OPEN is a loose set of strategies for finding, documenting, and sharing things, with things defined in the loosest ways possible. Ideas, handhelds, memories, and monuments. OPEN is searching for new ways of searching; looking for new ways of looking. The project was established in 2025 by Ben Sisto, an artist and community organizer living in Providence, Rhode Island.
Read moreO.K.
O.K., Solo Show, Graduate School Gallery, Brooklyn, 2009
The show consisted of works I’d made while in Boston, most of which were informed by ideas around Creative Commons, the copy-left, hacking and word games. If I recall, I moved to NYC in 2008 and this show happened shortly after in 2009.
Above: Screwed Time, produced with Matt Boch. LCD display, Arduino board, cassette tape case. This was a clock that ran at half speed and every now and then ticked back one second. Made in tribute to DJ Screw.
Above: 20 One Copies. Spray-painted USB drives, ball-chain necklaces, mp3 files. I made twenty copies of the song One by Metallica and loaded them on to USB-drive necklaces and let people take them away.
Above: Take Two (versions). Take Two is a game I’d invented to produced novel two-word phrases / concepts based on lists of the most frequently occurring words in contemporary film and television. There have been a bunch of versions over the years but this was the first public showing.
^ Posters:Yearbook (2004), Typing Game (2004), Neutrality Sans (early version); photocopy prints on bond at 24” x 36”. Yearbook is a collection of signatures found in the first few years of Google Images / Image search; Typing Game is a game where you type “I typed this with my [body part of your choice];” Neutrality Sans is an alphabet set and font that’s standard except that it lacks the letters A, E, I, K, L, N, O, R, T, U, W and Y.
I also had some digital works running on a monitor including an early demo of 1x1x216.