The "Why artists don't use more free software" panel was a strange beast. Swinging between polarised positions and shared understanding it left me feeling little progress had been made. There was the usual free software righteousness and artistic stubbornness. "I just want it to work" people would complain, "you have to make it work" the geeks would reply. And yes it should work and yes artists should be more involved in helping make it work, but there is something more....

I think my problem with how this panel went was it's basic premiss of "free software tools need to be made better for artists to use them and that artists need to assist in this process." This is entirely true but I also think it misses the point. It seems that the language of consumerism has taken over in this area, even amongst those that are sympathetic to CC. Free software isn't trying to create a consumer experience where you just get a tool and your consumer satisfaction. Yes the tools must work and be easy to use and much effort needs to be done in this area. This process however is ongoing, there is not a point at which free software will be complete because the tools will always need improving.

It might be better to understand Free software as process that changes how people view themselves, their peers and their relationship to technology. It's not about consuming technology, it about a transformation in subjectivity to actor and participant. Fundamentally is about creating a new social language.

We can extrapolate here to the world of free culture. Free culture or free art is not just about adding a CC licensing to your work, I think the bare minimum should be a little higher. It should also be about the platforms and tools you use and the collaborative and collective methodologies you employ. Fundamentally free culture should articulate a shift in social relations, of how we produce and work together. Free software is one space in which to create a rupture in how we understand our relationship to others and to technology. It shouldn't be seen as a moral imperative but a social imperative, one that adds a richest that is otherwise unavailable, a process not driven by guilt but by possibility.

Free Art is not a license or a software application, it's a social process produced through the creation of a new forms of cooperation.

tags: Dubrovnik Croatia culture floss foss free-culture art summit07

extracted from: