Abstract

This paper demonstrates the relevance of Vilém Flusser’s concept of post-industrial apparatus in contemporary programmed media theory, as represented in the paper by software studies. Examples of software art projects that investigate the limits of apparatus programmability are introduced as examples of artistic gestures of freedom. The interpretation is supported by references to the general theory of gesture proposed by Flusser. The paper suggests that this new interpretative method, described by the author as a discipline for the ‘new people’ of the future can serve alongside software studies as an appropriate theory of software art, understood as gestures of freedom within the apparatus of programmed media.