cultural significance of Open Source
and explains clearly how it involves far
more than simply free software applica-
tions such as Open Office or Linux. If
we accept the notion that “knowledge is
power,” this book argues,
All of these concerns amount to a re-
orientation of knowledge and power that is
incomplete and emergent, and whose
implications reach directly into the
heart of the legitimacy, certainty, reli-
ability and especially the finality and
temporality of the knowledge and infra-
structures we collectively create (p. 6).
The book is well written, well argued,
and extremely well researched. It is
arranged in three parts, of 10 chapters,
together with an Introduction, Index,
extensive Notes and a comprehensive
Bibliography.
Part I, “The Internet,” “introduces
the reader to the concept of recursive
publics by exploring the lives, works,
and discussions of an international
community of geeks brought together
by shared interest in the Internet” (p. 5).
Part II, “Free Software,” moves away
from the ethnographic approach and
presents a “historically detailed portrait
of the emergence of Free Software and
why it has emerged at this point in his-
tory” (p. 5).
Part III, “Modulations,” re-engages
the ethnographic approach and dis-
cusses in detail “two related projects
inspired by Free Software”: “Creative
Commons, a nonprofit organization
that creates copyright licenses, and
Connexions, a project to develop an
online scholarly textbook commons”
(p. 6).
Much of Kelty’s argument rests on
what he calls “recursive publics,” and
this is the nitty-gritty of why Open
Source is a quiet, nonviolent revolu-
tion (à la Gandhi) and is inextricably
involved in power struggles, large and
small corporate business and global
politics. “Recursive publics are publics
concerned with the ability to build,
control, modify, and maintain the infra-
structure that allows them to come into
being in the first place” (p. 7).
Considering the scope of the sub-
ject matter, the book is not especially
steeped in technical jargon and is
therefore highly readable for a wide
and varied audience. Contrary to first
impression, this book is not specifi-
cally directed towards geeks, software
code authors or other computer nerds,
although these individuals will find the
book informative and inspiring. It also
should be read by all who have posi-
tions of influence, such as teachers,
cultural studies academics, government
decision/policy makers and of course
members of the legal profession.
I think it is fair to say that open
source has moved on from its innocent
infancy into adolescence and thus far
more debate and investigation into its
nature is required. This book goes a
long way in forming a foundation for
such further informed inquiry. The
“Conclusion,” at the end of Part III, has
some surprising suggestions and recom-
mendations and very succinctly sums
up the evolving, mutable nature of Open
Source/Free Software. In Kelty’s own
words,
A question remains, though: in chang-
ing, does Free Software and its kin
preserve the imagination of moral and
technical order that created it? Is the
recursive public something that sur-
vives, orders, or makes sense of these
changes? Does Free Software exist for
more than its own sake? (p. 301)
I for one believe absolutely that it
does, but don’t take my word for it;
read and enjoy the book and come to
your own informed conclusion.
ART POWER
by Boris Groys. MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA, U.S.A., 2008. 224 pp. Trade. ISBN:
0-262-07292-0.
Reviewed by Boris Jardine, Department of
History and Philosophy of Science, Univer-
sity of Cambridge. E-mail: <bj210@cam.
ac.uk>.
Extracting a sustained argument from
Art Power is no easy task. It purports to
be a program piece but is in fact a set
of “collected essays.” It is not surpris-
ing, therefore, that there is a peculiar
mix of circularity and jumpiness in its
narrative—Groys repeats himself on
numerous occasions, even quoting the
same source twice, but each repetition
brings a subtly different emphasis. The
effect is disconcerting; there is a certain
scattergun quality to Groys’s thinking.
His generalizing, powerful and contrary
tone is all that persists from start to
finish.
Yet there is a line—one of many, no
doubt—that can be drawn through Art
Power, one that shows just what this kind
of high aesthetic theory can achieve.
It begins in the first essay, on the rela-
tionship between chronology, art and
difference. Here Groys argues for the
“equality of aesthetic rights”—for the
systematic suspension of traditional
modes of aesthetic judgment: “The art
world should be seen as the socially
codified manifestation of the fun-
damental equality between all visual
forms, objects, and media” (p. 14).
This, Groys concedes, is an old idea,
with its origins (as with so much else
in Art Power) in the work of Marcel
Duchamp. More pertinently, it can be
read as an expanded version of Perry
Anderson’s claim that aesthetic plural-
ism might save us from the tyranny of
chronologically defined art, from mod-
ernism, postmodernism, and, presum-
ably, the threat of post-postmodernism
[1]. Compare, for example:
The axes of aesthetic life would, in
other words . . . run horizontally, not
vertically [2].
with:
Hence, it is not to the “vertical” infin-
ity of divine truth that the artist today
makes reference, but to the “horizon-
tal” infinity of aesthetically equal im-
ages (p. 17).
Anderson’s conclusion has become
Groys’s premise. The next step is for
Groys to explain that within the logic
of equal aesthetic rights, the sole crite-
rion for judgment rests on the degree
to which an artwork can be said to
promote and sustain aesthetic diversity.
Twenty years on from Anderson and 80
from Fountain, we might be forgiven for
thinking that this is a particularly feeble
move. But for Groys it is the necessary,
basic assumption on which critical and
curatorial apparatus must be based.
Leonardo Reviews 275
Moreover, there is something admirable
in a formulation that takes seriously the
task of undermining traditional criteria
of judgment so wholeheartedly. One
suspected all along that the pessimism
in Anderson’s and his contemporaries’
writing was borne of a desire to have
their ideological cake and spit it out—
to rejoice in the avant-garde’s critique
of bourgeois aesthetics and yet still
feel able to decry art on some aesthetic
grounds. For Groys, with all traditional
grounds gone, we can build from dif-
ference alone—a thankless task, but an
honest one.
Following this, Groys offers a defense
of the roles of both the museum and
the critic. These are timely interven-
tions and constitute the beating heart
of the book. The privileged museum
space, regardless of its historical origins,
must now serve as an artistic garrison,
fending off the attacks of the art market
and mass media. Far from being under-
mined by the humiliations of modern-
ism and postmodernism, the museum
has found itself to be the only space in
which art can be recognized as such.
To be sure, this puts the museum in a
precariously close relationship to the
commercial gallery and wider art mar-
ket, but it also means that the museum
is the only space in which proper aes-
thetic rebellion can take place and be
recognized as such. In parallel with the
raising of the ordinary to the artistic,
the museum allows us to downgrade the
visual hyperbole of reality into the man-
ageable calm of an exhibited artwork—
it is a veritable space for all seasons.
Complementing the museum is its
orator, the critic. Groys first shows us
how powerless and emaciated artistic
commentators have become—merely
dressing artworks for the market or tell-
ing the public that their favorite artists
really are that good—before presenting a
new model. This new critic, well-versed
in aesthetic equality and difference,
would delight in showing how one
avant-garde stance differs from another,
politically, morally and perhaps even
historically and aesthetically. There is
more in these middle essays than it is
possible to summarize, and they offer
ample recompense for the book’s cha-
otic nature.
Returning to what nearly becomes Art
Power’s central theme, Groys presents us
in closing with a truly politicized essay,
entitled “Europe and Its Others.” Here
we have a synthesis of sorts: Aesthetic
equality and the attendant paradox
of art’s sovereignty are set against the
backdrop of the European desire to leg-
276 Leonardo Reviews
islate and self-efface in equal measure,
to export the universal dicta of human
rights and at the same time draw back
from the pseudo-imperial projects of
modernization theory. The argument
contains an almost Heideggerian dose
of slippage through metaphor and
metonymy, but it also contains some
valuable insights. For example, the
modern, cross-cultural and ahistorical
communities of mass communication
are compared to the communities of
art galleries. The crucial difference
between the arbiters of these commu-
nities, argues Groys, is that the blank
vehicles of the media cannot be reflex-
ive, working as they do in the manner
of commodity, not art. At the end of
this particular line through Art Power,
we reach a point at which Groys can, as
it were, agree with himself: paradoxi-
cal art, as all good modern art is, will
flourish and interact with its communi-
ties at the meeting point of internally
conflicted politics (pace contemporary
European politics), new technology
(pace formal and generic diversity) and
institutional struggle (pace the museum
as barracks).
This, at least, is one reading of Art
Power. It is a struggle, but extracting an
argument is worth the effort.
References
1. P. Anderson, “Modernity and Revolution,” New Left
Review, I/144, March–April 1984, pp. 96–113.
2. Anderson [1] p. 113.
DYING AND DEATH: INTER-
DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES
by Asa Kasher, ed. Rodopi Press,
Amsterdam/New York, 2007, 217 pp.
Paper. ISBN: 978-90-420-2245-4.
Reviewed by Ornella Corazza, SOAS, Uni-
versity of London, U.K. E-mail: <oc1@soas.
ac.uk>.
This book is an important collection of
papers with wide-ranging implications
for a better understanding of life and
death in different places and times.
Caught up by the frenetic rhythms
of our lives, rapid communication
and transportation, we do not seem
to have time for genuine reflection
about death, as if we were going to live
forever. When a near-death situation,
such as a terminal illness, touches our
life or that of a close friend or family
member, we discover that we are com-
pletely unprepared to face it. Strangely
enough, it is in these circumstances
that the meaning of life is revealed and
“deep feelings” are shared with others.
Part I explores this fascinating phe-
nomenon from a cross-cultural and
cross-temporal point of view. It emerged
clearly at the time of the American Civil
War, which shows “how a collective work
of mourning in the public sphere can
become politically productive” (Byock),
during the burial rites in the village of
Vis in Croatia (Young), in present-day
Israel (Kasher), in medieval Serbia
(Crouch), and amongst adult children
of Holocaust survivors in the U.S.A.
(David). These are all powerful exam-
ples of how death can help us move
from individualism toward collectivism.
As Asa Kasher has pointed out, this
tendency is also implicit in language
expressing “collective emotions.” So,
for instance, a nation could be “sad” or
“happy” about certain events, as though
a nation could feel emotions and sym-
bolically represent a person.
The boundaries between life and
death are challenged in the reflections
about mourning, which are presented
in Part II. Gary Peters explores the
power of “embodying” the dead loved
one from a philosophical perspective.
It shows how, when someone close to us
dies, it feels as if part of them lives on
with us and the relationship with the
dead does not disappear, but changes.
Again, the separation between life and
death diminishes.
Simply stated, we can say that there
is a continuum rather than a separa-
tion between life and death that makes
it difficult to draw clear lines. Such a
principle is fundamental to Eastern
philosophical thinking, in which there
is no clear distinction between life and