Panel Statement

Panel: Institutions in Crisis

Keywords: Free Libre Software, Open Source Software, New Art Practices, Art Institution, Commons-Based Peer-Production

Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) is an encompassing term, which refers to the licenses associated with making the source code that is the instructions and language per se, which define how software works and is made available for others to read, modify and share.
Providing a brief history of FLOSS, this paper presents a hypothetical situation, whereby elements of FLOSS are applied to reimagining institutional change within the context of a contemporary arts venue and organisation. Framed as an artistic intervention, the art institution’s structure and its existing forms are considered as the living materiality of the practice. The paper presents a set of processes, defined as ‘Acts of Transition’, whereby the values of Free Libre and Open Source are collaboratively explored with the institution’s staff and executed together, across and within the organisation’s teams. As ‘Acts of Transition’ they aim to support more commons-based peer-production processes, by reimagining the arts organisation as an open source civic organisation.

• Teresa Dillon is an artist and Professor of City Futures, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Her performative and sound works, curatorial explorations and texts, symbolically and critically examine the techno-civic systems, modes of governance and material conditions, which affect and shape everyday survival. polarproduce.org

Full text (PDF) p. 641-644