Software art

Also critical software, experimental software, speculative software.

Events

Catalogue for the Software show, 1970. Download.

• Software - Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art exhibition, Jewish Museum, NYC, 16 September - 8 November 1970; later at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 16 December 1970 - 14 February 1971. Curated by Jack Burnham.
• Transmediale 2001: DIY (do it yourself!) festival conference, Berlin, 4-11 February 2001.
• Kontrollfelder - Programmieren als künstlerische Praxis exhibition, HMKV, Dortmund, 5 April - 5 May 2002. Curated by Andreas Broeckmann and Matthias Weiß.
• Readme festival. Four editions were held: Moscow, 2002; Helsinki, 2003; Aarhus, 2004; Dortmund, 2005. Conceived by Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin.
• Generator exhibition, Spacex Gallery, May-June 2002; later toured the UK. Curated by Geoff Cox.
• CODeDOC online exhibition, Whitney Museum, New York, September 2002; Later as part of Ars Electronica Festival, 2003. Curated by Christiane Paul.
• I love you - computer_viren_hacker_kultur exhibition, Museum of Applied Art, Frankfurt/Main, May-June 2002; later as part of Transmediale festival, Berlin, 31 January-5 February 2003.
• Software Art: A curatorial fiction or a new perspective? conference, Bethanien, Berlin, 4 February 2003.
• Ars Electronica: CODE - The Language of our Time festival, Linz, September 2003.
• Funware, conference and symposium, November 2010-January 2011. Curated by Olga Goriunova. Produced by aaaan.net.

Resources

• Runme, a software art repository. Launched in January 2003.

Artists, theorists, initiatives

• 0x00WE15E7
• Amy Alexander
• Burak Arikan
• Eric Butler
• Code31
• Geoff Cox
• Florian Cramer
• Annet Dekker
• Eleonora Oreggia
• Matthew Fuller
• Olga Goriunova
• GOTO10
• Graham Harwood
• I/O/D
• Jaromil
• Jodi
• Michael Kargl
• Chris King
• Golan Levin
• LISA
• Make Art
• Aymeric Mansoux
• Nancy Mauro-Flude
• Alex McLean
• Moddr
• Mongrel
• Netochka Nezvanova
• Julian Oliver
• OpenLab
• Radical Software Group
• Readme
• Rethread
• Runme.org
• Warren Sack
• Gordan Savičić
• Antoine Schmitt
• Alexei Shulgin
• Bengt Sjölén
• Winnie Soon
• Marloes de Valk
• Danja Vasiliev
• Adrian Ward
• Marius Watz
• Matsuko Yokokoji
• Simon Yuill

Bibliography

Olga Goriunova (ed.), Readme 100: Temporary Software Art Factory, 2006. Download.

Aymeric Mansoux, Marloes de Valk (eds.), FLOSS+Art, 2008. Download.

Books

• Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin (eds.), Read_me 1.2, Moscow, 2002.
• Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin (eds.), ReadMe 2.3 Reader: About Software Art, Helsinki: NIFCA, 2003.
• Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin (eds.), Readme Edition 2004: Software Art and Cultures, Aarhus: University of Aarhus, 2004, 400 pp.
  • Simon Yuill, "Code Art Brutalism: Low-level systems and simple programs".
• Joasia Krysa (ed.), Curating Immateriality: The Work of the Curator in the Age of Network Systems, Autonomedia/I-DAT, 2006, 288 pp.
• Olga Goriunova (ed.), Readme 100: Temporary Software Art Factory, Dortmund: Hartware MedienKunstVerein, 2006.
• Aymeric Mansoux, Marloes de Valk (eds.): FLOSS+Art, Poitiers: GOTO10, and London: Mute, 2008, 320 pp.
• Geoff Cox, Antithesis: The Dialectics of Software Art, Aarhus University, 2010, 232 pp. Book version of a PhD thesis, 2006.
• Digital Artists’ Handbook, folly and GOTO10, 2009, 228 pp.
• Olga Goriunova (ed.), Fun and Software: Exploring Pleasure, Paradox and Pain in Computing, Bloomsbury, 2014. [1]
• Warren Sack, The Software Arts, MIT Press, (forthcoming). Selected chapters.

Book chapters, Papers, Articles

• Edward A. Shanken, "The House that Jack Built: Jack Burnham's Concept of 'Software' as a Metaphor for Art", Leonardo Electronic Almanac 6:10, 1998.
• Geoff Cox, Alex McLean, Adrian Ward, "The Aesthetics of Generative Code", 2000. Paper delivered at the Generative Art 00 conference, Milan, 2000. [2]
• Tilman Baumgärtel, "Experimental Software". Paper presented at the Art+Communication conference, Riga, 26 August 2000.
• Florian Cramer, Ulrike Gabriel, "Software Art", in Andreas Broeckmann, Susanne Jaschko (eds.), DIY Media - Kunst und digitale Medien: Software - Partizipation - Distribution. Transmediale.01, Berlin, 2001, pp 29–33.
• Tilman Baumgärtel, "Experimentelle Software. Zu einigen neueren Computerprogrammen von Künstlern", Telepolis, 28 October 2001. (in German)
• Florian Cramer, "Concepts, Notations, Software, Art", 23 March 2002. [3]
• Thor Magnusson, "Processor Art: Currents in the Process Oriented Works of Generative and Software Art", 2002.
• Ricardo Barreto, Paula Perissinotto, "The Culture of Immanence", in Internet Art, São Paulo: IMESP, 2002.
• Andreas Broegger, "Software Art - an introduction", Copenhagen, 24 September 2003.
• Andreas Broeckmann, "On Software as Art", in Sarai Reader 2003: Shaping Technologies, New Delhi 2003, pp 215-218.
• Andreas Broeckmann, "Runtime Art: Software, Art, Aesthetics", 24 May 2004.
• Josephine Bosma, "Constructing Media Spaces", MediaArtNet, 2004.
• Peter Luining, "Read_Me 2004 review", crumb, 22 September 2004. An extensive review of the Run_Me software art conference/festival.
• Andreas Broeckmann, "Software Art Aesthetics", Mono, No. 1 (July 2007), Porto: FBAUP, pp 158-167.
• Geoff Cox, "Generator: The Value of Software Art", in Judith Rugg (ed.), Issues in Curating, Contemporary Art and Performance, Bristol: Intellect, 2007.
• Geoff Cox, "Software Art Has No History", for re:place conference, Berlin, 2007.
• Simon Yuill, "All Problems of Notation Will be Solved by the Masses", Mute, 23 May 2008.
• Jussi Parikka, "Ethologies of Software Art: What Can a Digital Body of Code Do?", in Zepke & O’Sullivan (eds.), Deleuze and Contemporary Art, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010, pp 116-132.

See also

Software studies, Hacktivism, Net art, Code poetry, Live coding, FLOSS, Demoscene