Open Source Art
Open source is a concept that burst onto the scene in relation to digital development and so-called “free software”. It is based on the idea of identifying and developing different kinds of freedoms for the user, wherein traditional rights related to managing and controlling content increases substantially with free reign to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. This shift is seen much like a revolution in relation to the traditional ways of managing digital and cultural content, since it promotes an active role for the user, whose former status as mere receiver is transformed to that of co-producer or co-mediator.
This new paradigm has had a strong impact on the current digital culture and technological development, but also has gained important ground in relation to contemporary culture and politics. Open source and the philosophy behind it have served as a trigger to uncover new ways of working together and of sharing culture both within the Internet environment and without. In this sense it has initiated new collaborative ways of understanding culture and politics, ways that run through movements like Occupy in the EU or 15M in Spain to more specific processes by which to produce arts and manage related institutions.
Today the possibility of an “open source art” is understood largely as a projection or a horizon for the current artistic practice rather than an accomplished reality. It is focused on thinking of new ways to produce and distribute art, on challenging the traditional conventions and institutions
