Linux for Theatre Makers: Embodiment & Nix Modus Operandi

This text critically reflects on the growing relationship between Free Software philosophy, open content and embodied cognition from an uninitiated point of view. It provides first-hand insight into its social, political and economic myths and realities. The central thread in this text is the Linux computer operating system(OS) and more specifically the use of the command-line interface within this OS and its relationship to embodiment and sociality. Since bodies and machines are often seen in opposition, I suggest that they are better perceived complementary in nature rather than antagonistic. For people who have never worked with command line computing on a standard *nix machine, – especially for people who are already conditioned to point and click methods cultivated by Graphical User Interfaces or (GUIs) such as Windows OS or Mac OS – this involves sensitising procedures, (i.e. like one may endure with any new instrumental skill acquisition) for the operation of code as a series of interrelated programs. I will discuss how using the command line interface may be seen to possibly co-constitute one another in everyday life, operating as fields of embodied reflection. The paradoxes and limitations of open licenses for 21 C art, this text considers the cultural implications around free software communities, that one encounters before the act of making of new works with free software art.