ASPECT v. 15, “Influence and Reference” includes video documentation of AfterSherrieLevine.com. The original project is from 2001, the video documentation was made in 2009. As ASPECT is a DVD publication they use the audio commentary tracks for a critical analysis of the works. I was very fortunate: Marita Sturken gave an awesome audio commentary.

As I get ready to take part in the Transmediale/FLOSSmanuals book sprint for the “Collaborative Futures” book, I thought it was relevant to drop this blog post about an older interview about FLOSS and art.

A bit ago Dominic Smith of CRUMB interviewed me about my practice in relationship to Open Source and Free Culture. This interview is going to be included in a forthcoming 10 year anniversary book about CRUMB’s activities. Posting this slipped through the cracks, but you can find it here (along with a snippet below):

So there is ‘Open Source’ the Noun, and then there are 2 different versions of the verb ‘Open Source’, ‘to Open Source’. So you’re working on a project and you release it Open Source, that’s to Open Source a project. But the other version of to Open Source is a certain kind of reverse engineering, it’s kind of hostile or confrontational, and it’s to Open Source somebody else. I was open sourcing Sherrie Levine in a sense. So I think that a lot of my work comes from that appropriation and that’s a starting point.

The American artist Michael Mandiberg also relies on the Internet as a medium, for example, the Internet Mandiberg Shop, which sells items owned by the artist. Through his site (Mandiberg.com) the artist logically focuses this principle of acquisition on works of art, for example on Sherrie Levine’s series of photographs “After Walker Evans,” which Mandiberg posted on the Internet as free downloads at AfterSherrieLevine. com. So unlike traditional online art auction houses, Mandiberg continually exploits the opportunities the Internet offers to art (acquisition). As well as offering non-hierarchical access to all, and free access as well, both the artist and his medium negate any claim to authorship and originality. Instead, an unrequested genealogy of networked users becomes part of the aesthetic master plan. The chain extends from Evans to Levine, and from there to Mandiberg himself, and finally on to the art lover who downloads the image. Particularly in this work, the tension between fascination and contempt is clearly present, as Mandiberg appears fascinated by the opportunities the Internet gives for emancipation and freedom, but also clearly sets himself apart from the profit-oriented uses of this medium that exist, as demonstrated by auction houses, for example.

This one came in on the google alert. I always wonder why writers never contact me when they write about my work. It would avoid little errors like calling Shop Mandiberg “Internet Mandiberg Shop.” Though to be fair, this was translated from German, so it could be a translation issue.