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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.

SOPA: Where We're At (via @Techdirt)

Via Techdirt, 1/12/2012:

SOPA/PIPA: How Far We've Come; How Far We Need To Go

from the not-over-yet dept

On October 26th, I was flying from San Francisco to Washington DC to meet with folks in the House of Representatives to explain why they should be careful about making the same mistakes as the Senate with its anti-piracy bill, PROTECT IP (PIPA). We had been assured by Rep. Bob Goodlatte that Congress had heard the myriad complaints about PIPA and that the House version would take them into account. Instead, as the plane I was on flew over the Rocky Mountains, I started getting a flood of emails from people sending me the first release of the House's version of the bill, now known as SOPA (originally, the E-PARASITE bill, a name they dropped immediately when everyone started mocking it). Thanks to the wonderful innovation of WiFi-in-the-sky, I was able to sit in my cramped seat, read the bill, and write up my horrified post explaining just how much worse SOPA was than PIPA (an already disastrous bill).

The next day, October 27th, a small group of entrepreneurs, investors, innovators and creators spent the day meeting with members of Congress to express our concerns about the bill (which we'd just seen the afternoon before), as well as the whole approach to the crafting of both bills. The one thing we heard over and over again that day: "well this is the first time we've heard anything about this from the internet community."

I think it's safe to say that's no longer the case.

As I type this, I'm taking that same flight, preparing for my debate tomorrow over these bills against an MPAA representative and a US Chamber of Commerce representative, I'm sitting in that same cramped seat (actually, I think I'm on the opposite side of the plane), and thinking just how far we've come in just three and a half months.

Make no mistake: when the Senate introduced PIPA in May, it was widely assumed that this bill, and any companion bill would sail through Congress easily. Sure, some "tech-friendly" officials may express some concerns, but, as one lobbyist told me directly, "no one takes you people seriously anyway." It was this kind of hubris that we saw throughout the year with these bills. We were told repeatedly to shut up and take it, because the bills were going to pass, Obama would sign them, and piracy would magically disappear.

Instead, a funny thing happened on the way to the death of the internet: the internet woke up. While folks online may be political, it's not often that they truly get activated over internet-related issues. But in an era of bottom-up movements facilitated online, the timing was absolutely right for the massive groundswell of support from all corners of the internet to suddenly speak out in near unison to say of these bills: DO NOT WANT.

Still more to do:

At this point, it's impossible to deny that we, as a group, have had an impact. Contrary to the claims of some of the bill's supporters, we showed that this isn't just a "Google" issue. This is an internet issue. And we care about the internet and we care about innovation, and we're not going to take it lightly when elected officials, who admit they don't understand the technology, come along to say they're going to mess with it, just because their biggest campaign donors don't want to adapt to these wonderful new innovations.

But, not everyone in Congress has an understanding of what's happening online. Even with Reps. and Senators backing away from the bills, and asking leadership to slow things down... and even with Rep. Smith and Senator Leahy trying to "delay" the DNS implementation in order to get the bills passed... some in Congress still think that the outcry is minor or limited or that it's all Google.

That's why Harry Reid intends to move forward with the bill, pretending that the complaints only come from Google and Facebook... and that they're minor and easily fixed with a couple of amendments. I believe he's misjudged the internet, just as many others in Congress have misjudged the internet over the last few months. The people speaking out are not just "Google and Facebook," and they're not just speaking out for the hell of it. They're seriously pissed off at Congress for even thinking of going down this path in the first place, and simply killing the bills is unlikely to get the people online back on their side.

But there's a bigger point in the "more to do" section of this post. This isn't about one bill. This isn't about one issue. This is about an entire process. This is about the public -- not the big corporations -- finally saying "enough is enough" and making Congress recognize that crony capitalism, where subsidies and protectionism are doled out willy nilly to favorite campaign contributors, is not acceptable to the people they're supposed to represent.

This is about recognizing that the internet and the massive amount new innovation and services -- and the worldwide ability to communicate with others -- is a game changing innovation for everyone. And we're going to work damn hard to make sure that it remains open and free.

But, to do that right, this is going to take much more than stopping one bill. This is going to take prolonged effort. This is going to take an ongoing effort to make it clear that no elected official can ever again feel comfortable bragging that they don't understand the internet, as they seek to regulate it. This is about making it 100% crystal clear to those who seek to clamp down on the true engine of free expression -- the internet -- that we, the people, aren't going to be fooled with bogus claims and bogus stats in an effort to limit this wonderful platform.

This isn't over yet -- not by a long shot. But just look at how far we've come in just three and a half months, and think what we'll do in the next few months -- and years -- ahead. These bills tried to kill the "internet as we know it." But, in some ways, these bills helped birth a new kind of internet: one that doesn't let Congress screw it up without taking action.

Stop SOPA Infographic

Via:

http://sopacountdown.com/

Interview with Novelist Jack Womack, on Rhizome

Tottenham Aug. 7, 2011. (Lewis Whyld/PA/AP) via The Big Picture

 

via Rhizome.org:

Making Sense of Senseless Violence: An Interview with Jack Womack
By Brendan Byrne | Wed Dec 7th, 2011 9:12 a.m.

This summer when Britain was gripped by civil disturbance, it was suggested by some in the SF community that if you wanted to understand the underlying psychology of those involved, you should read Jack Womack’s Random Acts of Senseless Violence, originally published in 1994. Random Acts details in diary form the tribulations of twelve-year-old Lola Hart as her New York City, family, and persona come apart. It also serves as an entry point for Womack’s six-book Dryco series, which presents post-disaster America as trailer-trash corporate dystopia, complete with Elvis worship, unchecked rape and murder, and its own argot. Recently I met with Womack and asked him about the creation and particular prescience of these novels.

__________________________________________________________________

Your novels make me unbelievably anxious.  

I relieve my own anxiety by writing them. So, yeah, it’s transference.  

One of the things that’s so anxiety-inducing about Random Acts, as well as your first novel Ambient, is that there’s always scarcity: there’s never enough money, never enough food, never enough security. Which seems to me extremely, though not exclusively, New York.  

Oh, at the time it certainly was. The New York in Ambient was what I saw happening if everything had kept getting worse. When O’Malley is walking home to his apartment in the Lower East Side, that’s the way it used to be. What the predictive element missed was that New York would skyrocket back, and that neighborhoods you couldn’t go into at night thirty years ago, you now couldn’t afford. I moved up here in 1977 right after the blackout and the Son of Sam summer. So the fear definitely comes across. When you see Taxi Driver, that’s what it looked like. There’s no exaggeration. When you see any seventies movie, and you say, “I cannot believe how horrible New York looks,” that’s how it looked. You came up here because that was part of the charm. Unlike every other city that was falling apart and collapsing, New York still worked, but at the same time it was collapsing enough that you could come up here and live cheaply, and, y’know, thereby began the whole art scene from the ‘60s on. Because you had the space and opportunity.  

And that’s why you moved here.  

Yeah exactly. Because there was stuff going on. I mean, I had to get away from The Eagles. I’d heard The Ramones; I wanted nothing to do with where I was.  

Were you in Kentucky at the time? 

Yeah, I was in Kentucky. Lived there till I was 21, moved up here, and I’ve lived in my present apartment for 32 years in April.  

Wikipedia gives the copyright date for Random Acts as ‘95; my Grove Press edition says ‘93.  

It was purchased in ‘93. It was published by Harper UK first in October ‘94, and then it came out the next year, in the spring I believe, from Grove.  

So you were writing it in ‘92, ‘93  

Yeah, I started it in late ‘92. Random Acts wrote itself very quickly. Once I got the voice right, I wrote it like it was a diary. Every day would just be a new day. I’d advance the plot like that. Random Acts took me less time to write than anything else. Took me about five months.  

Spinning off from what you said about Ambient, Random Acts feels very much as if you took the early ‘90s and basically made everything get worse from right there.  

When I started writing Ambient, I had no idea that the multi-volume series was really the tradition in this genre, that it was going to take several to get the point across. Then there was this one review of Ambient in The New Republic where D.T. Max said I’d obviously written it for the movies. My answer was, “I wish I’d written it in English then, which would have helped those movie sales.” It also referred to the characters as comic book characters, so I thought, “Okay, alright, I’m going to take the most comic book-like character in Ambient and make her the character you care the most about in the entire series.” This was when I was planning it all out, and I remembered during the roller battle, the one who goes out the window, and I thought Crazy Lola, how did she get there? [This refers to the second chapter of Ambient, featuring a Dyrco “conference”, during which rival corporations engage in a battle royale, with their respective scantily clad female champions wielding medieval weaponry.] And you never find out exactly how she got there, and that’s just like a double knife twist in the series. Because you finish Random Acts, and I mean, as horrible as it is, Random Acts has to some degree its positive aspects because she has lived, she is surviving, she has adjusted. Her family didn’t, she did. And then you find out in Ambient that soon enough she’s killed. She’s the security guard who’s lasered as soon as they hit the planet.  

You said in a previous interview that you’d written Random Acts partially to show how the Dryco series argot came to be.  

Exactly. I developed it furthest with Elvissey. I mean there are parts of Elvissey that even I have to re-read at times to remember exactly what I’m saying. I realized having gone full into it with Ambient that I should provide an introduction to the series, as well as a way to be able to read it. I’ve had to change things very rarely because of editorial request. Once was forTerraplane, where my editor told me white college students would never be listening rap, so I had to change it to blues. Another time was with Ambient. O’Malley is watching the news and hears Woody Allen’s died. That would have been just like this little touch to remind people we’re not that far away, but you know, they could never accept that this was only twenty-five years from when I was writing. They were like, “No it couldn’t be, has to be a hundred years from now. Things don’t fall apart that fast.” And, of course, we’ve seen they do.  

We’re going to talk about prescience in a minute, but at the end of Random Acts, when she’s full on in the argot, it’s almost like the end of the bourgeoisie.  

She’s gone fully over in that in that paragraph; she’s accepts it, she’s still not that happy about it, but she’s not going back.  

And that whole universe isn’t going back either. Ambient doesn’t have a middle class. There’s the poor, the serving class, and the served.  

Exactly. Which is how you could see things were going in 1980 when Reagan was elected. That was basically the plan. 

[Read on...]