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ABSTRACT -------- "The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice" is a screenshot (crisis.png) that shows, among various other things, the source code of a piece of software (crisis.php) and its documentation (crisis.txt). The code, once typed up and executed, will transform the screenshot into the full text of Neal Stephenson's novel "Cryptonomicon". "The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice" is not an actual, but a virtual computer program: an image of piece of software that still has to be created by copying, saving and running its source code. While the screenshot may be the "intellectual property" of Robert Luxemburg, the program itself is free software and may be redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License. "The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice" is part of a series of copyright circumvention devices - walser.php (http://textz.com/trash), pngreader (http://pngreader.gnutenberg.net) - that try to exploit the structural flaws in the concept of "intellectual property". It is intended to practically illustrate the assumption that digital data will always escape copyright protection and that "digital rights" will never be "manageable". "The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice" also serves as proof of concept for a universal cryptographic method to transform any digital content into whatever copyrighted work. The algorithm is not limited to image-to-text transformation, but could as well transform a digital video (in which a similar script would be shown, read or otherwise presented) into a video editing software suite. "The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice" was nominated for the Transmediale Software Award 2004 and the Werkleitz Award 2004. The work is available as an edition of 10 digital prints (51.2 x 38.4 cm, signed, $200 unframed, $250 framed, plus shipping), as an edition of 100 CDs (Win/Mac/Linux/Unix, signed, $20 plus shipping) and on file sharing networks (unlimited number of copies, unsigned, free). F.A.Q. ------ Q: How does it work? A: The source code is open, so find out yourself. Q: What's up with the last 50 bytes of $z? A: If you are that far, you are very close. Q: Is it legal? A: That depends on your national legislation. In some parts of the world, the screenshot may be considered a copyright circumvention device, and you may not be allowed to view, select, copy, paste, save or print the output of the program, which itself you may not be allowed to obtain, own, run, reverse engineer, make available or even talk about. In case you are in doubt, it is recommended that you contact a local law office. Q: Why is the screenshot called The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice? A: The title is derived from a quote from Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri: "The conceptual crisis of private property does not become a crisis in practice, and instead the regime of private expropriation has tended to be applied universally." (page 302) Q: Why does the screenshot contain the novel Cryptonomicon? A: Neal Stephenson's novel not only deals with cryptography, but was actually subject to U.S. export restrictions since it contained a cryptographic algorithm that was considered a trade secret. Q: Why was the the screenshot taken on Tuesday, April 20, at 11:57:20 AM? A: The desktop background is based on a video still that was taken at that date and time, in 1999. Q: What is the software shown in the dock? A: From left to right: Mac OS X Finder, Adobe Acrobat Reader, BBEdit, Apple QuickTime, CopyLeft, Rolux Reader, Apple FireWire Manager, Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple LiveType, Opera, Netscape, Mozilla, Apple NetInfo Manager and Mac OS X Trash. Q: What additional software do I need to exactly recreate the screenshot? A: Mac OS X 10.2 (quite obviously), TinkerTool (to change the number of lines for file names in icon view from 2 to 3), TransparentDock (to adjust the dock transparency) and Snapz Pro X (to take the screenshot). You will also have to edit /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Clock.menu/Contents/Resources/ English.lproj/Localizable.strings and set "MBC_CLOCK_FORMAT_STRING" to "%a %b %e %time%p" (to adjust the date format displayed in the menu bar). Q: Will I be able to transform the recreated screenshot into Cryptonomicon? A: Not unless you make significant modifications to crisis.php. Q: How do i find the original screenshot on filesharing networks? A: Just search for "crisis.png". The size of the file should be 1,476,639 bytes. Once you have downloaded it, please don't forget to share it. BIOGRAPHY --------- Robert Luxemburg, born in 1972 in Bielefeld/Germany, college/university in Paris, Berlin and New York, lives in Berlin, working as a writer, programmer and artist. Software Projects (selection): rolux.org (1998), Rolux Internet Implorer (1999), Rolux Minordomo (2000), Project GNUtenberg (2000), textz.com (2000), walser.php (2002), DePNG (2003), SPIEGELstudien (2003) Video Works (selection): Die Kinder von Godard und Coca-Cola (1998), Drei Farben: Schwarz Rot Gold (1999), Deutschland gegen die Geschichte (1999), Die Negation und der Konsum in der Kultur (2000), Millennium (2001), Betacity (2002), Burn Hollywood Burn (2003) Group Exhibitions & Festival Contributions (selection): The Thing, New York (2001), Kurzfilmfestival, Oberhausen (2002), PS1, New York (2002), Cinematexas, Austin (2002), Kunstwerke, Berlin (2003), Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna (2004), Transmediale, Berlin (2004), Runtime Art, Zagreb (2004), Free Bitflows, Vienna (2004) |