Robert Luxemburg (Sebastian Lütgert) : The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice (2003)

Robert Luxemburg (Sebastian Lütgert) : The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice (2003), a photo by Marc Wathieu on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
View at Artefact Festival, STUK, Leuven, february 2009.
www.artefact-festival.be/2009/

The project The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as a Crisis in Practice makes it possible to conceal the entire text of a novel in one single image. The work is comprised of a script (crisis.php), an explanatory text (crisis.txt), and an image (crisis.png).

The .png image shows a desktop with various windows open in front of a colourful background (including a window with a film still from the movie Matrix that is being – most likely ‘illegally’ – copied; in another window the source code of the script generating the ASCII version of Neal Stephenson’s novel Cryptonomicon from a desktop image is visible; a further window contains an instruction manual for running the program). A series of logos strung together at the bottom edge of the image yields the word ‘Cryptonomicon’ (Stephenson’s novel deals with encryption).

While the screenshot of the desktop is the intellectual property of 'Robert Luxemburg' and can be freely disseminated by him, the image when 'executed' generates copyrighted material subject to stringent restrictions.

Text source :
www.artefact-festival.be/2009/099_expo_en.php?id=080