Baudrillard
Unbearable Lightness in today's post over at What We Saw Today raises the issue of online art theft. I would like to offer a few more insights to complement her excellent writing and the very interesting comments provided by readers.
Where is the original work when we consider online images? Where is the reproduction? Already Walter Benjamin raised the question of the original in his famous The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.
Baudrillard suggests this is the age of the simulacrum, it is the representation that determines the real. The real has been replaced by its simulation, the hyperreal. We know the real through its representation and that transforms the real, so the real is no longer found.
If we look at the issue of art theft from this perspective it begins to lose its momentum. What is actually being stolen? Think of digital manipulations which combine several layers out of which new meanings are created.
Or think of images created by photographers and edited by others. Finding the original is like peeling an onion.
The idea of the art work as an original was questioned by postmodern theoreticians, from Barthes to Foucault. Ideas of copyright still follow a modernist concept of the art work as being something 'originated' by its author.
Just playing devil's advocate here but perhaps ideas of ownership and copyright need some rethinking.
Thank you for continuing the conversation, Alex. Copyright, trademark, and licenses are very new concepts in human history. I am most acquainted with art and literature in the Renaissance when complete originality and ownership of ideas was unheard of. No copyright existed. Artists got commissions for their work, and most of the great art was commissioned and owned by the Church or art patrons. The greatest artists had huge reputations, such as Shakespeare and Michaelangelo, but they did not own the great art created on commission. None of Shakespeare's work is copyrighted to this day.
ReplyDeleteImitation was a form of flattery and a way to learn an art; apprentice painters copied the works of the masters, and apprentice writers copied passages verbatim from the Latin to learn the art of rhetoric. No one called it plagiarism.
Every one of Shakespeare's plays took its plot and characters and sometimes even the title from previous plays and other literary works or directly from history itself.
Some years ago I was asked to write about plagiarism, so I did some research. As I recall the idea of plagiarizing a written work came out of the Scientific Revolution and the idea of trademarks and patents.
Finally, we ought to abide by the law. I had an unpleasant discussion with another moderator in one of my dA groups today over a photograph that simulates child pornography. Whether or not one agrees with it, U.S. Statute 2256 still says an adult dressed (or undressed) to look like a sexually provocative child constitutes child pornography. It is the law, and it is meant to protect children, so I can't comprehend anyone making an argument with me about it. Try to change a bad law if you think it is one, surely, but obey it in the meantime.
Theft of intellectual and artistic property is now also covered by the law, ostensibly for the protection of the artist. What laws affect the Internet remains unclear to most of us. As you say, though, finding the original of a photograph is like peeling an onion. It is not a painting on a canvas that we can identify as the definitive original work. In the days of film photography, art collectors purchased the negative of a photograph. How can one purchase pixels?
I'm sad when walking around at Ikea, I see all this "art" on the walls, cliché (most of them) fine art photographies on sale in ready frames... for very cheap and for thousands of clients walls.
ReplyDeleteWhat are we making? art or commercial business? Both?
I believe that the artist who respect himself and his creation should think twice before selling own works for cheap (like on dA for example), as those pieces loose their value when they get on everybody's wall.
The original stays the valuable work and will interest art collectors or lovers. They will buy an artwork for themself and not a poster. This is the reason why many sell own works in numbered limited edition and the copyright will loose its first value, when the limited edition will put away from you, the creator the right to make thousands of copies.
Even Royal Academicians are selling their pre packaged works on the 'walls' of Peter Jones for a hundred quid...It's called making a living.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Motion, former poet Laureate said on the radio the other day that "immature poets imitate, great poets steal",
Look at VanGogh, who copied Millais...
Even I have copied photographs as an 'hommage' and then attempted to take the image on to a slightly different place...
Best DG
DG thanks for interjecting, each one of your points is a valid one.
ReplyDeleteUL wonderful point. Of course we have to abide by the law. But some people use the law to their advantage and thus bully their victims legally, with full protection. It makes me sick.
Stephane thank you for reminding us of the limited edition. It is something of great value.