5

In Soviet Russia, social realism paints you!

Artist steals body parts to cast as sculpture. Jailarity ensues.

Categories
Free Culture Generative Art

Media Mutandis: a NODE.London Reader

Media Mutandis:  a NODE.London Reader
(edited by Marina Vishmidt, with Mary Anne Francis, Jo Walsh and Lewis
Sykes)

is out in early March 2006

http://publication.nodel.org

Publisher: NODE.London
ISBN:  0-9552435-0-5
Pages: 300, Paper Perfectbound
Price:  5 UKP/6 USD/7 EUR

NODE.London [Networked, Open, Distributed, Events. London] is committed to
building the infrastructure and raising the visibility of media arts
practice in London. Working on an open, collaborative basis, NODE.London
culminates, in its first year, in a month long season of media arts projects
across London in March 2006.

The NODE.London Reader (surveying art, technologies and politics) projects a
critical context around the Season of Media Arts in London March 2006 and
provides another discursive dimension to the events of October 2005’s Open
Season.  It engages debates in FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software),
media arts and activism, collaborative practices and the political economy
of cultural production in the present day. It includes essays and artist
projects from Sabeth Buchmann, Toni Prug, Armin Medosch, Simon Yuill, Chad
McCail, Critical Art Ensemble, Jo Walsh, Richard Barbrook, Michael Corris,
Harwood, Agnese Trocchi, Matthew Fuller, Rasmus Fleischer and Palle Torsson,
Brett Neilson and Ned Rossiter, Matteo Pasquinelli and Francis McKee.  It is
available at a range of NODE.London public events throughout March, and as a
POD (Print On Demand) through the website.  Check the website for further
outlets as they become available, as well as news and additional texts.

Media Mutandis carries a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
licence. http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk

Categories
Free Culture Personal

What Would Nixon Do?

I just got “Endtroducing” and “Zoolook” in the post. Zoolook I’ve heard before, Endtroduing is new (I was an UNKLE fan though). Add this to my Utah Saints records, some Negativland and DJ Sooky, and I’m having a sampletastic time at the moment trying to get my head back into a free art mode.

Music and art is a cliche, but it is my cliche (or possibly I am its).
Dithering is the opposite of creative block, but in many ways even more destructive. At least with creative block you have to run with an idea when it comes up… 🙂

Categories
Free Culture Satire

Thought For The Day

The food industry don’t try to stop you making snacks.

The sex industry don’t try to stop you making love.

So why are the content industry trying to stop you making music?

Categories
Aesthetics Satire

Business Insultant

An individual should focus on their core competences to provide best value. This is their unique value proposition. If we look at the most prominent value adding individuals in business and the media, their most striking feature is their rudeness. Rudeness is therefore the core competence and unique value proposition of the people who add the most value to a business.

Many companies hire business consultants to add additional value. Since the best way they can add value is by being rude, the bland behaviour of current consultancy practice is clearly short-changing business. What is needed are incredibly rude individuals. The ruder the individual, the more value they are adding to the company.

I have therefore decided to become a business insultant. Companies can hire me to be rude and threatening to staff. Especially to management, who are best placed to pass on received value. I don’t think that twenty thousand dollars a day is too much to ask for such a vital service.

Categories
Aesthetics

Career-Building Bullshit That Cares

…the ideals of engagement and social effect are often the journalistic or administrative sentiments of art world redemptiveness. Career-building bullshit that cares.

– Art and Language (letter to Artmonthly, Sept/Oct 2000).

So much for Adorno. And art as an instrument of social regeneration in deprived areas. 🙂

Categories
Free Culture

Forum On Open Content | Tom Chance’s website

The excellent Tom Chance on Free Culture:

Forum On Open Content | Tom Chance’s website

Categories
Free Culture

Commons Knowledge

This is the first issue of Free Culture UK’s new fortnightly newsletter.
Please pass this on to others who might be interested. To get your upcoming
events, hot news or event reviews in add them to the relevant wiki page.
Feel free to make suggestions on how to improve this as well.

February 2006, no.2
Stable URL: http://www.freeculture.org.uk/newsletter/2006/feb20

UPCOMING EVENTS

Forum on open content, part of the Open Knowledge Foundation forum series.
* What: A chance to discuss what open content means, how we can best create,
distribute and promote open content, and more. With speakers: Paula LeDieu
(iCommons), Cory Doctorow (Writer and Campaigner), Tom Chance (RemixReading
and Free Culture UK) and Jennifer Rigby (BBC Creative Archive)
* When: Wednesday 22nd February 2006, 7-9pm
* Where: Stanhope Centre, Marble Arch, London, W2 2HH.
* More information: http://www.openknowledgefoundation.org/okforums/content/

Node.l
* What: A festival of open, collaborative media arts and infrastructure in London.
* When: Throughout March 2006.
* Where: Venues thoughout London.
* More information: http://nodel.org/

Remix Reading open media lab
* What: Come and learn how to use arty free software, or show off your skills
to others, at our first open media lab. Just turn up with an open mind.
* When: Saturday 4th March 2006, 10am-4pm
* Where: Rising Sun Arts Centre, Reading
* More information: http://www.remixreading.org/node/708

Remix Art Competition
* What: A competition looking for the best visual remixes of Reading’s local
area and of a selection of local art. The eleven best pieces will be an
exhibition in April. Non-locals may enter but 😉
* When: Deadline is 6th April 2006.
* Where: The show will be at Riverside Museum at Blake’s Lock, Reading.
* More information: http://www.remixreading.org/node/714

FREE CULTURE IN THE UK NEWS

“As the UK government reviews patent and copyright law to boost Britain’s
creative economy, Becky Hogge says democratic access to knowledge ought to
benefit too.”
* http://www.opendemocracy.net/media/free_culture_3266.jsp

“CNUK relaunches as a free culture and free software project”
* http://cnuk.org

EVENT FEEDBACK

Remix Reading held their first open media lab with just two PCs as part of the
relaunch of a local arts centre. People with varied backgrounds showed
interest in free software and free culture.
* http://tom.acrewoods.net/node/409

That’s all folks!

Categories
Aesthetics

Pirate vs. Ninja (2)

A ninja ambushes a pirate in a hail of shuriken. The pirate ducks behind a mast, blocking the shuriken, as his parrot flies at the ninja squawking obscenities.
The ninja reaches for his nunchaks to dispatch the parrot, and the pirate takes a swing with his cutlass. But the moon suddenly shines across the deck from between two rocks off the coast of the island, and the ninja melts away into the fleeing shadows.