Larisa Blazic

SSI fellow

Senior Lecturer - Faculty of Media, Arts and Design - University of Westminster 

Interests

Libre Graphics software and its potential for transforming visual communication, FLOSS manuals and collaborative documentation for Free software, unionising data and organising post-graduate studies in FLOSS plus art and design.

Research

Collaborative creative processes, participatory practices, hybrid and emerging technologies founded in Free and Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) are shaping the way arts and design are made and perceived. Although Media arts, an early embodiment of such approach to creative use of technology, have been practiced and debated in various online and offline communities for nearly two decades, we are only beginning to understand how they contribute to cultural, socio-historical, economic and political modes of operation.

Free and open software is an idea introduced by developers and hackers and today finds wider application in creative practices as open video, open data, libre graphics software, open hardware, open type and many other forms informed by free artistic licenses and copyleft attitudes where sharing and cross-pollination are encouraged. Recent developments and emerging tendencies in the arts, music production and design are creating a need to study not only tools but also methods of shaping the tools of production as well as active engagement and exposure to ideas and concepts this way of working offers.

As a result, my current practice-led research is focused on collaboration with Libre Graphics, FLOSS Manuals and FLOSSIE communities to extend the understanding of the FLOSS influence on the use and development of software for design practice, documentation processes and gendering of digital medium.

Check out contributions by and mentions of Larisa Blazic on www.software.ac.uk