"Everything is what it is, and not another thing."
Joseph Butler

"Everything is what it is....."
Isiah Berlin

Never mind all the industry power games and Byzantine conspiracy theories,
what on earth was a jury of The Prix Ars Electronica, a prize for the
practice of art and technology doing giving this prize to Linux?

Despite post Duchampian complexity art remains a distinctive discourse with
its own history and frames of reference. This does not mean that art is a
closed system. Artists, particularly if they work with electronic media
need to remain responsive to developments in all fields and particularly
from the open source movement which has powerful lessons for the arts on
the importance of refreshing stale attitudes to collaborative work and
authorship. It is also vital that we move away from the notions that
artists are the sole possessors of a mysterious force called creativity,
meaning they are often brought in to provide the "culture" once the
technical people have done their work. The Free software/Open source
community has demonstrated clearly enough that hackers have their own
distinctive culture and have little need of awards from inappropriate
sources. This only serves to add another layer of mystification over an
area which is complex enough.

To give the Prix Ars Electronica to Linux is as ridiculous as awarding
Einstein the Nobel prize for literature because of the beauty of his
equations.

David Garcia

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