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.
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.
Re: you are not safe
On 29 Dec 2004, at 03:56, Eric Dymond wrote:
> lie to everyone
I promise.
- Rob.
--
Friends don't make friends do DRM.
> lie to everyone
I promise.
- Rob.
--
Friends don't make friends do DRM.
Re: creative commons and copyright
On 24 Dec 2004, at 15:25, twhid wrote:
> Another extremely valuable thing that (and perhaps is one of the main
> reasons they were created) CC licenses do is provide legal
> legitimization for P2P networks.
Yes, the sampling and NC licenses are very good for that. Detractors
have called NC "free advertising"> I prefer to call it "Free
Circulation".
CC talk about a "spectrum of rights". They do public domain and
noncommercial licenses as you've pointed out. They do copyleft and they
do BSD-style attribution-only licenses. They're working with the BBC to
write an license for the Creative Archive. The Developing Nations
license is very interesting. They're working on a "Science Commons" as
well.
So there's a lot more to CC than the fact that they aren't aligning
themselves with the Wolfie Smith* end of the "copyright warrior"
tendency. :-)
> One of the reasons that Napster went down was because the no one could
> point to a good amount of non-infringing content on the network. If CC
> had been around before the Napster decision, Napster's defense could
> have pointed to the large amount of share-able stuff on the network
> using CC licenses.
Viewed from the wrong angle, "Free Culture" activists are just useful
idiots for the next generation of big media companies that will spring
up around p2p and very fat network pipes. :-)
- Rob.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Smith
> Another extremely valuable thing that (and perhaps is one of the main
> reasons they were created) CC licenses do is provide legal
> legitimization for P2P networks.
Yes, the sampling and NC licenses are very good for that. Detractors
have called NC "free advertising"> I prefer to call it "Free
Circulation".
CC talk about a "spectrum of rights". They do public domain and
noncommercial licenses as you've pointed out. They do copyleft and they
do BSD-style attribution-only licenses. They're working with the BBC to
write an license for the Creative Archive. The Developing Nations
license is very interesting. They're working on a "Science Commons" as
well.
So there's a lot more to CC than the fact that they aren't aligning
themselves with the Wolfie Smith* end of the "copyright warrior"
tendency. :-)
> One of the reasons that Napster went down was because the no one could
> point to a good amount of non-infringing content on the network. If CC
> had been around before the Napster decision, Napster's defense could
> have pointed to the large amount of share-able stuff on the network
> using CC licenses.
Viewed from the wrong angle, "Free Culture" activists are just useful
idiots for the next generation of big media companies that will spring
up around p2p and very fat network pipes. :-)
- Rob.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Smith
Re: creative commons and copyright
On 23 Dec 2004, at 21:18, ryan griffis wrote:
> Just to be clear: i didn't write that blurb about Albert's criticism.
> and the main reason for posting it was the posted responses to his
> jabs, which i have read/heard in other venues. certainly, Albert's
> critique is one always leveled against reformist practices, which i
> think are good for at least keeping the fact that it is a process of
> reform, rather than an outright overhaul, in the discussion.
Yes, it is important to remember that the Commons and Free Software
movements are *reform* movements.
I would argue that they are progressive reform movements, seeking to
make new methods of production work for rather than against producers.
This is in contrast to would-be regressive reform such as
Adbusters-style anticapitalism, which seeks to reform other people's
consumption. These are historically precedented reactions to changes in
means of production. Consider Bauhaus and the Arts & Crafts movement as
reformist reactions to mass production.
On 23 Dec 2004, at 20:42, twhid wrote:
>> > You are more free to use a CC licensed work than if no such
>> license was used.
>>
>> But less free than if the work is in the public domain. If you want
>> to play, contribute to the public domain. If you want to reserve your
>> rights, do
This is a very common straw man. Yes, it's easier to rip off the public
domain than it is to rip off licensed work. That's what freedom means
here, the freedom to lose freedom! Licenses protect against this,
safeguarding freedom.
SCO and Microsoft like the public domain, and love PD-like licenses
such as BSD. Why anyone who wishes to be any kind of radical would side
with those organizations is beyond me.
And as an artist who's trying to find public domain images, I must say
that what little of the visual public domain that is untouched by
contracts or licenses is very hard to find.
> So his stance is either make your work completely free in the public
> domain (CC provides methods to put your work in the public domain
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/), or use copyright.
> But there is a *huge* middle ground
> (http://creativecommons.org/images/spectrumofrights2.gif) which the
> reviewer just disregards. Why can't I reserve some rights? He never
> gives an answer.
Good resources on this sort of thing:
http://notabug.com/2002/rms-essays.pdf
http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/
- Rob.
--
http://www.robmyers.org/ - A decade of art under a Creative Commons
license.
http://www.robmyers.org/weblog/ - Art, aesthetics & free culture weblog.
> Just to be clear: i didn't write that blurb about Albert's criticism.
> and the main reason for posting it was the posted responses to his
> jabs, which i have read/heard in other venues. certainly, Albert's
> critique is one always leveled against reformist practices, which i
> think are good for at least keeping the fact that it is a process of
> reform, rather than an outright overhaul, in the discussion.
Yes, it is important to remember that the Commons and Free Software
movements are *reform* movements.
I would argue that they are progressive reform movements, seeking to
make new methods of production work for rather than against producers.
This is in contrast to would-be regressive reform such as
Adbusters-style anticapitalism, which seeks to reform other people's
consumption. These are historically precedented reactions to changes in
means of production. Consider Bauhaus and the Arts & Crafts movement as
reformist reactions to mass production.
On 23 Dec 2004, at 20:42, twhid wrote:
>> > You are more free to use a CC licensed work than if no such
>> license was used.
>>
>> But less free than if the work is in the public domain. If you want
>> to play, contribute to the public domain. If you want to reserve your
>> rights, do
This is a very common straw man. Yes, it's easier to rip off the public
domain than it is to rip off licensed work. That's what freedom means
here, the freedom to lose freedom! Licenses protect against this,
safeguarding freedom.
SCO and Microsoft like the public domain, and love PD-like licenses
such as BSD. Why anyone who wishes to be any kind of radical would side
with those organizations is beyond me.
And as an artist who's trying to find public domain images, I must say
that what little of the visual public domain that is untouched by
contracts or licenses is very hard to find.
> So his stance is either make your work completely free in the public
> domain (CC provides methods to put your work in the public domain
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/), or use copyright.
> But there is a *huge* middle ground
> (http://creativecommons.org/images/spectrumofrights2.gif) which the
> reviewer just disregards. Why can't I reserve some rights? He never
> gives an answer.
Good resources on this sort of thing:
http://notabug.com/2002/rms-essays.pdf
http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/
- Rob.
--
http://www.robmyers.org/ - A decade of art under a Creative Commons
license.
http://www.robmyers.org/weblog/ - Art, aesthetics & free culture weblog.
Re: creative commons and copyright
On 23 Dec 2004, at 18:47, ryan griffis wrote:
> "Creative Commons advertise their licenses as the best-of-both-worlds
> between copyright and the public domain.
No they don't. They advertise their licenses as a way of producers
managing their rights.
> But is the word 'commons' then a misnomer,
No it isn't. A commons is a shared resource managed for the good of a
given community. The CC licenses achieve this for various values of
"shared" and "common good".
> and can such licensing be subjected to the same abuse as copyright?
No, since its provisions are clearer and less restrictive. There are
flaws with the CC licenses as they stand, particularly with iCommons'
mishandling of moral rights, but on the whole CC does good.
In my experience CC are responsive to input and the licenses will be
revised again starting next year, so if anyone would like to improve
things they should join a mailing list:
http://creativecommons.org/discuss
> Saul Albert raises the question and a discussion within the University
> of Openess Wiki follows."
The UOW mostly just point out the flaws in his polemic...
- Rob.
> "Creative Commons advertise their licenses as the best-of-both-worlds
> between copyright and the public domain.
No they don't. They advertise their licenses as a way of producers
managing their rights.
> But is the word 'commons' then a misnomer,
No it isn't. A commons is a shared resource managed for the good of a
given community. The CC licenses achieve this for various values of
"shared" and "common good".
> and can such licensing be subjected to the same abuse as copyright?
No, since its provisions are clearer and less restrictive. There are
flaws with the CC licenses as they stand, particularly with iCommons'
mishandling of moral rights, but on the whole CC does good.
In my experience CC are responsive to input and the licenses will be
revised again starting next year, so if anyone would like to improve
things they should join a mailing list:
http://creativecommons.org/discuss
> Saul Albert raises the question and a discussion within the University
> of Openess Wiki follows."
The UOW mostly just point out the flaws in his polemic...
- Rob.
Re: Re: Re: FW: Questioning the Frame
On 17 Dec 2004, at 19:05, curt cloninger wrote:
> Like Rob, I smell a straw-man. There is this false dichotomy implied
> within net.art of "hacktivism" vs. "techno-formalism,"
> techno-formalism being some vague derogatory term used to stand for
> any form of non-political net art. EDT thinks they're radical because
> they are alter-neo-liberal/zapatista, as if there are only two kind of
> relevant human activities -- zapatista style political activities and
> neo-libaral anti-globalism political activities. Relegated to the
> artistically and culturally irrelevant are the activities of
> beauty-making, particularly if such activities result in something
> resembling an object. The condescending materialist assumption is
> that any non-political art is part of the spectacle, reinforcing a
> system the opposition of which is implicitly assumed to be the noble
> goal of all compassionate sentient individuals.
A would-be materialism that sneers at the proles (and "New Media"
practitioners are *workers* in the information economy, New Media Art
is their folk art in an age of post-mechanical reproduction) is no
materialism at all. It is academicism in the worst C19th sense of the
word.
Privileging the politically illustrative and confirmatory over the
culturally expressive and challenging is a failure of imagination and
politics.
If anyone wants to see the kind of 70s leftist political "engagement"
that is at issue here, watch Monty Python's "The Life Of Brian" and
keep an eye out for The Judean People's Front. That inter-factional,
nonsensical "struggle" against reality is not a productive use of
people's time.
See the sites criticised from http://marxist-org-uk.blogspot.com/ for
the online equivalent of the JPF.
> The Museum of Jurassic Technology is an across-the-board paradigm
> hijack. Talk about changing the world one inidividual at a time, not
> just by reconfiguring their understanding of political activity, but
> by reconfiguring their understanding of understanding. The MJT to me
> is as culturally relevant, as ethically laudable, and as
> spectacle-disrupting as they come. It's so successfully "tactical" it
> doesn't even read as tactical, political, activist, or even art.
Absolutely (cool links by the way). Looking political isn't the same as
being political, indeed it's usually the opposite.
> Domingo laments the art world's lack of interest in "hacktivism" and
> its increased interest in "techno-formalism." For one thing, I don't
> think the art world as a whole has ever been terribly interested in
> any form of net.art (hacktivism, tecnho-formalism, or otherwise); nor
> are either forms very salable (so his dis of "code qua code" net.art
> as intentionally catering to the object market is a lot of wind). For
> another thing, why does he care? It's like some punk rock band
> secretly pining to get on a major record label.
Heh. I love the way that the current generation of injection-molded
teenyboppers are described as "punk" on MTV (which, unlike many who
criticise it, I actually watch. Far to much of...).
I grew up in an age of Goth (second generation, late 80's). The
countercultural and critical mainstream hated Goth because of its
aestheticism. Goth was more political than punk because it successfully
refused "cultural codes" and created a parallel culture unamenable to
Thatcherism.
Not anger, disdain.
> Whereas the MJT is its own museum. It would never allow itself to be
> featured in a gallery or biennial, because such a contextualization
> would undermine the all-encompassing reality that gives the MJT its
> subversive cognitively leverage, not just in the art world, and not
> just in the political world, but in the world world -- the holistic
> world of human thought and action.
>
> Perhaps alter-neo-liberal hacktivist art is indeed more
> interesting/disturbing/effective/of-the-people than mere neo-liberal
> hacktivist art -- in the same way that a Toyota is faster than a Yugo.
> But the MJT is flying a Concord. There are more than two ways to
> skin a cat. There is often more "disturbance" to "techno-formalism"
> (read "pretty art that's not overtly performative or political") than
> meets the materialist-indoctrinated eye.
And it's "disturbance" is of the easily rehearsed uncritical
"criticism" of those who would explain it to the proles in as much as
anything else (which, as I say, isn't any materialism worthy of the
name).
- Rob.
> Like Rob, I smell a straw-man. There is this false dichotomy implied
> within net.art of "hacktivism" vs. "techno-formalism,"
> techno-formalism being some vague derogatory term used to stand for
> any form of non-political net art. EDT thinks they're radical because
> they are alter-neo-liberal/zapatista, as if there are only two kind of
> relevant human activities -- zapatista style political activities and
> neo-libaral anti-globalism political activities. Relegated to the
> artistically and culturally irrelevant are the activities of
> beauty-making, particularly if such activities result in something
> resembling an object. The condescending materialist assumption is
> that any non-political art is part of the spectacle, reinforcing a
> system the opposition of which is implicitly assumed to be the noble
> goal of all compassionate sentient individuals.
A would-be materialism that sneers at the proles (and "New Media"
practitioners are *workers* in the information economy, New Media Art
is their folk art in an age of post-mechanical reproduction) is no
materialism at all. It is academicism in the worst C19th sense of the
word.
Privileging the politically illustrative and confirmatory over the
culturally expressive and challenging is a failure of imagination and
politics.
If anyone wants to see the kind of 70s leftist political "engagement"
that is at issue here, watch Monty Python's "The Life Of Brian" and
keep an eye out for The Judean People's Front. That inter-factional,
nonsensical "struggle" against reality is not a productive use of
people's time.
See the sites criticised from http://marxist-org-uk.blogspot.com/ for
the online equivalent of the JPF.
> The Museum of Jurassic Technology is an across-the-board paradigm
> hijack. Talk about changing the world one inidividual at a time, not
> just by reconfiguring their understanding of political activity, but
> by reconfiguring their understanding of understanding. The MJT to me
> is as culturally relevant, as ethically laudable, and as
> spectacle-disrupting as they come. It's so successfully "tactical" it
> doesn't even read as tactical, political, activist, or even art.
Absolutely (cool links by the way). Looking political isn't the same as
being political, indeed it's usually the opposite.
> Domingo laments the art world's lack of interest in "hacktivism" and
> its increased interest in "techno-formalism." For one thing, I don't
> think the art world as a whole has ever been terribly interested in
> any form of net.art (hacktivism, tecnho-formalism, or otherwise); nor
> are either forms very salable (so his dis of "code qua code" net.art
> as intentionally catering to the object market is a lot of wind). For
> another thing, why does he care? It's like some punk rock band
> secretly pining to get on a major record label.
Heh. I love the way that the current generation of injection-molded
teenyboppers are described as "punk" on MTV (which, unlike many who
criticise it, I actually watch. Far to much of...).
I grew up in an age of Goth (second generation, late 80's). The
countercultural and critical mainstream hated Goth because of its
aestheticism. Goth was more political than punk because it successfully
refused "cultural codes" and created a parallel culture unamenable to
Thatcherism.
Not anger, disdain.
> Whereas the MJT is its own museum. It would never allow itself to be
> featured in a gallery or biennial, because such a contextualization
> would undermine the all-encompassing reality that gives the MJT its
> subversive cognitively leverage, not just in the art world, and not
> just in the political world, but in the world world -- the holistic
> world of human thought and action.
>
> Perhaps alter-neo-liberal hacktivist art is indeed more
> interesting/disturbing/effective/of-the-people than mere neo-liberal
> hacktivist art -- in the same way that a Toyota is faster than a Yugo.
> But the MJT is flying a Concord. There are more than two ways to
> skin a cat. There is often more "disturbance" to "techno-formalism"
> (read "pretty art that's not overtly performative or political") than
> meets the materialist-indoctrinated eye.
And it's "disturbance" is of the easily rehearsed uncritical
"criticism" of those who would explain it to the proles in as much as
anything else (which, as I say, isn't any materialism worthy of the
name).
- Rob.