Software art

Also artistic software, critical software, experimental software, speculative software.

Repositories

• Runme, a software art repository. Launched in Jan 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

Events

This chronology does not include events primarily concerned with computer art and internet art or more broadly with digital art and new media art.

• Transmediale 2001: DIY (do it yourself!) festival conference, Berlin, 4-11 Feb 2001. This year the festival introduced an award for "artistic software", the first award given and solely dedicated to software art.
• Kontrollfelder - Programmieren als künstlerische Praxis exhibition, HMKV, Dortmund, 5 Apr-5 May 2002. Curated by Andreas Broeckmann and Matthias Weiß; organized by art.net.dortmund.de and transmediale, Berlin. [1]
• Generator exhibition, Spacex Gallery, Exeter, 1 May-22 Jun 2002; Spaces at Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, 14-29 Sep 2002; Firstsite, Colchester, 8 Feb-29 Mar 2003. Curated by Geoff Cox. Video.
• Readme festival held in four editions: Macros-center, Moscow, 18-19 May 2002; Media Centre Lume, Helsinki, 30-31 May 2003; Aarhus, 23-27 Aug 2004 (review: Luining (Crumb)); HMKV, Dortmund, 4-5 Nov 2005. Conceived by Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin.
• I love you - computer_viren_hacker_kultur exhibition, Museum of Applied Art, Frankfurt/Main, 23 May-13 Jun 2002; later as part of Transmediale festival, Berlin, 31 Jan-5 Feb 2003; Museum of Contemporary Art, Novi Sad, 22 Jun-4 Jul 2006; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, 11-24 Jul 2006.
• CODeDOC online exhibition, Whitney Museum, New York, Sep 2002; later as part of Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, 2003. Curated by Christiane Paul.
• Software Art: A curatorial fiction or a new perspective? conference, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 4 Feb 2003. Part of Transmediale festival.
• Ars Electronica: CODE: The Language of our Time festival, Linz, 6-11 Sep 2003. Booklet. Reviews: Manovich (Nettime), Engeli (Leonardo).
• After the Net exhibition, Centre del Carme, Valencia, 5-29 Jun 2008; Peninsula Arts Gallery, Plymouth, 12 Sep-23 Oct 2009; Tecnologico de Monterrey Toluca, Mexico, 3-5 Mar 2010. Curated by Joasia Krysa (KURATOR).
• Funware conference and symposium, Nov 2010-Jan 2011. Curated by Olga Goriunova; produced by aaaan.net (Annet Dekker and Annette Wolfsberger).

Publications

Read_me: Software Art & Cultures, 2004.

Florian Cramer, Words Made Flesh, 2005, Log.

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

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

This bibliography does not include texts primarily concerned with computer art and internet art or more broadly with digital art and new media art.

Books, Catalogues

• rtfm. Eine Kompilation von Texten, Netz-Fundstücken, Beschreibungen und Gebrauchsanweisungen für die Ausstellung 'Kontrollfelder. Programmieren als künstlerische Praxis', 2002. (German)
• Read_me Festival 1.2: Software Art/Software Art Games, eds. Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, Moscow, 2002.
• I love you - Computer, Viren, Hacker, Kultur, ed. Franziska Nori, Frankfurt am Main: Museum für Angewandte Kunst (MAK), 2002, 114 pp. Catalogue. (German),(English)
• SoftwareArt: eine Reportage über den Code, ed. Gerrit Gohlke, Berlin: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2003, 68 pp. Based on the Software Art conference. Texts by Inke Arns, Tilman Baumgärtel, Florian Cramer, Gerrit Gohlke, Karl Heinz Jeron. [2] (German)/(English)
• ReadMe 2.3 Reader: About Software Art, eds. Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, Helsinki: NIFCA, 2003, 87 pp. [3]
• Ars Electronica: CODE: The Language of our Time, Linz: Ars Electronica, 2003. Catalogue.
• Read_me: Software Art & Cultures, eds. Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, Aarhus: University of Aarhus, 2004, 396 pp. TOC. Conference proceedings and exhibition catalogue. [4]. Review: Knight (Leonardo).
• Florian Cramer, Words Made Flesh: Code, Culture, Imagination, Rotterdam: Media Design Research, Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam, 2005, 140 pp. [5]
• Curating Immateriality: The Work of the Curator in the Age of Network Systems, ed. Joasia Krysa, Autonomedia/I-DAT, 2006, 288 pp.
• Readme 100: Temporary Software Art Factory, ed. Olga Goriunova, Dortmund: Hartware MedienKunstVerein, 2006.
• FLOSS+Art, eds. Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk, Poitiers: GOTO10, and London: Mute, 2008, 320 pp.
• Geoff Cox, Antithesis: The Dialectics of Software Art, Aarhus University, 2010, 232 pp. Based on author's PhD thesis, 2006.
• Digital Artists’ Handbook, folly and GOTO10, 2009, 228 pp.
• Form+Code in Design, Art, and Architecture: "Code", eds. Casey Reas, Chandler McWilliams, and LUST, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010, 176 pp.
• Warren Sack, The Software Arts, MIT Press, (forthcoming).

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, Nov 1998; repr. in Reframing Consciousness: Art and Consciousness in the Post-Biological Era, ed. Roy Ascott, Exeter: Intellect, 1999.
• Tilman Baumgärtel, "Experimental Software", 2000. Paper presented at the Art+Communication conference, Riga, 26 Aug 2000.
• Geoff Cox, Alex McLean, Adrian Ward, "The Aesthetics of Generative Code", 2000. Paper delivered at the Generative Art 00 conference, Milan, Dec 2000. [6]
• Florian Cramer, Ulrike Gabriel, "Software Art", 15 Aug 2001, PDF; repr. in DIY Media: Kunst und digitale Medien: Software, Partizipation, Distribution. Transmediale.01, eds. Andreas Broeckmann and Susanne Jaschko, Berlin: Berliner Kulturveranstaltungs, 2001, pp 29-33 [7], repr. as "Software Art and Writing", American Book Review 22:6, Sep-Oct 2001 [8]; repr. as "On Software Art", in Rhizome, 20 Sep 2001. Written 15 Aug 2001. (German)
• Tilman Baumgärtel, "Experimentelle Software. Zu einigen neueren Computerprogrammen von Künstlern", Telepolis, 28 Oct 2001. (German)
• Florian Cramer, "Der selbstausführende Entwurf: Software und Softwarekunst", 24 Jan 2002. (German)
  • "Concepts, Notations, Software, Art", 23 Mar 2002, PDF.
• Florian Cramer, "Contextualizing Software Art", [18 May] 2002.
• Amy Alexander, Cue P. Doll, Florian Cramer, RTMark, Alexei Shulgin, "Read_Me Festival 1.2 Jury Statement", May 2002. [9]
• Thor Magnusson, Processor Art: Currents in the Process Oriented Works of Generative and Software Art, 2002, 116 pp. Thesis.
• Ricardo Barreto, Paula Perissinotto, "The Culture of Immanence", in Internet Art, São Paulo: IMESP, 2002.
• Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin, "QuickView on Software Art", Feb 2003. Survey; participants: Amy Alexander, Florian Cramer, Matthew Fuller, Thomax Kaulmann, Alex McLean, Pit Schultz, The Yes Men.
• Florian Cramer, "Zehn Thesen zur Softwarekunst", 23 Sep 2003, PDF; repr. in SoftwareArt: eine Reportage über den Code, ed. Gerrit Gohlke, Berlin, 2003, pp 6-14. (German)
  • "Ten Theses about Software Art", 23 Sep 2003, PDF.
• Ivan Stehlík (mim), "Software.art = Umenie programovať?", 3/4 Revue 14, Bratislava, 2003. (Slovak)
• Andreas Broegger, "Software Art - an introduction", Copenhagen, 24 Sep 2003.
• Andreas Broeckmann, "On Software as Art", in Sarai Reader 2003: Shaping Technologies, New Delhi, 2003, pp 215-218.
• Simon Yuill, "Code Art Brutalism: Low-level Systems and Simple Programs", Apr 2004; repr. in Read_me: Software Art & Cultures, eds. Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, Aarhus: University of Aarhus, 2004.
• Geoff Cox, Alex McLean, Adrian Ward, "Coding Praxis: Reconsidering the Aesthetics of Code", in Read_me: Software Art & Cultures, eds. Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, Aarhus: University of Aarhus, 2004, pp 160-174. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium Programmation-Orientee Art, University of Paris: Sorbonne, Mar 2004.
• Inke Arns, "Read_me, run_me, execute_me. Code als ausführbarer Text: Softwarekunst und ihr Fokus auf Programmcodes als performative Texte", MedienKunstNetz, 2004. (German)
  • "Read_me, run_me, execute_me: Code as Executable Text: Software Art and its Focus on Program Code as Performative Text", trans. Donald Kiraly, MediaArtNet, 2004.
• Josephine Bosma, "Constructing Media Spaces: The novelty of net(worked) art was and is all about access and engagement", MediaArtNet, 2004.
  • "Die Konstruktion von Medienräumen. Zugang und Engagement: das eigentlich Neue an der Netz(werk)kunst", trans. Nikolaus G. Schneider, MedienKunstNetz, 2004. (German)
• Andreas Broeckmann, "Runtime Art: Software, Art, Aesthetics", 24 May 2004.
• Inke Arns, "Code as Performative Speech Act", Artnodes, Barcelona: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Jul 2005.
• Andreas Broeckmann, "Software Art Aesthetics", Mono 1, Porto: FBAUP, Jul 2007, pp 158-167.
• Geoff Cox, "Generator: The Value of Software Art", in Issues in Curating, Contemporary Art and Performance, ed. Judith Rugg, Bristol: Intellect, 2007.
• Geoff Cox, "Software Art Has No History", 2007. Paper given at re:place conference, Berlin.
• 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 Deleuze and Contemporary Art, eds. Zepke and O’Sullivan, Edinburgh University Press, 2010, pp 116-132.
• Jana Horáková, "Softwarové umění: programování excesu", Musicologica Brunensia 47:2 (2012), pp 23-47. (Czech)
• Monika Szücsová, Softwarové umenie: genealógia, história, jazyk, Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2015, 71 pp. Master's thesis. (Slovak)

See also

• Software - Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art exhibition, 1970.
• Computer art, Net art
• Hacktivism, Code poetry, Live coding, Demoscene
• Software studies
• FLOSS