NEWSgrist - where spin is art

'This year...voting is an act of defiance against malicious political forces'

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Via NYTimes SundayReview:

Editorial | The Struggle to Cast a Vote

Upholding Democracy, Ballot by Ballot

Published: November 3, 2012

This year, voting is more than just the core responsibility of citizenship; it is an act of defiance against malicious political forces determined to reduce access to democracy. Millions of ballots on Tuesday — along with those already turned in — will be cast despite the best efforts of Republican officials around the country to prevent them from playing a role in the 2012 election.

Even now, many Republicans are assembling teams to intimidate voters at polling places, to demand photo ID where none is required, and to cast doubt on voting machines or counting systems whose results do not go their way. The good news is that the assault on voting will not affect the election nearly as much as some had hoped. Courts have either rejected or postponed many of the worst laws. Predictions that up to five million people might be disenfranchised turned out to be unfounded.

But a great deal of damage has already been done, and the clearest example is that on Sunday in Florida, people will not be allowed to vote early. Four years ago, on the Sunday before Election Day, tens of thousands of Floridians cast their ballots, many of them black churchgoers who traveled directly from services to their polling places. Because most of them voted for Barack Obama, helping him win the state, Republicans eliminated early voting on that day. No legitimate reason was given; the action was entirely partisan in nature.

The author of that law, as The Palm Beach Post revealed last week, was Emmett Mitchell IV, the general counsel for the state Republican Party. Under his guidance, party officials in Florida got thousands of perfectly eligible black voters purged from the rolls in 2000, and got a law passed last year that limited registration drives and early voting days. A federal judge struck down the registration limits, but not before they drove down the numbers of new registrants.

The law cutting back nearly half the number of early-voting days in Florida remains in place, a reaction to the Obama campaign’s successful use of the system. Early voting is wildly popular, freeing people from having to cast a ballot within a few hours on a workday, and all but 15 states allow it in some form. (When will New York get the message?) But even after long lines formed last week at early-voting stations in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott refused to extend the period an extra day. In Ohio, a judge had to restore early-voting days that Republicans had tried to cut.

One of the biggest attempts to reduce the turnout of minority voters, poor people and others likely to vote Democratic has been the imposition of photo ID requirements, under the guise of preventing nonexistent voter fraud. In Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, courts have blocked these laws or postponed them until after the election, but the issue is by no means dead, and Republicans can be expected to continue to press their self-serving case.

In Iowa and Wisconsin, the Romney campaign has given its poll watchers misleading or incorrect information — for instance, that voters should show an ID in Iowa, where none is required — which could create disputes and long lines, most likely in Democratic precincts.

One of the saddest signs of the politicization of the voting process and the counting of ballots has been the armies of lawyers assembled by both parties in the swing states where the vote is likely to be the closest. Much of this would be unnecessary if not for the requirements that Republicans have tried to put in place, which force Democrats to make sure that provisional ballots are not thrown out or mishandled. (In Nevada, Republicans are already preparing their challenge by claiming, with absolutely no evidence, that some machines are malfunctioning in Mr. Obama’s favor.)

Public outcry, with support from the courts, may eventually remove these threats to democracy. For now, those who contribute to a heavy turnout on Tuesday will send a message that Americans reject any underhanded effort to place political gain above a franchise for which people have given their lives.

A version of this editorial appeared in print on November 4, 2012, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Upholding Democracy, Ballot By Ballot.

“Canceled”: Art, Censorship and the Possibility in Failure at The Center for Book Arts

View of “Canceled: Alternative Manifestations and Productive Failures,” 2012

via Artforum Critics' Picks:

“Canceled: Alternative Manifestations and Productive Failures”

THE CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS
28 W 27th Street, 3rd Floor
April 18–June 30

06.04.12

Author: Zachary Sachs

04.18.12-06.30.12 The Center for Book Arts

Richard Prince v. Patrick Cariou, a fair-use case currently in appeals, threatens to set a dangerous precedent for the legality of appropriation. The initial ruling against Prince in 2011 included—in a surprisingly draconian injunction—an order that the works be destroyed or never displayed publicly. Cases like this can make an artwork seem considerably less interesting than the machinery of art and institutions that revolve around it. Greg Allen’s YES RASTA, 2011, a deadpan bound volume that reproduces depositions in the case, is one of the sixteen quasi-documentary, quasi-performative works on display in “Canceled.” The exhibition courses through several decades of art’s challenges to censorship, from the Los Angeles Police Department’s late-1950s persecution of Wallace Berman’s work and exhibition (“pornography”), to the imploding of Manifesta 6 in 2006 (Cypriot politics), to David Wojnarowicz’s recent expulsion from the Smithsonian’s “Hide/Seek” exhibition (an “assault on the sensibilities of Christians”).

Some remarkable artifacts come to the surface in this extensive trawling: a one-of-a-kind collaged mailer from the artist Cameron to Berman; Hans Haacke’s personal copy of his monograph Werkmonographie, which documents his inspired struggle with the Guggenheim in 1971. (The muscular neutrality of Haacke’s work made him seem a particularly stylish David wielding nothing more than Concept against Goliath’s vested interests. Here you can find the best joke, from the Guggenheim’s rejection letter to Haacke: “The trustees have established policies that exclude active engagement toward political and social ends.”)

At times the curatorial conceit can be a bit baggy: Seth Siegelaub’s books-as-exhibitions from the 1960s are a form of rejecting the gallery’s physical space, but they have little rapport with the conflict that animates most of the other selections. The curator, Lauren van Haaften-Schick, suggests in an accompanying essay that that the exclusion of contested artworks from exhibitions represents “ultimately productive failure,” which reminded me of the chestnut “fail better” from Samuel Beckett’s last novel, Worstward Ho (1983). Beckett was fairly black about about one’s prospects in the end (hence that title)—“Canceled” leaves one with a much more generous feeling about the possibility of failure.

SOPA's Evil Twin Sister – CISPA

Via Lumen Consulting:

In the hopes of creating awareness of what CISPA actually is and how it could effect the lives of every day people, we created this infographic. Feel free to share the graphic on your site (embed code below). You can find quotes from Fortune 500 CEO’s who are endorsing the bill here. You can also write a letter to your local representative to protest CISPA here.

Full Infographic and CISP definition is here.

The Case For Appropriation –> A Call to Arms // Winner 2nd Place! #BLBC12

Winslow Homer: Art Students & Copyists in the Louvre. 1868. Via NEWSgrist

 

 

My article won 2nd PLACE in Emily Suess's Brave Little Blogger Writing Contest. The task was to write a 750-word (or less) post focusing on the theme of CENSORSHIP. (Congratulations to the 1st and 3rd place winners!)

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The Case For Appropriation –> A Call to Arms

by Joy Garnett

The Copyright Wars have finally reached the art world. Fueled by the ongoing backlash against digital culture, common forms of visual quotation have come increasingly under attack. The steady stream of anti-piracy propaganda disseminated over the past several decades by the music and movie industries has had the desired effect: everyone, including visual artists, is now equipped to think about art and creative culture in terms of “property” and “theft”. As a result, copyright infringement lawsuits, many of them meritless, have been on the rise, including those brought by artists against fellow artists. The freedom to comment, reference or borrow – the way art progresses over time – is being threatened.

 

Our ability to work freely, thus hindered, feeds back into a culture of increasing paranoia and self-censorship. But free expression, as Princeton computer scientist Ed Felton famously put it, requires the freedom to tinker. The inhibition of the freedom to tinker undercuts all creativity; it stops us from inquiring and from experimenting; it chills us in our pursuit of all that we, as artists and creative people, need to pursue. Since all of our civil rights begin with free speech, what is at stake here is what is most basic.

 

As an atmosphere of nervousness and dread continues to spread by ripple effect throughout the art community, we can be sure that there are many more copyright infringement cases in progress than the controversial high-profile ones we’ve read about in Artnet, Artinfo and The New York Times. These involve non-celebrity artists who have neither access to legal expertise nor the deep pockets that would allow them to protect themselves. Hence, regardless of the eventual legal outcomes of the high-profile cases, their most negative effect has already been achieved. In law they call this a chilling effect, which is when a legal action of any kind causes people to hesitate to exercise their legitimate right to express themselves. In reality it can be harmful in any number of ways, including to markets, but my concern is mainly is how chilling effects are harmful to an artist's creative process.

 

We may still hesitate, however, and wonder whether copying is or isn’t the same as stealing. Attorney and fair use advocate William Patry responds to this notion in a recent article (Part I and Part II) about copying and copyright reform:

 

Record companies, book publishers, movie studios and other media corporations are caught up in efforts to equate all copying of their works with theft. In fact, if we genuinely want to promote creativity, we must encourage copying. The idea that people copy because they lack creativity is powerfully harmful, and it runs counter to the history of copyright. To deny people the right to copy, intimately, from others, is to deny the essence of what it is to be a creative person.

 

The fact is, artists have always referenced and utilized – appropriated – pre-existing materials, including other art, as part of their source material, and as a way to engage in dialogue, whether through explicit copying or unconscious borrowing. Some may feel that where copying is achieved digitally, it crosses some ethical line, but digital technology has merely provided us with our latest set of tools for our age-old habits of copying and remixing.

 

So, if copying and appropriation are age-old and part of visual art’s lexicon, why the recent backlash? When did our understanding of appropriation and copying change, and so radically? Perhaps we can indeed blame the anti-piracy propaganda generated by the music and motion picture industries – their paranoia campaign has finally penetrated the art world’s walled garden. But rather than blame the music industry, we who are vested in the arts for whatever reason must take responsibility for this problem by examining our own flawed assumptions. We need to think again and think hard about the conditions required for creativity; we need to revisit the complex and layered history of art-making itself. And as issues of appropriation enter the broader public and legal debate, artists, historians, curators and others who are part of the visual arts community need to step up and explain why appropriation and other forms of visual referencing are essential to the making of meaningful art. We need to be able to defend our practices in clear language, in and beyond the courtroom. We need to make the case for appropriation.

 

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This article is drawn from my introduction to the panel, The Case for Appropriation, which took place at The School of Visual Arts in February 2012:

The Visual & Critical Studies Department presented The Case for Appropriation at the SVA Theatre at 333 West 23rd Street on February 16, 2012. Artist and NEWSgrist blogger Joy Garnett is joined in conversation by art historian and attorney Virginia Rutledge, critic and curator Rob Storr, and artist Oliver Wasow to discuss the creative methods and ideas associated with appropriation art today, as issues of appropriation enter the broader public and legal debate forum and copyright infringement lawsuits between artists rise. The panelists will discuss why appropriation and other forms of visual referencing are important elements of making art and how to defend these practices both in and beyond the courtroom.

More Info

Artists opposing the PROTECT-IP / SOPA Act

Artists opposing the PROTECT-IP / SOPA Act [petition link at bottom]

Congress needs to hear from Artists!

The PROTECT-IP act would censor the net, in the name of protecting "creativity" (read: copyright). The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites-- they just have to convince a judge that the site is "dedicated to copyright infringement."

The law could definitely pass, but it's close.

• * Artists (musicians, actors, writers, media-makers, etc) need to speak out against the law. Your statement is powerful because the corporate music and film lobbies push these laws in your name.
• * The copyright lobby say that this bill is written in your name to protect "creativity". If you're an artist that believes the government and corporations should not have the power to censor the internet in your name, you need to sign.

GO to the PETITION....

TO members of the United States Congress

We, the undersigned artists, have all been empowered by the Internet. Today, artists can reach large audiences and make a living because the Internet and digital tools have democratized the means to create, distribute, and promote our work.

We write to you today because we are concerned with S.968, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Copyright law exists to promote the arts, but the new penalties in PIPA could be used against the new social media channels we depend on to make a living, and endanger freedom of expression.

PIPA creates new penalties against sites dedicated to infringing activity, but we worry it will be abused to attack legitimate sites we rely on. Many trailblazing social media websites could look like piracy havens to judges unfamiliar with the Internet. In the past, music and film companies have attacked many new technologies - like the VCR and MP3 player - claiming that they were tools for piracy. Recently, these same companies have sued video hosting platforms like Veoh and YouTube.

We use online video sites, file hosts like Dropbox and Mediafire, and online music communities like Soundcloud to host our work, collaborate with others, and build a community. We fund our work with services like Kickstarter and Flattr. We publish our work on sites like Tumblr, Wordpress, and Blogger. Any one of these services could be sued under PIPA.