<nettime> Liminal Screen

["metazoa.org via nettime-l" <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Dear friends of ScreenSaverGallery,

As an artists-run project with very limited resources and programming 
capacity, we were facing the 'war of [operating system] versions' since 
2013 when we had been running screensavers. Thanks to our flagship 
version for Mac OS <https://github.com/ScreenSaverGallery/macos> – the 
more or less stable operating system environment – the code had not 
changed much (the most significant change was the rewrite from 
Objective-C to the Swift programming language around 2018) for quite a 
time. This remained the case until Sonoma (macOS 14) introduced 'New 
slow-motion screensavers of different locations worldwide. When logged 
in, they gradually slow down and become the desktop wallpaper.' 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Sonoma] This 'promising' change 
introduced so many bugs that Apple has not yet been able to fix even in 
the two subsequent major versions.

From the outset of ScreenSaverGallery, maintenance uncertainty mainly 
stemmed from Windows systems. Its poor native webview integration based 
on Internet Explorer, its permission elevation, and its heavy (and 
expensive) development setup requiring gigabytes of frameworks slowly 
led the project out of the box and towards an Electron-based solution 
<https://github.com/ScreenSaverGallery/windows>. It is still 
'pretending' to be a screensaver by compiling the release with the .src 
suffix. This happened in 2022.

The most challenging aspect was targeting the Linux distros. So, two 
years ago now, back in 2024, we realised that screensavers were a thing 
of the past on Linux systems. So, we thought, why don't we make an app 
based on the one for Windows that acts as a screensaver? That way, 
people who like the moment when the idle machine starts to compute art, 
would be able to do that. This marked the beginning of a pure Electron 
app <https://github.com/ScreenSaverGallery/linux> for Linux.

Three operating systems, three independent code bases, one programmer 
who is also developing and maintaining a website, screensavers (shows) 
<https://screensaver.gallery/screensavers/>, and is partly responsible 
for curating, fundraising, PR, and all the tasks connected with running 
such a specific exhibition space as ScreenSaverGallery. That is not a 
case of sustainability.

To simplify things for us and still work with the 'idle' moment in 
evolving new media, digital or online art, following a base concept (not 
a technology) for our Linux version, we have decided not to 'pretend' 
that ScreenSaverGallery is a 'plug-in' for a built-in service anymore. 
Screensavers are gone, just like all of the techno-optimistic ideals 
from the early millennium. The old nerds became tech-bros and the main 
aesthetic switched from the "Starfield simulation" to the "Aerial 
surveillance". Yet the idle moment persists, resisting the ever-evolving 
control mechanisms that remain incapable of detecting inactivity.

*We would be very happy if you joined our small revolution based on the 
new Liminal Screen 
<https://github.com/screensavergallery/liminal-screen> project, which is 
a completely rethought and redesigned way of continuing with 
ScreenSaverGallery in the future.*

--

In the meantime, do not miss the screensaver by Lucia Rebolino 
<https://screensaver.gallery/lucia-rebolino-open-folder>. It will end soon!
And if you accidentally find yourself offline, SPARK by Zuzana-Markéta 
Macková <https://screensaver.gallery/zuzana-marketa-mackova-spark> will 
give you a direction ;)

--
Save Your Screen!
Get ScreenSaverGalleryhttps://screensaver.gallery/get
Follow ScreenSaverGallery on Fediverse, Telegram, Instagram, GitHub, RSS, Newsletter
🌸 Sponsorhttps://opencollective.com/screensavergallery,https://screensaver.gallery/donate,https://github.com/sponsors/ScreenSaverGallery
--
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org