NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Sontag + Pessoa: The Illusion of Immediacy

via Kultureflash, #197 :
The Guardian, Saturday March 17, 2007

Pay attention to the world

In a previously unpublished essay, written just before her death in 2004, Susan Sontag makes a passionate case for the moral superiority of the novel in a mass-media age [from the collection of essays: At the Same Time.]:

Long ago - it was the 18th century - a great and eccentric defender of literature and the English language - it was Doctor Johnson - wrote, in the preface to his Dictionary: "The chief glory of every people arises from its authors." An unconventional proposition, I suspect, even then. And far more unconventional now, though I think it's still true. Even at the beginning of the 21st century. Of course, I am speaking of the glory that is permanent, not transitory. [...]

There is an essential - as I see it - distinction between stories, on the one hand, which have, as their goal, an end, completeness, closure, and, on the other hand, information, which is always, by definition, partial, incomplete, fragmentary.

This parallels the contrasting narrative models proposed by literature and by television.

Literature tells stories. Television gives information.

Literature involves. It is the recreation of human solidarity. Television (with its illusion of immediacy) distances - immures us in our own indifference.

The so-called stories that we are told on television satisfy our appetite for anecdote and offer us mutually canceling models of understanding. (This is reinforced by the practice of punctuating television narratives with advertising.) They implicitly affirm the idea that all information is potentially relevant (or "interesting"), that all stories are endless - or if they do stop, it is not because they have come to an end but, rather, because they have been upstaged by a fresher or more lurid or eccentric story.

By presenting us with a limitless number of nonstopped stories, the narratives that the media relate - the consumption of which has so dramatically cut into the time the educated public once devoted to reading - offer a lesson in amorality and detachment that is antithetical to the one embodied by the enterprise of the novel.

In storytelling as practiced by the novelist, there is always - as I have argued - an ethical component. This ethical component is not the truth, as opposed to the falsity of the chronicle. It is the model of completeness, of felt intensity, of enlightenment supplied by the story, and its resolution - which is the opposite of the model of obtuseness, of non-understanding, of passive dismay, and the consequent numbing of feeling, offered by our mediadisseminated glut of unending stories.

Television gives us, in an extremely debased and un-truthful form, a truth that the novelist is obliged to suppress in the interest of the ethical model of understanding peculiar to the enterprise of fiction: namely, that the characteristic feature of our universe is that many things are happening at the same time. ("Time exists in order that it doesn't happen all at once ... space exists so that it doesn't all happen to you.")

To tell a story is to say: this is the important story. It is to reduce the spread and simultaneity of everything to something linear, a path.

To be a moral human being is to pay, be obliged to pay, certain kinds of attention.

When we make moral judgments, we are not just saying that this is better than that. Even more fundamentally, we are saying that this is more important than that. It is to order the overwhelming spread and simultaneity of everything, at the price of ignoring or turning our backs on most of what is happening in the world.

The nature of moral judgments depends on our capacity for paying attention - a capacity that, inevitably, has its limits but whose limits can be stretched. But perhaps the beginning of wisdom, and humility, is to acknowledge, and bow one's head, before the thought, the devastating thought, of the simultaneity of everything, and the incapacity of our moral understanding - which is also the understanding of the novelist - to take this in.

Perhaps this is an awareness that comes more easily to poets, who don't fully believe in storytelling. The supremely great early-20th-century Portuguese poet and prose writer, Fernando Pessoa, wrote in his prose summum, The Book of Disquiet:

I've discovered that I'm always attentive to, and always thinking about two things at the same time. I suppose everyone is a bit like that ... In my case the two realities that hold my attention are equally vivid. This is what constitutes my originality. This, perhaps, is what constitutes my tragedy, and what makes it comic.

Yes, everyone is a bit like that ... but the awareness of the doubleness of thinking is an uncomfortable position, very uncomfortable if held for long. It seems normal for people to reduce the complexity of what they are feeling and thinking, and to close down the awareness of what lies outside their immediate experience. [read on...]

The "OK Go Phenomenon"

reblogged via Copyfight (thanks Eve!):

March 20, 2007
The "OK Go Phenomenon"
Posted by Alan Wexelblat

A friend pointed me to this and I'm still trying to decide how much to make of it.

First, watch the original OK Go video for A Million Ways.  It's catchy and it's funny.  The band is clearly unselfconscious and making an art of low-budget video production.

So what do fans do? Well, fans appropriate. They imitate their favorite pop stars. Always have, probably always will. Only now we're doing it in the age of YouTube, so we get things like The OK Go Phenomenon, and The OK Go Phenomenon, Volume 2.

Because now you don't just do this with a few friends. You do this with a few friends, and post it. And find others who do it. And someone takes all those postings and creates a mashup of THAT. The 'phenomenon' is a meta-commentary on the popularity of the band and video as well as a form of creative art reflection that wasn't really possible without the technological underpinnings.

Most new art forms tend to begin by imitating previous forms. If YouTube and its contemporaries are media for the creation of new art forms then what we're seeing are just the first baby steps, and already they raise interesting questions of imitation versus originality. See, for example, what happens when the 'phenomenon' spins off what can only be called a derivative work: Wakamatsu and Fecteau ice dancing.

As I said at the start, I find this kind of thing fun and funny. I'm not sure it has any significance, yet, but I'm quite sure it will grow some significance, and probably soon.

Vote Different (the game has changed...)

via My Way News:

Mystery Creator of Anti-Clinton Ad ID'd
Mar 21,  8:30 PM (ET)
By JIM KUHNHENN

WASHINGTON (AP) - The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama. Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama's presidential campaign.

De Vellis said he resigned from the firm on Wednesday after he learned that he was about to be unmasked by the HuffingtonPost.com, a liberal news and opinion Internet site.

Blue State designed Obama's Web site and one of the firm's founding members, Joe Rospars, took a leave from the company to work as Obama's director of new media.

"It's true ... yeah, it's me," de Vellis said Wednesday evening. [read on]

de Vellis adds in his response on HuffingtonPost's blog:

I've resigned from my employer, Blue State Digital, an internet company that provides technology to several presidential campaigns, including Richardson's, Vilsack's, and -- full disclosure -- Obama's. The company had no idea that I'd created the ad, and neither did any of our clients. But I've decided to resign anyway so as not to harm them, even by implication.

This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed. [...]

In case you haven't already seen it:

And in case you never saw the original Apple "1984" ad:

Visit the Open Rigths Group (UK)

Image source

I found this post on the website of the UK's Open Rights Group :

Patent Office want evidence to justify new copyright exceptions for artists

Posted by Michael in Uncategorized,  Copyright,  Intellectual Property,  Computer Law at March 20th, 2007

The Patent Office needs to hear from artists and creators. Please let us help you get in touch.

The Patent Office is charged with implementing the exciting recommendations suggested in the recent Gowers Review of IP. But they are yet to be convinced of the crucial need for some of these recommendations, mainly because they’re finding it hard to get in touch with the relevant practioners. They are looking for concrete examples of creative practices inhibited by the law, to back up proposed exceptions for the purposes of "creative, transformative or derivative works" and "caricature, parody or pastiche".

Would you, your colleagues, students or collaborators benefit from these exceptions? Are you working or have you worked on a project outlawed by the overly-protectionst copyright regime, which would have benefited from these kinds of exceptions? If so, please get in touch - info[at]openrightsgroup.org - and share your experience.

Rights holders were of course quick to lobby against these suggested exceptions. In their opinion the dismal and labour-intensive "must-ask-permission!" culture of copyright-licensing works just fine as it is. They don't see the creative and social opportunities in remixing and poking fun, only the economic-downsides in losing control of their 'IP assets'.

But if you are a practicing artist with relevant experiences to share, please get in touch today so we can show the importance of copyright exceptions to Patent Office.

             

Four anti-Google Book Search fallacies...

image source

via lessig blog :
Four anti-Google Book Search fallacies — all in one, single essay
by Lawrence Lessig

Nathan Weinberg has a piece on WebProNews responding to my response to Tom Rubin's criticism of Google's "respect" for copyright. The piece is (well written and) useful, because it packs in its couple hundred words all the fallacies that haunt this anti-Google debate.

Fallacy one: "When you make a copy of a copyrighted work, you are in essence stealing it, and even when I download music and movies, I never kid myself that what I am doing is legal."

First, Nathan, don't download music and movies without the permission of the copyright owner. Bad, bad, bad.

Second, even if making "a copy of a copyrighted work" is illegal, it is not "in essence stealing it." See the Supreme Court’s rejection of this false analogy in footnote 33 of Sony v. Universal.

But third, and most important, not every "copy" violates copyright law. In particular, if a copy is "fair use," then copyright law has not been violated. The question in this case is thus, as always, is the copying for purposes of making snippet access available "fair use." As much as you know that it is wrong to download music without the permission of the copyright owner, I hope you also know that it is right to make copies — even without the permission of the copyright owner — when such copies are fair use.

Fallacy two: "While there are many authors who care more about getting their books out there than making money, the vast majority is trying to earn a living. Those authors whose books are out of print, but still in copyright, would love an opportunity to make some money off their older books, but Google's plan involves copying them without permission."

True, most authors would prefer to make more money from their works than they did before. True, Google plans on copying them (for purposes of making snippet access available) without permission. But the implication — that Google's copying will reduce author's opportunity to make money — is false. Out of print books are — by definition — books the authors are not making money on. Google's Book Search will refer people who discover the out of print book to book sellers. If demand for a currently out of print book grows, then it is more likely than before that the book will go back into print, meaning again, the author can make money. So contrary to the "if Google copies, authors lose" fallacy, if Google enables access, at least some authors will get something they don't have right now — their out of print book back in print.

Fallacy three: "Even if all the authors want their books in Google, I've always felt that to respect me, you have to show respect, and that means asking me if what you are doing is okay. Don’t tell these authors what's best for them, that shows no respect at all."

First, both sides in this debate are effectively "tell[ing] these authors what’s best for them." Microsoft and the Publishers are telling the authors that it is best for them that the law ban companies like Google from securing access to snippets of their works. They want a rule that says "ask first" not for permission to distribute copies of their books, but for permission to enable access through a 21st century card catalog. When in the history of man did the law require permission from an author (or publisher) for a work to be included in a card catalog?

Second, the point ignores the central point in this debate: Given the insanely inefficient system of copyright that the government has created, there's no way to identify the current owners of these copyrights (for works out of print). So how, again, are these people to be "asked"?

Fallacy four: "Mr. Lessig, even if you want Google to scan and index your book, even if you want the knowledge in your book spread throughout the earth, wouldn't you want Google, a company that will make money off your book you will never see, to at least ask permission first?"

There are lots of people who make money off of my work without asking me, and it's a good thing too. Look at the bump in Stephen Manes Google rank from his criticism of me. How much money do you think Forbes got in ads from the click-throughs that this article — calling me an "idiot" and "moron" and other such stuff? Do you think Manes asked me before he tried to profit as he did. (No.) Do you think he should have to ask me? I certainly don’t. If the use is "fair use" — which even Manes article is — then we should encourage people to make money on it. The more money people can make, the more the economy around spreading ideas can grow.

posted by [ Lessig ] on [ Mar 13 07 at  1:28 AM ] to [ bad code ]  [ 12 comments ]