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.
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DISCUSSION

DRAWING IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION


Keeping an artistic process secret is mediaeval. In science, the risk of secretive mediaeval alchemists embarrassing their courtly sponsors led to the publishing and public review system of the modern scientific method. Patents may resemble this but they exact a price for disclosure. A secret process has no legal and economic repercussions for anyone else who succeeds in reproducing that secret process. Patents do. Contrary to Philip's assertion they can easily prevent you from using a particular concept. Such as "adding a third portion of liquid", to give one notorious example of a business method patent. And they prevent you from using that concept even if you have never heard of the patent and have arrived at the concept independently.

The business method patent I mention applies to cereal bars. Now imagine the damage similarly basic and expansive patents could do to artistic practice.

Artists using "intellectual property" laws to chill public and artistic discussion of their work are shooting themselves in the foot in much the same way as the RIAA/MPAA. Nobody loves a bully. If the only interesting thing about an artwork is that it is the product of a patent then the artwork is not very interesting as art. If it is interesting as art it probably doesn't need protecting by a patent.

Patenting artistic processes reflects the ego and tastes of corporate information culture and venture capital, not the culture of art or the broader culture of society. In fact it is opposed to these. Reflecting this ego and these tastes is harmful in business and will be harmful in art. To do so may nonetheless be one of the tasks that faces contemporary art. It is not a task that should be approached lightly or complicitly though.

DISCUSSION

DRAWING IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION


Yves Klein patented the chemical process used to create his IKB colour (French patent 63471, allegedly) rather than any of his artistic methods but that was still an immoral restriction on the ability of other artists to extend or critique or represent his work. It is even more immoral to patent a "creative process".

Copyright can cause harm, Pall mentioned JoyWar, but copyright is at least limited only to direct copies rather than other realisations of the same idea. And patents don't have Fair Use.

This is the most disturbing thing I have heard about from an artist since the copyright overreach of Christo's "Gates" and Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" a couple of years ago. It fails even as an illustration of the evils of business method patents, a la the trademarking of "Freedom Of Expression" to illustrate trademark excess by Kembrew McLeod.

DISCUSSION

robot artist draws portraits


Pall Thayer wrote:
> Within an artistic context I
> would define it loosely as meaning something along the lines of being able to break "rules"
> (or perhaps it would be better to say "not follow 'rules'"), break from convention and come
> up with new ideas as a result.

Margaret Boden describes this as "H-Creativity", historically unprecedented creativity. She characterizes it as adding new axioms to the state space of an activity.

Most artists and many perfectly good works of art don't do this so it seems a little unfair to demand it of computers.

In Artificial Intelligence research it is a running joke that as soon as a computer can perform any given activity the common sense definition of "(true) intelligence" will become modified to exclude that activity. Solving algorithms? Playing chess? If a computer can do them they can't be true tests of intelligence.

It's the same with "creativity". Creativity is a gestalt or emergent "dunno" the same as "intelligence". And it's worse because people tend to demand H-creativity rather than P-creativity, which would just be personally unprecedented creativity.

Can a computer draw? Not creative. Colour? Not creative. Solve puzzles? Not creative. Create drama and meaning? Not creative. Map inner states to outer compositions like a good expressionist? Not creative. Cut off its ear? Er...

Good reading:

"The Creative Mind" - Margaret Boden.
"Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies" - Douglas Hofstadter.
"AARON's Code" - Pamela McCorduck.
"Affective Computing" - Rosalind Picard.

- Rob.


DISCUSSION

Neil Clark : Kosovo a Crisis of The West's Own Making


Andrej Tisma wrote:

> A crisis of West's own making by Neil Clark

Neil Clark, and I need to be careful here due to the UK's libel laws, is
not generally regarded as a leading authority on the Balkans conflict of
the 1990s as far as I know.

It is true that e.g. the Conservative government of John Major in the UK
allowed the conflict to worsen in a show of non-interventionism that
should give Liberals pause for thought.

But Serbia needs better friends than Clark, and on a better basis than
the one he would provide.

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Neil Clark : Kosovo a Crisis of The West's Own Making


Andrej Tisma wrote:
>
> http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22966948-7583,00.html
>
>
> The Australian
> December 24, 2007
>
>
> A crisis of West's own making by Neil Clark

>
> Powerful Western nations make threats to Serbia.
> Despite Western threats for it to accept Kosovan
> independence, Belgrade is standing firm. Serbian armed
> forces are on standby to reclaim the province by force
> if necessary. Russia has promised Serbia its support.
> If war does follow, then Serbia will no doubt be
> blamed by Western governments for not toeing the line.
> But it would be an unfair judgment.
> The present crisis in Kosovo has been caused not so
> much by Serbian intransigence, but by the West's
> policy of intervention in the internal affairs of
> sovereign states, which, over the past decade has
> caused chaos, not only in the Balkans, but across the
> globe.
> Ten years ago, Kosovo was at relative peace. Albanian
> demands for independence from Belgrade were being
> channeled through the peaceful Democratic League party
> of Ibrahim Rugova, while the small groups of Albanian
> paramilitaries that did exist were isolated and had
> little public support.
> According to a report by Jane's intelligence agency in
> 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army, the most extreme of
> Albanian paramilitary groups, does not take into
> consideration the political or economic importance of
> its victims, nor does it seem at all capable of
> hurting its enemy.
> It has not come close to challenging the region's
> balance of military power. As late as November 1997,
> the KLA, officially classified by the US as a
> terrorist organisation, could, it has been estimated,
> call on the services of only 200 men.
> Then, in a policy shift whose repercussions we are
> witnessing today, the West started to interfere big
> time. The US, Germany and Britain increasingly saw the
> KLA as a proxy force which could help them achieve
> their goal of destabilising and eventually removing
> from power the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, which
> showed no inclination to join Euro-Atlantic
> structures.
> Over the following year, the KLA underwent a drastic
> makeover. The group was taken off the US State
> Department's list of terrorist organisations and, as
> with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan a decade or so
> earlier, became fully fledged freedom fighters.
> Large-scale assistance was given to the KLA by Western
> security forces. Britain organised secret training
> camps in northern Albania. The German secret service
> provided uniforms, weapons and instructors.
> The Sunday Times in Britain published a report stating
> that American intelligence agents admitted they helped
> to train the KLA before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.
> Meanwhile, Rugova's Democratic League, which supported
> negotiations with Belgrade, was given the cold
> shoulder.
> When the KLA's campaign of violence, directed not only
> against Yugoslav state officials, Serb civilians and
> Albanian collaborators who did not support their
> extremist agenda, led to a military response from
> Belgrade, the British and Americans were ready to hand
> out the ultimatums.
> During the 79-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia that
> followed, the West made promises of independence to
> the KLA which, eight years on, are coming back to
> haunt them.
> Recognising an independent Kosovo will push Serbia
> from the Western orbit as well as creating a real
> chance of war. And it will set a precedent: if the
> rights of self-determination for Kosovan Albanians are
> to be acknowledged, then what about the rights of
> self-determination for Serbs in Bosnia, who wish to
> join Serbia?
> Doing a U-turn, and attempting to get independence
> postponed, runs the risk of violence from Kosovo's
> Albanian majority. It's an almighty mess, but one of
> the West's own making.
> Had it not intervened in Yugoslav internal affairs 10
> years ago, it is likely a peaceful compromise to the
> Kosovan problem would eventually have been found
> between the government in Belgrade and the Democratic
> League. Rugova's goal was independence for Kosovo from
> Serbia, but only with the agreement of all parties.
> What is certain is that without Western patronage the
> KLA would never have grown to the force it eventually
> became.
> By championing the most hardline force in Kosovo, the
> West not only helped precipitate war, but made the
> issue of Kosovo much harder to solve.
> It is ironic that for supporters of liberal
> intervention, Western actions in Kosovo are still seen
> to have been a great success. It was at the height of
> the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999
> that the then British prime minister, Tony Blair, made
> his famous speech at Chicago in which he outlined his
> doctrine of the international community.
> Blair argued that the principle of non-interference in
> the affairs of sovereign states - long considered an
> important principle of international order - should be
> subject to revision. "I say to you: never fall again
> for the doctrine of isolationism," Blair pleaded.
> But after surveying the global debris of a decade of
> Western interference, from the Balkans to Afghanistan
> and Iraq, is it any wonder that isolationism and
> observing the principle of non-interference in the
> affairs of sovereign states again seems so appealing?
> ----------------------
> Neil Clark, a regular contributor to The Spectator and
> The Guardian in Britain, teaches international
> relations at Oxford Tutorial College.
>
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