Open-Source Museum Opens in Second Life
http://www.3pointd.com/20070427/open-source-museum-opens-in-second-life

Posted Friday, April 27th, 2007, at 10:32 am Eastern by Mark Wallace
Tags: art, culture, design, Second Life

A group of students from Brown University have launched an open-
source museum in the virtual world of Second Life. Known as OSMOSA,
the Open-Source Museum of Open-Source Art, the museum is located »in
Second Life’s Eson region« and features a mess of artworks that
anyone can copy, modify, alter or otherwise contribute to. The museum
itself is open to alteration as well, which is a fantastic idea. The
modding got under way at the opening party Tuesday night: an already-
altered image of Manet’s Olympia (with space helmets added to make it
more excellent) came out the other end of the night with some
interesting additions and adjustments...

I dig this project. You can read more at OSMOSA’s wiki page, but
basically, according to one of the students, “By “open source,” we
mean that OSMOSA is in the public domain: visitors can add, modify,
and remove art from the museum. In addition, the OSMOSA building is
also open source, in that anyone can modify, add to, or delete parts
of the structure.” Love it.

The museum was organized by Deborah Abramson, Kiera Feldman, and
Davis Jung (aka Deborah Maertens, Koco Furse, and Jinsaedavis Jun in
Second Life, respectively), and built out with help from SL residents
Kenny Hubble, Soupcan Tomsen, and “the Loyalist College Team.”

As a living art-structure, OSMOSA could be very cool. One thing the
project is lacking at the moment, though, is a good way to record the
changes going on there. I’m waiting at the very least for an OSMOSA
blog, or perhaps a Flickr set where the OSMOSAns could record the
evolution of the site. Regardless, I think it’s a great idea, and I
look forward to seeing what comes out of it. I’m not saying an open-
source museum is any better or worse a way to produce art, I’m just
interested in watching things bubble.