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: The Hotmails Performance


Quoting Pall Thayer <p_thay@alcor.concordia.ca>:

> But then again, maybe the idea is to rile people up in true punk fashion.

I don't understand people calling themselves "punk" now. Imagine if The Sex
Pistols had called themselves "skiffle".

Goth is another matter entirely. You cannot kill what does not live...

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: RHIZOME_RARE: A few words concerningopen-source and art


Quoting Jim Andrews <jim@vispo.com>:

> When there is both some point in making the code public (there isn't always)

You can never tell whether there is a point or not, so you should not risk
making the wrong decision. The only way to do this is to always release.

> and the artist-programmer does not thereby forfeit potential earnings,

This reverses the usual argument that the code doesn't need releasing because
the art is the important thing.

If artists should protect code they should trademark their imagery and patent
their methods. Art piracy is a threat to compensation for creative individuals
in the affective economy.

Possibly painters should burn their preparatory sketches.

> then
> they should consider making the code public.
>
> But consider the code discussed at
> http://turbulence.org/curators/Paris/durieuenglish.htm . The code was not
> made public, but the code idea *was*. And it was made public in a much more
> interesting way than by making the code itself public.

It helps that the work is trivial to describe and that the artist is a good
conversationalist.

> Whoever wishes to use
> it may, obviously, but they first have to understand it. They don't need the
> code itself if they understand the idea. And the code itself is not enough
> to understand the idea.

If the code isn't enough, how is an interview that has no involvement in the
creation of the work itself enough?

> The notion that "we need a Free Software-style moral imperative to show
> code" gives me the willies.

Right, I'm getting the placards printed. ;-)

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: RHIZOME_RARE: A few words concerning open-source and art


Quoting Robert Spahr <rob@robertspahr.com>:

> In my own recent work, the process is more akin to printmaking.

I regard the computer as a printmaking medium, but then I tend to use
PostScript
and its descendants.

> [...] if more artist shared their code, it would contribute to our
> overall understanding of each others processes. Most of the time we
> are looking at the final medium, and not the materials of the art
> making process.

We need a Free Software-style moral imperative to show code. Any claim to
critical , resistant or even artistic (as such) practice for programmed art is
undermined if the artist does the proprietary culture thing of hiding their
code.

IKB was fun, but if every artist patented their colours we wouldn't get very
far.

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Art From Your DNA


http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/09/art_from_your_dna.html?
CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

Blah blah blah Virilio's Art & Fear blah blah blah.

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: post-romantic modernism


On 21 Sep 2005, at 00:00, miklos@sympatico.ca wrote:

>> This requires belief in Spirit, which is Romantic.
>
> Neither belief nor romantic,
>
> psychologically, spirit is one end of a spectrum
> whose counterpoint is matter.

Allegedly.

> "requires belief". it's hard to doubt the existence of spirit;

It is very easy to doubt the existence of a particular philosophical
idea.

> for example, philosophy is a matter of the spirit.

Only for Hegelians in their particular historical context. This is
like saying science is a matter of phlogiston.

> Nazism was a philosophy which killed millions.

It was a (degenerate) Romantic political philosophy. There are
positions outside Romanticism, fortunately.

- Rob.