Critiquing Free Beer

Within certain conceptual and post conceptual art practices it is possible to discern the influence of open source and free software methods and philosophies. These practices engage – directly or indirectly - with new forms of labour; known variously as flexible labour and open/libre ways of working that are emerging within contemporary capitalism. Unlike object-based art, they deal with the invisible: processes, relations, networks, and systems. Artwork like this is made up of many elements often existing in different spaces and temporalities, and is not as readily graspable, or indeed as visible, as object-based work.