Rob Myers
Since 2003
Works in United States of America

ARTBASE (3)
PORTFOLIO (2)
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.
Discussions (509) Opportunities (1) Events (0) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: Burning Down The House


On Wednesday, May 26, 2004, at 10:07AM, Michael Szpakowski <szpako@yahoo.com> wrote:

>The best thing about it was on last night's ten
>o'clock news when the arts correspondent ( & I *know*
>we should be grateful we *have* an arts correspondent
>on the main nightly news) said something like "when
>the history of art in our time comes to be written
>this will be seen as a grievous and significant blow".

That's just silly of them. No Rolf Harris paintings were lost, our legacy is safe. :-)

If I were the insurance investigator I'd be looking veeeeery carefully at the market value of the remaining work compared to the glut that's been mercifully lost.

Some good work will have been lost, but clearing out the Chapmans and Emin is the best thing that's happened to British art for a long time. Sigh, I suppose I can't say that about art, as someone else could say that about art I like if it was destroyed.

>I might be wrong but she also seemed to be under the
>impression that Edward Hopper was perhaps a drinking
>companion of "bad boy of British art" (sic) Damien
>Hirst and "bad girl of British art , Tracey Emin"
>michael

He isn't? What about the greatest living artist, Picasso, doesn't he drink with them either? :-)

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Creative Commons 2.0 Licenses Are Out


They're good. See :

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/archive/2004/05/#4216

Any disagreements I have with some of the design choices (attribution, representation) are minor compared to the amazing work CC have done on enabling "Free Culture"-type cross-media creativity and mash-ups.

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Burning Down The House


Chapmans' "Hell" goes up in flames, Emin's tent sees some hot action,etc.:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3748179.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/40197000/rm/_40197241_saatchi07_barnes_vi.ram

I'm desperately trying to avoid schadenfreude, but I'm not doing very well. :-)

Maybe Ruscha can do a painting of this to go with "Los Angeles County Museum on Fire"?

It's definitely art...

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: new work: gloriousninth flaming


On 26 May 2004, at 00:42, Michael Szpakowski wrote:

> What the fuck does wit(h)nessing mean?

Have you tried f***ing thinking about it?

> This sort of obscurantism is really a blight on what
> seems like an interesting set of notions trying to
> escape!

It seems like it is (regarded as) a necessary use of language to
express an interesting set of notions.

> I refuse to believe that what is of worth in there
> cannot be expressed more directly - it does seem to
> have a bearing on the intentions and the mechanics of
> your work & especially the latest, pity its not
> expressed more clearly.

I don't think you mean "directly", that would be hard to get in an
email, perhaps a scream would be better. I think you mean "clearly and
simply". Which is fine for a VCR manual but often useless for art.
Paraphrasing meaning can lose meaning. I dislike language games for the
sake of it, but this seems to be for the sake of meaning. Give it the
benefit of the doubt and see what emerges.

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: Rhizome needs to drop its membership fee andfree its content


On 19 May 2004, at 18:41, Lee Wells wrote:

> I will never admit that I am a hacker.
> But I will pick up the book.

Looks well worth it. Waiting for Amazon.uk to get my copy past the
tachyon projectors.

Sample chapter, "hackers and painters":
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/hackpaint/chapter/ch02.pdf

Book site: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/hackpaint/index.html

More old essays on his site at http://www.paulgraham.com/

Now if he can just get on with Arc...

- Rob, nothing to do with PG or ORA..