open source

One of the most notable and essential aspects of open-source cultural values (as informed by FLOSS) is the variety of authorship positions offered in place of the singular author figure that supports the formulation of classical intellectual property discourse. Here I’m speaking particularly in reference to the adoption of open source values and methodologies by the cultural realm; from critical media to contemporary art practice and their dissemination.

Exhibitions are all right for those of us who like that sort of thing, but like other artworldly activities, they’re pretty harmless. As art seems to have exhausted much of its potential, why not turn our art-critically honed tools to more corrosive phenomena – the kind that suit no one’s purpose, like that all-pervasive, horizontal network of open-source speech-acts of confident uncertainty known as rumour? If only because rumour can wreak more havoc in the public sphere in half an hour than art can in a century, is it not worth at least considering as a possible role model for an unauthored, viewer-free art that escapes itself?

n.e.w.s (http://northeastwestsouth.net) was launched at ISEA 2008 in Singapore. n.e.w.s. is a collective online platform for the analysis and development of art-related activity, drawing upon contributions from around the globe, bringing together different voices, accents and outlooks from the North, East, West and South. n.e.w.s. reflects geographic diversity and facilitates a framework for collaboration, content and visions of change from outside the normal parameters of established art world networks.