I give thanks to my friend Martin Krafft, who commissioned a work connecting to the philosophies of the community of open source software (OSS).
OSS is code that is designed to be publicly accessible - anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit. It has become a movement and a philosophy that reaches beyond software production because of it's collaborative, open and transparent nature.
After some research I came back to a previous series of lithographic works which share key elements with open source aspirations. What drove the 'post-modern' era was the reaction of artists to the idealism of the past and the power that the galleries and academic institutions - even today- have on the art world. These artists looked to materials that made art and the processes themselves as the content of art itself, as opposed to aesthetics and idealism. What this means is we entered an era where transparency, honesty and integrity are the most important things to the artist. In these 'prints' the process is the work, everything is laid bare on how they were made, printmaking techniques are shown rather than hidden - a parallel with the principles of OSS. The story of their making is the content. Furthermore the products of Open Source software (Processing) was used as part of the process in creating the lithographic process. These prints are all from the interaction of templates from two of three different programs, with no planned aesthetic. On the topic of collaboration, I would like to recognise and thank artist and maker Mark Lander (marklander.org) for the use of his amazing and beautiful handmade flax paper.
While each artwork is a unique and original document of the processes that created it, every digital image of this series is licensed under creative commons (CC).
