Hans Ulrich Obrist – the god of plant art

Klaus Biesenbach
The art world is waiting to see how the longtime P.S.1 curator will fare in a more administrative role when he takes the reins at the museum in January.

Daniel Birnbaum
The scholar, international curator and head of the Städelschule, in Frankfurt, received mixed reviews (some found it dry) for his sprawling Venice Biennale this summer.

Francesco Bonami
His massive survey “Italics: Italian Art Between Tradition and Revolution, 1968-2008,” shown in Venice and Chicago, provoked criticism, but he has scored one of the biggest gigs on the curatorial circuit: the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst
The London-based curator at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture is helping its director, the Russian heiress-collector Dasha Zhukova, spend her rubles wisely.

Melissa Chiu
The director of the Asia Society Museum is catapulting the New York institution to the forefront of the field of contemporary Chinese art.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
The chief curator of the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, in Turin, is gearing up for her role as the artistic director of Documenta 13, hitting Kassel, Germany, in 2012.

Alison Gingeras
The Pinault collection curator co-organized the inaugural exhibition at Punta della Dogana, in Venice, this summer and also had a hand in one of the buzziest shows in London this year, “Pop Life,” at the Tate Modern.

Hans Ulrich Obrist
The Serpentine Gallery co-director was at just about every major biennial this year — from Sharjah to Venice.

John Richardson
The biographer and art historian partnered with dealer Larry Gagosian this year to curate a New York show of late Picassos that had gallerygoers lining up for a look.

Ali Subotnick
This former collaborator (with Maurizio Cattelan and Massimiliano Gioni) on the legendary Wrong Gallery continues to breathe fresh life into the UCLA Hammer Museum with shows like this year’s “Nine Lives: Visionary Artists from L.A.”

1.    Every good work by a curator starts by scratching a personal itch.

2.    Good curators know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse).

3.    Plan to throw a project away; you will, anyhow.

4.    If you have the right attitude, interesting projects will find you.

5.    When you lose interest in a project, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor.

6.    Treating your audience as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid project improvement and effective accessibility.

7.    Release early. Release often. And listen to your audience.

8.    Given a large enough collaboration base, almost every project will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone.

9.    Smart information structures and bad interpretation works a lot better than the other way around.

10.    If you treat your audience as if they’re your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.

11.    The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your audience.

12.    Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was wrong.

13.    Perfection (in curating) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.

14.    Any exhibition should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great exhibition lends itself to audiences you never expected.

15.    When curating an exhibition of any kind, take pains to disturb the theme as little as possible—and never throw away information unless the audience forces you to!

16.    When your language is well formed yet arbitrary, syntactic sugar can be your friend.

17.    Beware of pseudo-secrets. If you carry any secrets let them go.

18.    To solve an interesting problem, start by finding a problem that is interesting to you.

19.    Provided your communications medium is flawless, and you lead without coercion, many heads are inevitably better than one.

More than ten years later, it is fair to say that a clear-cut division of “bazaar”- and “cathedral”- style development methods no longer exists in Free Software development. The development of the Linux kernel has become more hierarchical, with several layers of developer hierarchies that a patch needs to go through in order to be accepted into the main line kernel, while on the other hand the development culture of GNU and BSD software has adapted itself better towards the Internet than in the 1990s. (The now-standard use of networked version control systems like ‘Subversion’  and ‘Git’  is a clear empirical indicator.)
It seems that no one would dispute that an open system is much more attractive than a closed one, there is appreciation for the contributions of others to the collective. Its ideology however is much harder to appropriate. The differences are great, may be too great. Its not too say that software is excluded from being artistic but works of art seem to have a greater sentimental preciousness, artists become emotionally with their creations.

There is also an air of caution within the art world with regards to releasing ideas for others to copy – thieves and parasites syndrome or is it ‘I need to eat’ syndrome? Open Letter to Hobbyists written by Bill Gates in the mid 70’s continues to this day to perpetuate this.

February 3, 1976

An Open Letter to Hobbyists

To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?

Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.

The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these “users” never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.

Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

Is this fair? One thing you don’t do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn’t make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.

What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren’t they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.

I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.

Bill Gates

General Partner, Micro-Soft

Although Open Source continues to inspire the art world it is still a confusing and vague concept. To reach enlightenment involves unpacking the many practises that are associated with it. I still believe it is possible, but unlike Olav I fear the ethical questions that are being obscured. A problem popularised by the artist, writer and hacker Rob Myers is that as a movement Open Source intends to obscure the principles.

Open Source as a methodology is described as commons based peer production. Work is made collaboratively and shared publicly by a community of equals. Eric Raymond’s virtue is its efficiency as it can create better products – take the Internet.

Its application to other projects seems to be more difficult there first thought. The idea of Open Source as being a more efficient means of production has no bearing on what Open Source politics or art should be like.

The Tate’s Open Congress event highlighted this. Olav’s project The Blooming Commons failed to engage in the way an open source software project would. Artists tried very hard to find an Open Source ideology to apply to their art, activists thrashed about in an effort to find an Open Source ideology that applied to their organisations, and theorists grinned and quoted French philosophy to cover the flaws.

“The confusion is not a problem with the idea of Open Source. Rather it is the intended result of it.”

“The name Open Source was deliberately chosen for its meaninglessness and ideological vacuity. This was intended to make the results of a very strong ideology more palatable to large corporations by disguising its origins. That ideology is Free Software.”

In the 1980’s, against the backdrop of restrictions on the use and production of software, Free Software emerged. Its principles were designed to protect the freedom of computer software users.

“Yes Free Software is understood historically and ethically as the defence of freedom against a genuine threat.”

…I realized we have a serious problem with “free software” itself.

Specifically, we have a problem with the term “free software”, itself, not the concept. I’ve become convinced that the term has to go.

The problem with it is twofold. First, it’s confusing; the term “free” is very ambiguous (something the Free Software Foundation’s propaganda has to wrestle with constantly). Does “free” mean “no money charged?” or does it mean “free to be modified by anyone”, or something else?

Second, the term makes a lot of corporate types nervous. While this does not intrinsically bother me in the least, we now have a pragmatic interest in converting these people rather than thumbing our noses at them. There’s now a chance we can make serious gains in the mainstream business world without compromising our ideals and commitment to technical excellence — so it’s time to reposition. We need a new and better label….

This is the original call to the software community to start using the term ‘open source‘ that Eric S. Raymond issued on 8 February 1998.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html

“If software users freedoms are protected the methodology of Open Source becomes possible and its advantages become apparent. But without the guiding principles of Free Software the necessity and direction of Open Source cannot be accounted for. Free Software requires freedom, which is a practical goal to pursue.”

With its historical development, set of principles, and set of possibilities Free Software projects converge on the methodology that is described as Open Source because of this. Free Software projects do not work via peer-to-peer; its gatekeepers vet contributions. If it’s a good contribution it is added if its not its rejected. Its methodology is a structured and exclusive, but it is meritocratic.

mer·i·toc·ra·cy  (mr-tkr-s)
n. pl. mer·i·toc·ra·cies
1. A system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement.
2.
a. A group of leaders or officeholders selected on the basis of individual ability or achievement.
b. Leadership by such a group

So to describe this methodology as commons based peer production causes confusion. Competent contributors can eventually themselves become gatekeepers.

To this end it is freedom rather than the condition of Open Source that art should aspire to. Maybe it always has and always will? Before copyright extended to art it was implicitly free. This is why Michelangelo was able to copy Christian and Pagan imagery to paint a ceiling. The representational freedom of artists, includes the freedom to depict, build or comment on existing culture and to continue the conversation, this is the freedom of art.

Artists are not the volunteers they are the ones that lead by example. The freedom of art may be ideas of commons based peer production. However we must not confuse the results of an ideology with its principles.

Lessons for the art world according to Rob Myers

•    Artists should campaign to oppose the extension of copyright and trademark law and the reduction of fair use.

•    Artists should use copyleft licensing to ensure the free circulation of ideas.

•    Artists who are interested to do so can investigate the use of collaborative project management.

•    Artists who are interested to do so should produce work to show the value of fair use and the public domain.

•    Artists who are interested to do so should challenge copyright maximalists and censors by using mass media imagery and transgressive imagery.

•    Artists should use Free Software and free (or open) file formats for accessibility, and help drive improvement of them.

#  Eric S. Raymond Says:
August 27th, 2007 at 9:54 pm

Your analysis of the intentions of “open source” is not quite correct. It is true that the term “open source” was chosen to avoid threatening corporations and mainstream users with scary ideological baggage; however, it is not true that the term is ideologically vacuous, and I never expected that it would be.

Dmytri Kleiner would have us believe that the ideological content is “corporate co-option”, but this is laughably backwards. The “open source” label is not a tool that allows corporations to co-opt us, it is a tool that allows us to co-opt them. Here’s where that rubber meets the road: thousands of developers are now paid to do open-source programming, and even Microsoft (Microsoft!) is now coming to the community asking to participate and requesting license certifications.

The term “open source” has ideological content, all right — it’s all about rational-choice theory and consequentialism, and about what you learn a posteriori from doing the process of open source (as opposed to what you believe a priori theorizing or deontic moralizing about it). The lessons are: if you’re seeking efficiency and production, decentralism wins over centralism, liberty wins over coercion, and peer networks win over hierarchies.

Certainly ideologies, like the “free software” one, can coexist with the implicit ideology of “open source”. But vacuous it isn’t.

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/rob-myers-critique-of-open-source/2007/08/25

“Trying to create an open space for anyone to use becomes a space determined by a battle of wills. So who is right?”

How ever we choose to proceed it comes with a cautionary tale – we all want to be super stars and we are willing to sell out if necessary – but if we don’t make, watch out, the masses will rebel and stop at nothing to overthrow the current power.

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“ During the Open Congress I invited the participants to ‘open source’ the work The Blooming Commons – I had simulated a flower stall using brightly coloured cleaning products: scourers, feather dusters, clothes and plungers. My offering was an attempt to put the theory in to practice, practical engagement research. In order to encourage enactment with open source the Tate called it a Congress rather than a ‘conference’ however it tended towards the reflection on art and open source rather than its conjunction.”

“This must have been intensified due to the fact that is was being staged at the Tate.”
“Open-Sourcers where briefed on the terms of their engagement with the work, issued with a Creative Commons Licence. I spoke about the application of open source to art and that I was presenting an exceptional case that presented art’s differences – an experience of a ‘first order object’, rather than a ‘copy’ or a second order as with many other forms of culture.”

“Did it for fill any of your enquires?”

“Not as hoped – the work done to The Blooming Commons was material, physical reconfigurations had appeared around the Tate but no one worked with the idea of making copies of the original. I was unable to find out how the ‘open-sourcers’ understood their action in relation to other cultural forms. It did however mark a crucial point of difference in an open source approach to art, a crucial difference from other forms in culture. It highlighted that at this point ‘art’ just didn’t get it.”

In the long process of researching and producing Open Congress it is, with hindsight, clear that a somewhat abbreviated version of ‘The Open Source Definition’ tended to describe our approach to the area…. Inevitably maybe, this was one which concentrated on the word ‘free’ (respecting the nuances of meaning), and the way in which an open source approach to culture would enable ‘modifications and derived works’ for any artefact or text so nominated. (See clause 3 in ‘The Open Source Definition’). That an interest in the processes of open source focused on this clause had to do, I think, with two related circumstances. The first concerns the role of ‘appropriation’ in aspects of Western culture. Hyperbolically describing every act of cultural borrowing as ‘plagiarism’ – in an inverted effort to make all re-usages of culture legal, or free from moral defect – Critical Art Ensemble reminds us that “Readymades, collage, found art or found text, intertexts, combines, detournment, and appropriation” have an ancestry of sorts in “the English plagiarists” who include in their illustrious number no less than Shakespeare. They signal that swathes of Western culture are re-cycled (along with parts of other cultures, too, I might add). And as they propose, too, for reasons of technological invention, we now, more than ever, live in ‘the age of the recombinant’ – while many of the practices thus implicated are illegal- Mary Anne Francis

“It is certainly true that art, inasmuch we speak of the contemporary (visual) art system, is still feudalist in its structure. Within ‘modern’ art it is the only form whose economy is firmly based on the notion of one material fetish object, with reproduction (unlike books, music, films, software) being merely second-rate, plebeian illustration of the “original”. Its sponsors are the modern successors to the old feudal authorities; back then, the church the courts, nowadays rich people are the new aristocrats and, through its grants and subsidies, the state as the authority has replaced the church.”

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Much attention has focused on architecture of a space and how this affects our experience of art, but I need to examine the invisible architecture, the conceptual system, the theories and practices of curatorial work regardless of space, minus the brand, something transferable.
On the 12 to 14 of November 2008 The Banff Centre in Canada hosted the conference ‘Trade Secrets: Swapping Curatorial Confidences’. This three-day conference approached the aforementioned questions. Twenty-two notable presenters headed up the discussion of ‘identity complexes’ but even this wide breadth of curators and cultural facilitators could not agree on the primary role of the curator. There was little agreement therefore on how to evaluate or educate the growing number of budding contemporary curators.

Cuauhtémoc Medina, a Mexican curator who has completed a stint at the Tate, likened a curator to Frankenstein’s monster, a little of this a little of that. Medina teaches on various curatorial programmes, however he expressed concern about the “pandemic” of taught curatorial programmes. Taught in and around an ordered structure when, for him, curating is an improvised performance. I agree that it maybe difficult to teach curating, and this is not a new debate as we are still plagued with the notion that art cannot be taught. Subjectivity has no structure, no system, no rules.

Administrator     a person who manages or has a talent for managing
Advocate     person supporting an idea or cause publicly
Agent     to represent (a person or thing) as an agent
Artist    a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria
Author    the composer of a literary work
Avant-garde    A group active in the invention and application of new techniques in a given field, especially in the arts
Broker     One that acts as an agent for others, as in negotiating contracts, purchases, or sales in return for a fee or commission.
Collaborator     an associate in an activity or endeavour or sphere of common interest
Collector      A person who makes a collection
Commissioner     A person authorized by a commission to perform certain duties
Composer    a person or thing that composes
Creator     somebody who brings something into existence
Curator     the custodian of a collection
Dealer    One who deals; one who has to do, or has concern, with others
Developer    a person or thing that develops
Diplomat    a person who is tactful and skilful in managing delicate situations, handling people
Editor     a person who edits material for publication, films, etc
Initiator     to introduce into the knowledge of some art or subject
Innovator     to introduce something new; make changes in anything established
Interpreter     One who explains or expounds
Interviewer     one who obtains an interview with another for the purpose of eliciting his opinions or obtaining information
Investigator     One who searches diligently into a subject
Maker     a person who makes things
Manufacturer     A person, an enterprise, or an entity that manufactures something
Masterplanner     One that constructs a master plan
Mediator    a negotiator who acts as a link between parties
Negotiator    One who confers with another or others in order to come to terms or reach an agreement
Observer    a person who becomes aware (of things or events) through the senses
Originator     someone who creates new things
Organiser     a person who brings order and organization to an enterprise
Practitioner    One who is engaged in the actual use or exercise of any art or profession
Presenter     someone who presents a message of some sort
Producer     One who produces, brings forth, or generates
Programmer    a person who prepares program schedules
Promoter     One who, or that which, forwards, advances, or promotes; an encourager
Researcher     One who conducts diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover or revise fact
Sponsor     a person who vouches or is responsible for a person or thing
Traveller    a person who changes location
Validator     One who gives official sanction, confirmation, or approval
Writer    a person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc.

It seems that multifunctionality is needed. I wonder if I will ever see the day when I only curate (what ever that may turn out to be). Rather will I ever see that day when I don’t have to balance the books, apply (or beg) and/or compete for money, consider the knowledge transfer values, paint a wall even. However Richard Flood, Chief Curator at New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, considers a need for this “old-fashioned modesty” (quoted from Trade Secrets: Swapping Curatorial Confidences. November 2008 The Banff Centre, Canada).

It also has to be noted that in all this the audience has to be considered. It is a worry that many curatorial projects has an audience of colleagues only, in the process of attaining the curating practice quite often the curator loses sight of his or her most important clients – the public or the artist.

I recently found an old notebook and found that I had written the following statement ‘a curator is cultural agitator’. Upon reflection I think this is a profound statement. Minus any reference I have no idea if this was a moment of genius on my behalf, this I like to believe, however I imagine it was some superstar curator who had a fleeting influence on me. Its author is not important but its message is. The curator should be the person who attempts to arouse feeling or interest for or against something. They act as a part in a greater machine, but their part causes a vigorous movement, becoming the campaigner, activist, protester. As a curator I strive to make waves inside and outside the machine.

However, here lies the conflict. Am I the middleman or the author?

‘We use the term “middleman” as an overall denominator for productive subjectivity, including the nominal roles of artist, critic, curator.’

Soren Andreasen and Lars Bang Larsen. Remarks on Mediation and Production. Curating Now: What are the most pressing questions for contemporary curators today? 2002

Or is the middleman the author? The American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic Harold Rosenberg stated in 1970: “- only the middleman has the power to fulfil the dream union between the creative individual and society.” This still holds true some thirty years later in today’s flourishing middleman culture – those whose profession is to mediate or to prevent the occurrence of problems. It is more than a job description; today it is a condition of authorship and being privileged agents of subjectivity.

With this privilege comes power. So is this an evaluation of power? The middleman signals that value is estimated through this exchange, no longer is the productive identity solely assigned to the maker (artist) as today productivity is a patchwork of mediated materials including the entire set of agents who have ties. In this evaluation of power it is necessary to dissect the complex delicate structure of meaning that entangles the mediators subjectivity. Being empowered is not a problem; the problem is its misuse.

Culture happens without aspiring to the status of Art.
It is incidental.

Art is a subset of the broad concept of culture. It is deliberate, it is culturally specific therefore it is not exclusive and is subject to change. However pockets of culturally inscribed ‘groups’ foster art as its property, carving out the degrees of ownership. Middlemen quietly follow and become subservient to trends. They don’t fit into the traditional notion of maker being only involved in the process part of the time. This time, all be it a small part, significantly affects the course, the outcome. This is the power of the curator; they can choose how to operate. They can change everything. It becomes dangerous when this involvement increases the value of the circulated goods. Placed comfortably between the producer and consumer the middleman becomes immune, having power without really being in charge this makes it difficult to question the middleman’s authority, making it impossible to question the author.

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Januszczak, Waldermar, The Tate: pompous, arrogant and past it? Times Online, February 8, 2009

This was Waldermar Januszczak’s response to the fourth Triennial show of British modern art held at the Tate early 2009. Waldermar isn’t your usual “it’s a waste of tax payers money” type of guy; his wife is an artist (he describes her as a modern artist). It is his life, career and sustenance. So what’s gone wrong?
Waldermar is on a huge Brit Art come down; he has a massive Hirst hang over. Maybe the British art scene is in for another revolution, another significant modern movement. In the early 80’s we had Lissen Gallery sculptors, with Richard Deacon, Anish Kapoor, Bill Woodrow and the like. The next decade saw the arrival of Brit Art and the world became intoxicated by the candid behaviour of Tracey Emin, the media magician Damian Hirst and the controversy of Marcus Harvey.

The Tate has taken over – Waldermar parallels the events of the Paris salons in the 1860’s. Their immense power was stifling the art world and it took the impressionist revolt to allow art breath again. The Cathedral took over. Clive Gilman, Director of Dundee Contemporary Arts, calls it the priesthood – a concern I agree with and touched on in my blog Culture V’s Art, March 26, 2009. The Cathedral totally over comes the masses, which in turn makes it conformist, dry and andronomous. Pockets of culturally inscribed spaces, such as the Tate, foster art as its property, carving out the degrees of ownership. The language of contemporary art practice dominates ‘ART’ language and via the power of the spiralling peer consensus this language becomes a belief system, a doctrine, a formula. Its adversary practitioners become its participants and audience and it is this audience that profess and adhered to its code and so it grows. Its own audience confirms its status in which there are multiple coexisting notions of quality.

Once this space or institution (Cathedral or priesthood) hits our cultural radar it already has an established language and in order to be part of this priesthood you have to learn the language, therefore if you don’t learn it you can’t connect to it making it exclusive and mysterious. The high priest of it all absorbs its discourse and then begins to trade in it. It becomes powerful, pompous, arrogant and convinced of its superiority. But after time the bazaar, the external art practitioners stop banging at its doors, they put down the holey scripture and begin to question it and threaten to undermine it. The bazaar gets close to the centre of control but ironically once at the centre no one owns up to it, the system absorbs the disruption making it appear that no one is in control and conveniences you that you aren’t being controlled.

This is when your impressionist revolts happen; this is when British artists give the two fingers and kick down the doors. Artists go beyond making art that is questioning the notion of art. But there are two questions that arise from this. Is this really the fault of the curator? And once the revolution is over aren’t its followers just condemned to repeat? I do question the cathedral and understand why the bazaar feels the need to leave the priest hood but all to often there is a compelling need to get back in.

Surely Brit Art has built its own cathedral in its now diminishing bazaar?
I too am a product of the Brit Art bandwagon and I remember seeing the Sensation exhibition in September 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Hirst gave my goose bumps, I wanted a piece of it, everyone wanted a piece of it. It had created a gaggle of super stars that had developed its own language and in order to converse you needed this language …. Starting the cycle all over again.

Waldermar alludes to the Tate being one of these language bound cathedrals and accuses its curators of being contemporary pests who pamper its favourites with phoney intellectualisms. In the same way as Jerry Saltz, an art critic for the New York magazine says in his essay ‘Entropy in Venice’ on artnet.com. Slatz refers to it as “the curator problem” and calling this years Venice Biennale curator Daniel Birnbaum’s exhibition as “…just another aesthetically familiar feedback cycle…” going on to say “It is time we broke out of the enervated loop.” Having not seen this years (2009) Venice Biennale I can not comment on its content but I still hanker to see its stars, I wish that one day I too will get the golden ticket and rub shoulders with the rich and the mighty. It was 2005 when I had my first chance to see these Venetian display and although it was during the its last months I felt that I had made one step up the curatorial ladder and it, to this day had a profound affect on me.

The Castello district is a disconcertingly busy psychiatric asylum whose inmates always appear ready for their final costume ball.

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“What do you mean?”

“People believe that Raymond, somewhere along the line, pitched an open source ‘bazaar’ model against a proprietary Microsoft-ish ‘cathedral’ model of software development. But in fact, it is about the decentralized development of Linux, the operating system kernel supervised by Linus Torvalds [and not what is commonly referred to as the whole Linux operating system], versus the classical small, closed committee style of development that had been characteristic for GNU software , the free BSDs  and the X Window System .”

“Yes, the term ‘Open Source’ didn’t even exist when it was first published”.

“ It was considerably later when he pitched ‘Open Source’ as a more business-friendly term, against the older, more activist term ‘free software’”.

Linus Torvalds Linux kernel – The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel, it is a clone of a Unix  operating system. A guy called Linus Torvalds with assistance from hackers dispersed across the Net wrote this kernel from scratch. The story goes that Torvalds used the operating system MINIX  but he required something more specific for his needs, something that he could run on his home computer.

In August of 1991, he emailed the USENET newsgroup about his new creation:

Message-ID: 1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.helsinki.fi
From: torvalds@klaava.helsinki.fi (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
To: Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system

Hello everybody out there using minix-I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386 (486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat

Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them

Linus

Explain:

Freeware – software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee. Freeware is generally proprietary software available at zero price, and is not free software. The author usually restricts one or more rights to copy, distribute, and make derivative works of the software.

Free software – software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and that manufacturers of consumer-facing hardware allow user modifications to their hardware.

Open source – is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to software’s source code.

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THE CENTRAL COMPONENT OF A COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM IS KNOWN AS A KERNEL. IT MANAGES  THE SYSTEM’S RESOURCES ALLOWING COMMUNICATION BETWEEN HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE COMPONENTS. IT IS A BASIC COMPONENT THAT PROVIDES THE LOWEST-LEVEL ABSTRACTION LAYER FOR RESOURCES SUCH AS MEMORY AND PROCESSORS THAT APPLICATION SOFTWARE MUST CONTROL IN ORDER TO PERFORM ITS FUNCTION.

“The bazaar is a marketplace of Darwinian competition.”
Anonymous source via email

The Norwegian writer and curator Olav Henriksen told me that appropriation is inevitable but none the less worthy. All things are appropriable. He liked my attack vector but he could see several areas I needed to negotiate, which (he saw) where problematic and which could defeat my best intentions.

*It should be noted that the primary distinction has to be made between ‘Free’ which is a social movement and a matter of freedom, and ‘Open’, which is a developmental methodology.

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Introduction by a third party 2008-11-24 at 17:25 +0000 (edited)

Dear Donna & Olav

I thought that it maybe a productive gesture if I were to introduce you both. I’m sorry that this has to be done by email but Olav was only here (Berlin) for a short time in October and we could not fit all the visits in! However if you ever come back Olav, maybe we can all hook up for a coffee?

Donna is the curator for interdisciplinary gallery/project space that leans towards media arts. It is based in an old technical college and therefore still retains it roots in technological development. Donna’s research looks at open source methods and the visual arts, and how a curator and facilitator of projects can implement an open source methodology into this practice. She is currently working on implementing an artist researcher-based projects/culture within the University, which at the moment is a lovely big white canvas. None of the shackles of traditional research methods that other ‘Old’ universities are steeped in … really interesting and positive stuff for long-term prospects and new models of artistic research.

I am just going to paste Olav’s biog from the Berlin event below, but what this does not mention is that one of his research interests is open source culture and that he has done 25 in-depth interviews with artist/programmers on the topic. He was also involved in a project called State of Hijack, which also touched on these concerns.

With Best Wishes
Lindsay

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“Its interesting that he has total belief in Eric S. Raymond’s musings and he is an Open Cultural Diffusionist. I need to read The Cathedral and the Bazaar .”

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The Norwegian writer, curator and open cultural diffusionist Olav Henriksen is well known for his international exhibitions exploring the notions of open cultural diffusion. After studying anthropology and political systems programming he worked as a political analysis for some time. Some of his professional endeavours caused him to question his world at which point he turned to contemporary art for answers. He has since gained wide acclaim for his extraordinary exhibitions, which often take place in spaces not previously used as exhibition venues, and theory on open cultural diffusion, the open spread of cultural material and the deliberate placing of historical markers. Olav was the curator-in-residence at Laboral Centre of Arts and Creative Industries, Gijon, in Spain, Conference editor and moderator of the Arts Electronica.

His second Ph.D. completed in Helsinki explores “open cultural diffusion”, often described as his unsystematic thoughts on Alfred L. Kroeber’s concept of Stimulus Diffusion and Eric S. Raymond’s seminal text on open source The Cathedral & the Bazaar. Olav describes open cultural diffusion as the open spread of cultural material. Encouraging increased levels of material spreading and bringing it to a historical level, its main dissemination is by means of the Internet in order to leave a traceable historical line. The American Anthropologist, Alfred L. Kroeber in 1940, first conceptualized this notion; Olav parallels this with the notion of the cathedral and the bazaar.

The cathedral being the one and the bazaar being the masses.

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Wed 11/26/2008 8:13 AM (edited)
Dear Lindsay

Thanks for this introduction.

Dear Donna

Nice to meet you, if only virtually. Just to add to the information that
Lindsay Moeid, this is the link to http://www.thenextlayer.org/which is currently my main online presence.

What we did with ‘State of Hijack’ – main entrance (http://kop.kein.org/) besides being a sort of nomadic curatorial project, was this DIVE publication to which Moeid provided the link, here again (http://kop.kein.org/DIVE/index.html)

This came out as a small booklet and cd-rom in 2003 as part of our project for the opening of FACT, Liverpool. The cd rom as a whole serves as a Linux live cd, which means you can insert it into any standard computer, reboot it and you will run Linux, not just any Linux but dynebolic, a special version made by a very interesting person called Jaromil (http://www.thenextlayer.org/node/421) which is especially targeted at creative people giving them many tools for audio-visual content.

Even if the cd rom is not booted but ordinarily read from the drive with the OS of your choice it offers you many tools, texts, explanations, art works. The motivation to make this was to have a sort of introduction to the FOSS paradigm for individuals and small art institutions to get them out of microsoft-mac dualism and illustrate that there are now many working tools.

I thought this might provide an interesting starting point for our discussions.

I am also doing other more curatorial works such as the Waves exhibitions and research stuff, currently advancing my open cultural diffusion ideas.

What are your plans, interests?

All the best
Olav

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There already seems to be a tradition of applying open source and free software principles to art, maybe not as a framework but as a tool; curating however seems problematic as a term, not only in this context. Self-organisation. The tradition is older than the terms. Mail Art for example developed at Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondence School in the 1960’s. The Mail art network had its own coded system – decentralized, international, open participation. They produced non-juries exhibitions and festivals of earlier avant-garde movements forming a historical pretext to consider.

Against the confusion and urban myths the fact is it’s about decentralisation. But the problem lies when a decentralised system becomes hierarchical; when the inevitable networked control system becomes the clear empirical indicator. It’s clear that open distributed development processes are technically far superior to closed processes but they come with risks.

Olav has a natural tendency to work with the Bazaar, as he has found its value immeasurable on countless occasions in a wide variety of different communities. Not only has it allowed him to leverage expertise from outside his organisation but also having free access to blueprints has allowed him to quickly diagnose and address problems faster than would be possible with most proprietary support relationships.

However he tells me to be pragmatic in my views, understand that the cathedral will always be with us. Consider the uncertain value chain!

Beware – the ‘Bazaar’ analogy can serve to describe these projects, there are ‘technically’ open, but for all intents and purposes managed like a Cathedral, with any external contributions refused. Such projects might comply with the definition, but not in the spirit of the Bazaar.

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Operating systems:
MINIX
LINUX – OS based on the linux kernal
Plan 9
GNU
Unix
OS x
Microsoft
Novell
OpenSolaris – open source OS
Ubuntu

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I question Olav, “If you subscribe to one of these models how much of it applies to the whole of your life?”

“I wish the ideas were more broadly applied, and think today’s “permission culture” is untenable and destructive to society as a whole. I also resent the idea that human culture and expression can be controlled. Of course government should generally be more transparent, life should be more transparent, but beyond, it has little effect, we have to change this.”

I understand free and open source within the computer world context but beyond, so I ask “Besides in a software engineering world, can the Cathedral and the Bazaar be seen any where else? Or could it be applied to something else?”

“It depends what you mean by ‘Cathedral’ and ‘Bazaar’, but if we assume you are asking: “Could we see grass-roots democratic models of social production, based on a commons of freely shared knowledge challenge established Bureaucratic organisations who have spent many years profiting from their position?”

“Then I think it’s easiest when the following conditions prevail:”

Olav opens his notebook

a) The Cathedral is exploiting some artificial scarcity.

The goods should be artificially scarce rather than actually scarce.
The original “Mona Lisa” is truly scarce, however reproductions need not be. In cases where copyright is enforced to ensure that reproductions of works is restricted, artificial scarcity is introduced. In a proprietary world the source code or blueprints are kept secret (artificially scarce) and copyright law is used to ensure it is not freely copied. Usually this tends to limit FLOSS ideals to information and intangible goods….designs are freely given, not the physical hardware.

b) Networked social production is possible

Though not strictly necessary networked social production tends to be a characteristic of the Bazaar, and delivers speed in innovation and lowers barriers to entry. Here you can leverage many minds without costly bureaucratic procedures. Perhaps the clearest example of its direct application elsewhere is Wikipedia’s Bazaar vs. Britannica’s cathedral.

“You once stated that you believed that we need to get art out of its Cathedral – I am assuming taking into the bazaar – could this metaphor work?”

“Yes I believe it could. It’s a snappy way to sum up the contemporary arts sector, the difficulty I am finding is making this metaphor work without requiring an already informed audience.”

“Openness and transparency are high ideals to live by. Its a solid, fast, secure method for developing systems, the mechanism of opening everything for scrutiny stops much nastiness from festering in the shadows. I personally think that well formed code is a beautiful thing and moulding code from an ill formed shell script though to function based then through to object orientation, is a high art full of symmetry and structure. But beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder.”

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part of a System.map file:
c041bc90 b packet_sklist
c041bc94 b packet_sklist_lock
c041 bc94 b packet_socks_nr
c041bc98 A __bss_stop
c041bc98 A _end
c041c000 A pg0
ffffe400 A __kernel_vsyscall
ffffe410 A SYSENTER_RETURN
ffffe420 A __kernel_sigreturn
ffffe440 A __kernel_rt_sigreturn