+ what is the a.Rss? a.Rss is based on the idea of a free appropriation
system for artists, musicians, and designers working in the digital
realm. the mass availability of production related software and
information on the internet is overwhelmingly disproportionate to the
mass of source data files for individuals to use in their own work. the
internet is constantly being hailed as a haven for interaction between
artists, yet the interactions have primarily been either a text-based
discussion of work, or a one-way transmission of a particular artists'
net.art onto their audience, with little interactivity that effects the
outcome of that particular piece. working within the digital realm,
artists have access to terabytes of source material on the web -
unfortunately gaining easy access to all this material is extremely
difficult, delegating the artist to then start from scratch on their own
source material. this model for artistic interaction is not viable in an
age of instant appropriation and file-sharing technologies. this is why
the a.Rss was created. the a.Rss is a simple and easy way for artists of
all kinds to exchange their source file material. source file material
can be defined as a chunk of raw source data of any media type - audio,
video, 2D & 3D image, MIDI, musical notation, samples, source code,
binary, programs, etc. whatever data an artist wants to share or trade
can be considered source file material.

+ how do you use a.Rss? a.Rss is extremely simple and easy. using
already existing file-sharing technologies, (such as gnutella, kazaa,
aimster, etc.) shared a.Rss files have a very specific and simple file
naming convention - rss_. by having the rss_ header in front of the
filename, this simply designates that file to be available for a.Rss use
and makes searching for a.Rss files easy - and placing them in the
shared files folder of your file-trading application (kazaa, gnutella,
etc.) instantly makes them available to other artists searching for
source file material. –example: audioArtist5 has an extensive
collection of samples she created or uses. she would like to share these
files with the rest of the digital art community. she adds the rss_
header in front of her pre-existing filenames (rss_audiofile1.wav, etc.)
and places these files in her shared folder. videoArtistX is searching
for some audio for his digital video project. he opens his file-sharing
program, searches for rss_ and finds audioArtist5's collection of
samples, which he downloads, edits, and uses.

with a.Rss there is: -no additional software to install -complete
anonymous transactions you can zip or stuffit your source files and
include text with credits & contact information, bundle a number of
source data together, etc. this is a free and completely open system for
artists to exchange work and material without boundaries.

the goal of a.Rss is seamless, potentially anonymous sharing of art data
to be used, remixed, sampled, edited, combined, processed, and
redistributed back into the art and general communities. a.Rss works on
the theory of open.source and freeware. there are no stipulations to
a.Rss - users can share and use in any manner they see fit.