Open work

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A work of art which is not fully determined by its author.

The term was introduced in 1962 by Umberto Eco, first in Menabb journal and then in the book Opera Aperta. The above definition is only one of a few provided by the author (it's the so called "second degree of openness"). For Eco, open pieces of music were a main inspiration to develop theory around the term, but focus of the book is rather on literature and a wider understanding of openness, where it's not the shape of the work but it's meaning is to be co-created by the audience. As there were many degrees of openness introduced at once, the term was adopted rather inconsistently to different languages.

Music games are open works, as the performace of a single game (and btw also possible meanings conveyed by it) will always significantly differ from one to another.


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