Mission

openwork is a peer-reviewed journal publishing research across experimental music and sound, technology, art, and performance. Interdisciplinary in scope, the journal serves as a platform for the critical discussion of all varieties of musical and artistic creations as primary research, beyond the confines of traditional academic essays and formats. openwork is a publication of the Columbia University Computer Music Center.

Aim & Scope

The editors of openwork seek to publish new work by scholars, artists, and creators engaged in practice-based research, traditional scholarly research, or experimental practice, particularly those whose practice falls outside or unsettles existing discourses that define what counts as experimental. The journal welcomes submissions that expand or challenge conventional academic formats while maintaining editorial rigor and fostering dialogue across creative disciplines and industries. In particular, openwork encourages submissions in which compositions, artworks, multimedia, and other non-text forms are presented as the central thesis of the author’s work rather than supplementary material to a conventional article.

We publish submissions in (but not limited to) the following formats:

• Academic essays: 5,000–7,000 words
• Creative pieces/reflections: 500–2,500 words
• Commentaries, manifestos, and polemics: up to 3,000 words
• Artworks and multimedia submissions: stand-alone pieces, installations, digital exhibitions, and hybrid/composite forms
• Music submissions: stand-alone pieces, albums, DJ sets, music videos
• Short films, photo collections, visual essays, or collages
• Poetry: up to 2,500 words or equivalent length in lines
• Other experimental formats that challenge genre, medium, or publication conventions

Open Access Policy

openwork is an open access journal. Our published content is free to access without charge to the user or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Authors retain their copyright and agree to license their articles with a Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives” License (CC BY-NC-ND) unless otherwise noted on the article landing page. You can read more about Creative Commons licenses at creativecommons.org.

openwork charges no author fees upon submission or acceptance.

Archiving Policy

openwork is archived in Columbia University’s Academic Commons. Academic Commons is Columbia University’s institutional repository, offering long-term public access to research shared by the Columbia community. A program of the Columbia University Libraries, Academic Commons provides secure, replicated storage for files in multiple formats. Academic Commons assigns a DOI and accurate metadata to each work to enhance discoverability.

Code of Ethics

openwork expects its members to uphold the highest standards of personal and professional behavior. openwork’s authors should adhere to the ethical professional standards as defined by:

• Cambridge University Press’s Publishing Ethics Guidelines

It is essential that all who participate in producing the journal, who conduct themselves as authors, reviewers and editors, strictly adhere to the highest level of ethical professional standards. By submitting a manuscript to this journal, each author explicitly confirms that the manuscript meets the highest ethical standards.