I think that once you liberate the code, you put yourself in a place
where you are forced to become more creative and move beyond the
original idea.

There are 2 ways to think about this: you can hold on to your idea, and
it will only grow out of your own experiences with it. Or you can let it
go, and be inspired by how other are using your creation.

At the root, it comes down to respecting the idea. If it is not ready to
be shared, then it should not be shared. Once it is ready, I think you
have to let it go, and enjoy it’s effects on the world around you. This
is true for any medium. It is about having respect for your idea. I
agree, it is a very hard switch to make, especially with code, because
it feels like people can copy what you have done much more easily than a
painting. You can always get a Creative Commons License on it that
specifies that the person interested in using part of, or all of your
code, contact you first – but that it is open to use.

The greatest thing about technology is that it fosters collaboration of
ideas…. and to think that collaboration is not part of your process,
then you had better not look at the source code of a nice site/piece
ever again, or for that matter, stop thinking about process altogether.
Code is about copying & pasting – it is remixing what the person before
you has done with what you have done. This is also true across all mediums.

How well have you taken the ideas of the past, remixed them, and made
them new again?

I think it is also important to look at why your piece is successful.
Does your piece rely on you knowing something about programming to fully
enjoy the piece? If your piece relies on the fact that you made some
genius little script to ‘wow’ the viewer, then that leads me to think
that your code could be considered part of the art.

these are just a few ideas…

On one hand, the whole world has changed on the internet since February, 2006. Then again, all of the same principles still apply. This still leaves open the question, what constitutes as Art from here forward?

Here is the original Rhizome thread.

Kepler, An Opera by Philip Glass will make it’s U.S. premier this November at the Brooklyn Acadamy of Music (BAM). Dennis Russel Davies will be leading the Bruckner Orchestra Linz through for 3 nights of Kepler.

Philip Glass’s opera, written expressly for Landestheater Linz and Linz09, deals with the intellectual cosmos of the great astronomer.

Johannes Kepler lived and worked in Linz from 1612 to 1627. The opera raises fundamental questions of the kind that Kepler worked on all his life and that he hoped science would be able to answer. Historical ruptures in the wake of the Counter Reformation shaped the world into which the astronomer and mathematician was born in 1571. Surrounded on all sides by war and religious strife, he sought to decipher the divine order hidden in the “book of Nature”, in the unshakable belief that his efforts would be crowned with success. “God has based everything on numbers”, was the motto that inspired his research. Philip Glass, one of the best known composers of our time, bases his approach to Kepler on the astromer’s conviction that “without genuine knowledge life is dead”. - Glass Notes

Kepler

An Opera by Philip Glass
Part of the 2009 Next Wave Festival at BAM
Libretto by Martina Winkel
Bruckner Orchestra Linz
Conducted by Dennis Russell Davies
Nov 18, 20 & 21 at 7:30pm
Visit the event listing »

And yes, Juliette and I have a 4 month old named Kepler Cezzar Zilar. He was named after Johannes Kepler. It was mere coincidence that Philip Glass did an opera of the same name. Also a coincidence that NASA launched the Kepler Telescope into space last May, after we had chosen the name. NASA’s Kepler Mission went into full operation July 24, 2009, one day after our Kepler was born.

Juliette and I would like to introduce you to our new baby boy!

Kepler Cezzar Zilar

Born on July 23, 2009 at 6:32am in New York City.

He weighed 5lbs 7oz, is 18in long and is healthy from top to bottom. The nurses have been calling him the little astro-nut.

You cen see more posts, pictures and video of Kepler and our new family on our Futuretree blog. Or you can see the full gamut of Kepler photos and videos on Flickr.

He says,

“To digitize collections and sell the product in ways that fail to guarantee wide access would be to repeat the mistake that was made when publishers exploited the market for scholarly journals, but on a much greater scale, for it would turn the Internet into an instrument for privatizing knowledge that belongs in the public sphere.”

“Yes, we must digitize. But more important, we must democratize. We must open access to our cultural heritage. How? By rewriting the rules of the game, by subordinating private interests to the public good, and by taking inspiration from the early republic in order to create a Digital Republic of Learning.”

Umair Haque begins to define the interaction rules that are starting to define the 21st Century.

(via swissmiss)

If Twitter is like being blind in a candy store, these tools let you know which candy to try.

One year ago today on Valentine’s Day I proposed to my wife, Juliette, through a crossword puzzle in her copy of The New York Times. Jim Horne, the writer behind WordPlay, the New York Times Crossword Blog was kind enough to publish our story. Read more…

There’s an old joke, so old that I don’t even know for certain where it originated, that’s often used to explain why big corporations do things the way they do. It involves some monkeys, a cage, a banana and a fire hose.

You have to read the whole first part of the post. It applies to everyone. The rest talks about the release of Python 3.0 – and I have to say, I have never been inclined to learn Python, or really even look into it until now – until someone has taken the care to present it in a smart way. Even if I never do anything with Python, I am now more inclined to think of it in favorable terms.

Also, the post generally highlights the work of competent people, and the world needs more of those. Great Work!