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: Internet Art Survives, But the Boom Is Over -NY times
On Wednesday, March 31, 2004, at 03:59PM, Kanarinka <kanarinka@ikatun.com> wrote:
>DEAD! that's cool!
>
>goodnight internet art! goodnight pixels! goodnight superfluous data
>mapping! goodnight digitalia! goodnight perfunctory interactivity!
>
>now let's do some interesting stuff.
Seconded.
What would people say were the masterpieces of net.art? Anything of interest for its aesthetics rather than its technology, funding or launch party?
=- Rob.
>DEAD! that's cool!
>
>goodnight internet art! goodnight pixels! goodnight superfluous data
>mapping! goodnight digitalia! goodnight perfunctory interactivity!
>
>now let's do some interesting stuff.
Seconded.
What would people say were the masterpieces of net.art? Anything of interest for its aesthetics rather than its technology, funding or launch party?
=- Rob.
Re: literate programming
After researching it, I'm now doing my current project in Literate
Programming style, using noweb.
The advantages (for me) are:
- It helps me think about what I'm doing. I'm no computer scientist so
anything that makes hacking up algorithms easier is good.
- It should help me come back to the code to work on it later. This is
planned as a long-term project.
- It makes the program presentable for others to read and understand,
unlike, say, AARON.
So thanks for the link.
- Rob.
Programming style, using noweb.
The advantages (for me) are:
- It helps me think about what I'm doing. I'm no computer scientist so
anything that makes hacking up algorithms easier is good.
- It should help me come back to the code to work on it later. This is
planned as a long-term project.
- It makes the program presentable for others to read and understand,
unlike, say, AARON.
So thanks for the link.
- Rob.
Re: Re: 'piracy' update
On 8 Mar 2004, at 17:16, Joy Garnett wrote:
> It wouldn't be wise or even ethical for me to post legal docs though --
> plus, it's so much gobbledy-gook and case law thrown in, it's mostly
> bombast and boring. 18 pages of boring.
Groklaw does a good job of it. It can be informative and bring people
togetehr (not to mention be cathartic) to see what actually goes on.
You can always white-out the photographer's name if you're worried
they'll get mailbombed. :-)
Good luck.
- Rob.
> It wouldn't be wise or even ethical for me to post legal docs though --
> plus, it's so much gobbledy-gook and case law thrown in, it's mostly
> bombast and boring. 18 pages of boring.
Groklaw does a good job of it. It can be informative and bring people
togetehr (not to mention be cathartic) to see what actually goes on.
You can always white-out the photographer's name if you're worried
they'll get mailbombed. :-)
Good luck.
- Rob.
Re: literate programming
On 28 Feb 2004, at 09:39, Jim Andrews wrote:
> A good idea for many projects, no doubt. But I wonder if the
> dislocations of
> the document and of reading that inhere in the code-centered program
> have
> been important in new approaches to art associated with coding? In
> other
> words, attempts to create 'literate programming' unlike the definition
> of
> 'literate programming' below have been fruitful.
I love the idea of literate programming (If I had the cash I'd buy
"Computers and Typesetting" tomorow) but I do wonder how appropriate it
is for real-world software design, especially rapid development and
personal projects. That said, I no longer believe in self-documenting
code having grown sick of AppleScript after recently using it for a
large-scale, real-world project. And I am looking for a good
pedagogical language, so maybe I'll try LP after all.
Languages like Lisp and Python allow you to embed documentation strings
in the code and these remain accessible at runtime, so you can read a
function's documentation as you write, compile and test the code.
For multimedia, you should be able to add SVG docstrings or just
arbitrary href docstrings. :-)
- Rob.
> A good idea for many projects, no doubt. But I wonder if the
> dislocations of
> the document and of reading that inhere in the code-centered program
> have
> been important in new approaches to art associated with coding? In
> other
> words, attempts to create 'literate programming' unlike the definition
> of
> 'literate programming' below have been fruitful.
I love the idea of literate programming (If I had the cash I'd buy
"Computers and Typesetting" tomorow) but I do wonder how appropriate it
is for real-world software design, especially rapid development and
personal projects. That said, I no longer believe in self-documenting
code having grown sick of AppleScript after recently using it for a
large-scale, real-world project. And I am looking for a good
pedagogical language, so maybe I'll try LP after all.
Languages like Lisp and Python allow you to embed documentation strings
in the code and these remain accessible at runtime, so you can read a
function's documentation as you write, compile and test the code.
For multimedia, you should be able to add SVG docstrings or just
arbitrary href docstrings. :-)
- Rob.
Re: Re: The Myth of Meritocracy in Fine Arts
On 26 Feb 2004, at 18:48, ryan griffis wrote:
> anyway, i wanted to riff off of Dyske's responses and Rob's counter
> responses - which i'm not sure i quite get - you mean the snow doesn't
> effect how full my iPod is ;)
Unless you sample the sound of snow falling. :-)
> anyway, i do understand the empircist drive that says there is no X
> (why art is successful) but we can 'see' Y (what is mainstream/makes
> money/has a big house). but this seems a conservative truism
This is what I am arguing against.
> (and the use of philisophical abstract logic seems absurd here btw)?
Indeed. :-)
> if you're satified with the status quo, it's all good. sure i can say
> bill gates and matthew barney are successful. so what? this is stating
> the obvious as i see it, and stating it in a frank stella kinda way
> "what you see is what you get." but why write that barney is
> successful because he is successful? are you saying that there are no
> reasons that can be even attempted to be understood to explain the
> success (either cultural or economic - and of course the overlaps)? so
> even patron studies have nothing to gain here?
The reasons can be understood, but they are not simple or always
causal. There's randomness, dumb luck, bad luck and perversity as well
as talent, hard work and bloody-mindedness. And there's all of those
aesthetically as well as socially.
> you don't have to get all metaphysical or moralistic to see the
> surface as layered. Dyske's early mention of insider networks and such
> as a vehicle for upward mobility in art is one example - that can be
> looked at, and it can be explored 'beyond' the truism of success.
But to what end? I've encountered successful art society; it's a
network and a clique like any other. It's only surprising if you do
indeed believe that the idea of art as meritocratic has weight.
> i don't understand why we're trying to bypass the study of rhetoric
> and social sciences here (with all their problems). art's not in its
> own isolated world.
I'm a biiiiig fan of Art & Language. I wrote my BA dissertation on them
(and Julain Opie), and one of the comments my tutor had was that
"they've got stuck in the idea of art as institution". I didn't think
that this was the case, but I do think that "art as institution"
doesn't go very far. Art's social content is more interesting than its
supporting social structures, IMHO. Cultural studies is different from
cultural engagement. You can't stop a nuke exploding by deconstructing
the text of its history or science.
- Rob.
> anyway, i wanted to riff off of Dyske's responses and Rob's counter
> responses - which i'm not sure i quite get - you mean the snow doesn't
> effect how full my iPod is ;)
Unless you sample the sound of snow falling. :-)
> anyway, i do understand the empircist drive that says there is no X
> (why art is successful) but we can 'see' Y (what is mainstream/makes
> money/has a big house). but this seems a conservative truism
This is what I am arguing against.
> (and the use of philisophical abstract logic seems absurd here btw)?
Indeed. :-)
> if you're satified with the status quo, it's all good. sure i can say
> bill gates and matthew barney are successful. so what? this is stating
> the obvious as i see it, and stating it in a frank stella kinda way
> "what you see is what you get." but why write that barney is
> successful because he is successful? are you saying that there are no
> reasons that can be even attempted to be understood to explain the
> success (either cultural or economic - and of course the overlaps)? so
> even patron studies have nothing to gain here?
The reasons can be understood, but they are not simple or always
causal. There's randomness, dumb luck, bad luck and perversity as well
as talent, hard work and bloody-mindedness. And there's all of those
aesthetically as well as socially.
> you don't have to get all metaphysical or moralistic to see the
> surface as layered. Dyske's early mention of insider networks and such
> as a vehicle for upward mobility in art is one example - that can be
> looked at, and it can be explored 'beyond' the truism of success.
But to what end? I've encountered successful art society; it's a
network and a clique like any other. It's only surprising if you do
indeed believe that the idea of art as meritocratic has weight.
> i don't understand why we're trying to bypass the study of rhetoric
> and social sciences here (with all their problems). art's not in its
> own isolated world.
I'm a biiiiig fan of Art & Language. I wrote my BA dissertation on them
(and Julain Opie), and one of the comments my tutor had was that
"they've got stuck in the idea of art as institution". I didn't think
that this was the case, but I do think that "art as institution"
doesn't go very far. Art's social content is more interesting than its
supporting social structures, IMHO. Cultural studies is different from
cultural engagement. You can't stop a nuke exploding by deconstructing
the text of its history or science.
- Rob.