"Computers are bringing about a situation that's like the invention of harmony. Subroutines are like chords. No one would think of keeping a chord to himself. You'd give it to anyone who wanted it. You'd welcome alterations of it. Subroutines are altered by a single punch. We're getting music made by man himself, not just one man." - John Cage, 1969
Open Art proporciona herramientas (software, estándares y licencias) para que los artistas digitales puedan reutilizar las "piezas" de otros artistas y recombinarlas con sus propias ideas para crear nuevas obras. El proyecto surge de un hecho que los defensores de una propiedad intelectual estricta e infinita no acaban de comprender: la creación no se origina en el vacío, surge del trabajo previo de otras personas, y es la capacidad de mezcla creativa la que hacer surgir las innovaciones.
¿Por qué se necesita Open Art?: El problema:
The Internet opened the door to new possibilities of democratic access. Artists were among the first to step inside, and since the early 1990s many have been standing in the doorway, holding it open for others to pass through.
But in recent years pressure has mounted from both inside and outside the art world to close that door. In the war brewing over creativity in the digital age, the artists who are standing in the threshold are going to have to choose a side--and a lot rides on their decision
Esta es la solución que propone Open Art:
In today's bewildering climate of rapidly changing technical and legal structures, the opportunity to create open yet enduring standards--and most important, a community ethic--offers creative individuals a chance to take control of their destiny and help shape the culture that nourishes them.
The Open Art Network aims to empower artists working in digital formats by devising and promoting standards that encourage an open architecture for the Internet and digital media
Una idea básica de todo el proyecto es la recombinación:
For code to be re-purposed also requires that it be recombinant--that is, that parts can be copied and recombined to make new programs based on the old ones. If a program is modular in structure, it's much easier to understand and to extract whatever components may be useful to another artist's project.
For these reasons, the Open Art Network will encourage artists to code their work whenever possible in an object-oriented rather than procedural style, and to offer the modules that might be the most useful generally--or conversely, the most unique--to others in the online community.
Del mismo modo que la recombinación genética es uno de los motores básicos de la evolución biológica (y por tanto "causa" de la aparición de nuevas formas de vida), la recombinación intelectual y tecnológica es una de las bases de la creación artística.