Tag Archives: lgm

Libre Graphics Meeting 2015

Posted on by

From 27th April – 3rd May I’ll be in Toronto for the 10th Libre Graphics Meeting. Details of what I’ll be doing will follow shortly.

lgm_gif

Libre Graphics Meeting

Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) is the annual gathering of users and developpers of Free and Open Source software for graphics, design, and visual art. This unique event brings together different groups, usually gathering around specific projects, online, via their mailing-lists or forums. LGM has grown over the years to become an essential moment in the lives of these diverse but interconnected communities. The discussions, presentations and feedback available at LGM have had a positive impact on the developpment of both the tools and their respective communities. The event gives developers, contributors and users a chance to get together, get things done, and come up with new ways forward.

P1020111-P1020114.jpg

And more info on this year’s event:

Libre Graphics Meeting 2015 – Beyond the first decade

For its 10th edition, Libre Graphics Meeting is looking back at the achievements of Free/Libre and Open Source software for artists and designers. We’re also looking forward, at the developments coming in the next decade.

Since its first edition, held in Lyon, France, in 2006, Libre Graphics Meeting has been bringing together software developers, artists, designers, users and other contributors to Free/Libre and Open Source graphics software. For its tenth edition, Libre Graphics Meeting heads to Toronto for four days of talks, workshops, hack sessions and meetings.

Reclaim your tools

Developers and prominent users of software projects like Inkscape, Gimp, Scribus, Fontforge, My Paint, Blender, and Krita—among many others— come together to show off their projects and discuss them with the larger Libre Graphics community. Not only is Libre Graphics Meeting an exciting and motivating moment for developers and users of all kinds, from typographers to illustrators, designers and video artists, it’s is also a unique moment for users and developers of free software to collide and share ideas beyond the confined space of mailing-lists, bug trackers or forums.

2015 is going to be an exciting year for LGM. The program, available online now, is packed full of talks and workshops, from new methods of type design to animation, as well as plenty of time built in for informal collaboration and discussion. As well as the four scheduled days, LGM 2015 will also feature pre-event work sessions and hackathons, including the Inkscape Hackfest, which will allow developers of the popular vector graphics software to get together and do concentrated work.

LGM is open to the public, and registration is free. Even if you don’t plan to attend LGM, you can always help us fund the costs of bringing contributors to this invaluable meeting. Our annual fundraising campaign helps support the travel costs of contributors travelling to attend LGM. If you’re a user or just a fan of Free and Open Source Software, please consider donating as a way to say “Thank You!” to the developers of these projects. All contributions will be used to reimburse those who travel to Toronto to make our software better.

nomis in the machine

The tenth edition of Libre Graphics Meeting will offer a unique look at the achievements of the last ten years of the Libre Graphics world, and opens the door for more great things in the years to come. So if you are an artist or developer interested in Free and Open Source tools, don’t miss a chance to participate in this unique and itinirary event held this year in the beautiful city of Toronto. You will learn how those tools are reshaping the way artist work and have the opportunity to share your ideas with some of the most interseting people of this community.

Being given the opportunity to attend Lbire Graphics Meeting gives me a chance to influence the development of software, and also to show developers what art their tireless efforts are helping to create. For everyone else, though, I feel that the Libre Graphics Meeting is important to further the development of not only open source software but digital culture as a whole. Many libraries, programs and ideas have been formulated or accelerated thanks to these face-to-face meetings, and new ideas that challenge the status quo are developed here.

If any of this resonates to you and you want to help then donate to help make LGM happen! This money will help to cover expenses of the developers. Of course, they could start charging for registration, but by keeping it free they reduce the barriers for anyone interested to take part.

Click here to lend your support to: Libre Graphics Meeting 2015 - Toronto, Canada and make a donation at pledgie.com !

The Transnational Glitch

Posted on by

Below is my article for Volume 2, Issue 1 of Libre Graphics magazine. You can still buy the issue or download it from their website.

American English is the common language of computing and the internet. That’s quite unfortunate. There are indeed many talented non-English speakers building our websites and shaping our digital future. That potential aside, one only has to look at the programming languages themselves and even small things like web addresses to see a bias towards English. Functions in popular programming languages are derived from English and, while websites that are not in English exist, their URLs are always in English, with only the domain extension (.fr, .pt, .es, .cn, etc.) available to give the website a sense of cultural identity.

lgm_5

The English-language bias also extends itself to digital art. Creative programming languages like Pure Data and Processing still use English as their common language and present barriers to those who want to take part. Is an English-only ecosystem really the way forward?

One area of digital art that I see transcending these barriers is glitch art. Glitch art is the aesthetisation of digital or analogue errors, such as artifacts and other “bugs”, by either corrupting digital code and data or by physically manipulating electronic devices. Glitching through physical manipulation of electronics has been popularized by the practice of circuit bending. If this sounds too vague, think of a television screen beginning to corrupt or a camera taking strange-looking pictures. Glitch artists try to capture and reproduce these types of ephemeral moments and display them as art.

lgm_4

The history of glitch art is very hard to trace. Glitch music (Aphex Twin, Autechre) has been around since the 1990s and with it, chaotic and noisy visuals like those of Gantz Graf by Autechre and Szamar Madar by Venetian Snares. In popular culture it has even broken out of the electronic music scene and can be seen everywhere from music videos by Kanye West, Xiu Xiu and Everything Everything to advertisements for MTV and The Biggest Loser. One only has to look at the “glitch art” tag on Tumblr or Flickr to see that it is an art form that has sparked the imaginations of people the world over.

lgm_2

Beyond the internet, digital arts and new media festivals serve as physical meeting places for those interested in digital art forms. Glitch art has found an audience at these festivals. Festival de Arte Digital in Brazil, AND (Abandon Normal Devices) in the UK and Transmediale in Germany are only a selection of venues which, at one time or another, have had sections devoted to glitch art. However, until 2002, there hadn’t been a festival dedicated solely to glitch art.

lgm_3

In 2002, in Oslo, Norway, the Motherboard art group was the first to hold a large-scale glitch art event. Post-Oslo, glitch-specific events laid dormant for a time, until 2010, when the GLI.TC/H conference began in Chicago. Since then, it has taken place in 2011 in Amsterdam and Birmingham, UK. I attended the 2010 festival in Chicago and the 2011 festival in Birmingham. What quickly became apparent to me from this festival was the international appeal of glitch art. While the bulk of participants physically present at the 2010 festival in Chicago and the 2011 festival in Birmingham were English speaking, the contributions of art came from an international community of creators.

lgm_1

The popularisation of glitch art on the internet, the increasing number of festivals featuring sections devoted to glitch art and the overwhelming response to the GLI.TC/H festivals since 2010 only highlights its international appeal and suggests that the visual language of glitch art transcends languages, cultural differences and location barriers. Glitch art needs no common language. The process of throwing a camera into the air in order to produce glitches requires no proficiency in any language — programming or spoken — or professional qualification. The shattered screens, errors on computers and broken things will always evoke the same feelings of panic, frustration, annoyance, elation or glee no matter where in the world you are.

Libre Graphics Magazine 2.1 – Localisation/Internationalization

Posted on by

I’m happy to announce that I’ll have a regular column in volume two of Libre Graphics magazine, starting with the first issue, Localisation/Internationalization

Libre Graphics Magazine 2.1

This February, Libre Graphics Magazine has reached a major milestone. We have published and shipped issue 2.1, the first number in our second volume. Titled “Localization/Internationalisation,” this issue explores the unique problems of non-latin type, the hyper-localisation of custom clothing patterns and international visual languages, among other topics.

Launched at FOSDEM, this issue marks the beginning of our second volume of publication, and heralds our move towards an increasingly critical slant. Exploring not just how Free/Libre Open Source Software can be used to create high quality art and design, in volume 2, we see a growing emphasis on the cultural and social issues around F/LOSS and Free Culture. With 2.1, we discuss issues of regionality. We are currently seeking submissions for 2.2, “Gendering F/LOSS,” which will revolve around gendered identity and work in F/LOSS and Free Culture.

We invite both potential readers and submittors to download, view, write, pull, branch and otherwise engage. We hope, in the coming year and with the help of a growing community, to further push the work of F/LOSS art, design and discussion.

The Transnational Glitch

My first column focuses on the international language of glitch and digital art.

Libre Graphics Magazine 2.1 - The Transnational Glitch

Here’s an excerpt:

American English is the common language of computing and the internet. That’s quite unfortunate when there are so many talented non-English speakers building our websites and shaping our digital future. That potential aside, one only has to look at the programming languages themselves and even small things like web addresses to see a bias to- wards English. Functions in popular programming languages are derived from English and, while websites that are not in English exist, their urls are always in English, with only the domain extension (.fr, .pt, .es, .cn, etc.) available to give the website a sense of cultural identity.

Libre Graphics magazine is free to download from their website or can be purchased – which I recommend – for $12 CAD plus postage.

About Libre Graphics magazine

Libre Graphics magazine (ISSN 1925-1416) is a print publication devoted to showcasing and promoting work created with Free/Libre Open Source Software. Since 2010, we have been publishing work about or including artistic practices which integrate Free, Libre and Open software, standards, culture, methods and licenses.

Website: http://libregraphicsmag.com
Identi.ca: http://identi.ca/libregraphicsmagazine
Twitter: https://twitter.com/libgraphicsmag
Gitorious: https://gitorious.org/libregraphicsmag

What Revolution? in Libre Graphics Magazine

Posted on by

What Revolution? in Libre Graphics Magazine
What Revolution? is featured in the Showcase section of issue 1.2 of Libre Graphics Magazine. The theme for this issues is Use Cases and Affordances:

Our software tools, in their affordances and potential use cases, define for us, to a certain extent, what we may and may not do. Those decisions are put in place by the people who design the tools. Together, as users, developers and all areas between the two extremes, we boil in a constantly reconfiguring sea of use possibilities, material and mental affordances.

You can find out more about the magazine through this brilliant presentation from FOSDEM 2011.

I’m still waiting for my copy to arrive from Canada, so for now the PDF will suffice. Go support the open source and free culture scene and get your copy!