Software art

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

Events

• 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.
• Readme festival held in four editions: Moscow, 2002; Helsinki, 2003; Aarhus, 2004; Dortmund, 2005. Conceived by Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin.
• Generator exhibition, Spacex Gallery, May-Jun 2002; later toured the UK. Curated by Geoff Cox. Video.
• CODeDOC online exhibition, Whitney Museum, New York, Sep 2002; later as part of Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, 2003. Curated by Christiane Paul.
• I love you - computer_viren_hacker_kultur exhibition, Museum of Applied Art, Frankfurt/Main, May-Jun 2002; later as part of Transmediale festival, Berlin, 31 Jan-5 Feb 2003.
• Software Art: A curatorial fiction or a new perspective? conference, Bethanien, Berlin, 4 Feb 2003.
• Ars Electronica: CODE - The Language of our Time festival, Linz, Sep 2003.
• 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).

Resources

• 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

Publications

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.

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.), Read_me: Software Art & Cultures, Aarhus: University of Aarhus, 2004, 396 pp. TOC.
• Florian Cramer, Words Made Flesh: Code, Culture, Imagination, Rotterdam: Media Design Research, Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam, 2005, 140 pp. [1]
• 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. Based on author's PhD thesis, 2006.
• Digital Artists’ Handbook, folly and GOTO10, 2009, 228 pp.
• Casey Reas, Chandler McWilliams, LUST (eds.), Form+Code in Design, Art, and Architecture: "Code", 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.
• 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", 2000. Paper presented at the Art+Communication conference, Riga, 26 Aug 2000.
• 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 [3], repr. as "Software Art and Writing", American Book Review 22:6, Sep-Oct 2001 [4]; 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.
• 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.
• Gerrit Gohlke (ed.), SoftwareArt: eine Reportage über den Code, 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. [5] (German)/(English)
• 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.
• 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 Sep 2004. An extensive review of the Run_Me software art conference/festival.
• 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