Read_Me 2.3 Report
In the year 2003, the Read_me festival was held for the second time, and for the first time in Helsinki. A year has passed since the first Moscow 2002 edition, and the festival has grown and germinated through Runme.org - the online software art repository it is now based on.
The idea of Read_Me 2.3 is to test an alternative festival model, especially since the subject of the festival is software art, a realm where people with artists' self-identities coexist with programmers whose views on the process of creation, distribution and even the very meaning of their work can be dramatically different from those of the artists.
The current shape and organization of Read_Me is the result of a number of discussions and analyses concerning the traditional schemes international media art festivals are based on, as well as the organizational forms of open source developers communities. Art festivals as widely accepted forms are often compromised by a lack of transparency in submission and evaluation processes, which prevents interesting authors from submitting their projects and generates quite problematic winners. Open source communities are much more democratic, but have their own drawbacks: they focus on functionality and pragmatic usefulness, thus sometimes leaving out interesting projects seen as unnecessary in these contexts.
In order to keep the advantages and avoid the disadvantages of the two realms a few steps have been taken. An open, moderated software art repository Runme.org has been developed and put up on the Net. The web-site was developed creatively and in an excitingly short period of time by Alex McLean. Amy Alexander participated largely in the testing, development and realization of the solutions along with Alexei Shulgin and Olga Goriunova. The group of concept developers also included Pit Schultz, Florian Cramer, Matthew Fuller, The Yes Men, and Thomax Kaulmann.
The first Read_me 1.2 was also based on an online database where all the entered projects were stored, but the database was closed for new submissions after a pre-arranged deadline. The second Read_me 2.3 is based on a database functioning parallel to and independent from the off-line festival. Projects entered into Runme.org before a certain date were considered as entries for the festival, but the submission of the works was not closed as the database was kept running on a permanent basis.
Read_Me 2.3 has abandoned the monetary prize format, but has retained other features of the festival: calls for submissions, an off-line event with invited participants, a book, etc.
Amy Alexander, Florian Cramer, Olga Goriunova, Matthew Fuller, Alex McLean, Alexei Shulgin, and The Yes Men have reviewed the most interesting in their opinion submitted projects. These projects were featured without ranking in order to avoid giving preference to one approach over another. The new experimental practice has yielded some unusual results. Since Runme.org was open for submissions from everyone, and its developers have uploaded found projects and invited many people to submit their works; the number of works uploaded onto Runme.org during the one and a half month period from the launch to the festival deadline, reached 150, including a large number of interesting works. That is why there were 47 works selected and featured by experts, with other works to be reviewed later. This quite unexpected result of the experiment caused some difficulties in the presentation of all the featured works at the festival, but was also very positive and significant.
...
(full version of the text is published in the Read_Me 2.3 Reader and is available here)
47 featuring texts are published on Runme.org and are included into Read_Me 2.3 Reader
Category: Algorithmic Appreciation
Duff's Device By Tom Duff
Category: Artificial Intelligence
AARON By Harold Cohen
connoisseur By gabor papp
Category: Artistic Tool
BitmapSequencer By Tom Betts
Connector By ixi-software
Category: Bots and Agents
Gogolchat By jimpunk & christophe bruno
Unmovie By Ax. Heide, Onesandzeros, Ph. Pocock, Gr. Stehle
Category: Browser Art
Babel By Simon Biggs
ZNC Browser By Peter Luining
Category: Code Art
Jabberwocky By Eric Andreychek
London.pl (by William Blake) By Graham Harwood
Julu By Alan Sondheim
"Re ___________________________(ad.htm" and
"pro][tean][.lapsing.txts"
by mez
Category: Conceptual Software
Composition 1961 By La Monte Young
.Walk By socialfiction.org
Category: Data Transformation
Video Killed the Radio Star By Jonathan Harel
Category: Digital Aesthetics Research and Development
os_anm By slateford
Category: Digital Folk and Artisanship
discomus.exe By Anonymous
DOS pseudo-viruses collection By Various artists
Face #7 By Dave Fischer
Google Groups Art By Paul, Tim Flaherty, Nathan McCoy, Stuart Langridge
Category: Existing Software Manipulations
Dictionaraoke By Snoogles
Category: Games
RETROYOU R/C STORY : RETROYOU R/C [paradise] [FCK THE GRAVITY CODE] [FRAG] class By joan leandre
SPS By (Karl-)Robert Ek
Category: Generative Art
n_Gen Design Machine By Move Design
Category: Hardware Transformation
Tempest for Eliza By Erik Thiele
Category: Installation-based
God's Eye By Sintron
Category: Institutional Critique
Rotten flesh By Jeff Epler
Category: Political and Activist Software
DeArt - DeCSS Art Contest (et al) By Tom Vogt and Various Authors
Homeland Security Threat Monitor By Greg Hewgill
The Injunktion Generator By ubermorgen.com
marchtowar.com By marchtowar.com
Pngreader By textz.com / Project Gnutenberg
SuPerVillainizer - Conspiracy Client By LAN
Various CueCat Hacks By Various Authors
Walser.php By textz.com / Project Gnutenberg
Category: Software Cultures
Sweetcode.org By Dan Egnor
Category: System Dysfunctionality
DOGS By Sintron
forkbomb by jaromil
MacMag Virus Computer Graphics Conspiracy By Artemus Barnoz (Richard Brandow) & Boris Wanowitch
Category: Text Manipulation
Bible (alphabetical order) By Rory Macbeth
Dasher By David MacKay, Inference Group, Cavendish Laboratory
Kraut v.0.9 By John Sparks
Postmodernism Generator By Andrew C. Bulhak
Travesty By Hugh Kenner and Joseph P. O'Rourke
