Slashdot Mirror
Review: Illegal Art
The reader continues:
The exhibit is of artwork on the legal fringes of intellectual property, litigation clouds loom over many of the pieces. (Buy now! This is a limited time offer! ;-) Even to an artistic ignoramus such as myself, it's clear the exhibit contains classic works of the genre. In this category are such items as the "Disneyland Memorial Orgy" (Poster, 1967) by the Mad Magazine artist Wally Wood, and the trademark certificate which certifies Professor Kembrew McLeod's ownership of the phrase "Freedom of Expression" (Conceptual, 1998). I also particularly enjoyed the finely detailed Spiderman quilt (Untitled) (Commercial fabric and recycled materials, 2002) by Ai Kijima and the counterfeit postage stamps, including "Prozac" (Computer generated laser print, 1996), of Michael Hernandez de Luna. De Luna creates stamps good enough to fool postal workers, as attested to by successfully delivered letters complete with postmarks. (Sorry, I cannot find any contact info for this Chicago artist on the web.)
An exhibition like this is innately political and nowhere is this more apparent than in the exhibition's video accompaniment, much of which is strongly anti-war and anti-corporate. Like the visual artwork, the borderline legality of the video work is due to its appropriation of corporate trademarks and sampling of copyrighted work. What makes it interesting as well as sometimes funny, regardless of your politics, is how the material reveals the manipulative techniques of everyday media and thereby turns the content against its owners. The very strength of the alternative message the videos present is often due to the strength of the original images.
Audio works are also included in the exhibit but I have not had the time to sample the wares.
Those who can't physically visit the exhibition in Chicago can experience many of the works via the Illegal Art web site. Video, audio, and visual art is available for download. A number of works have been added to the exhibit since it has come from New York. Images of the Chicago artists' work should be added to the web site as soon as the organizers get around to it. FWIW, rumor has the exhibit traveling to San Francisco.
What, is there something good on TV or something?
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
It is good to see that in this age of major corporatism and restrictive copyright laws that there is at least some vestige of free expression. Too bad it is not showing in my area.
The ascii-art version of the CSS-auth code: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/Pooshee bla-dvd.html
Repeal the DMCA!
....to those of us who are reading /. instead of being out at a themed party *cough* might be the "Disneyland Memorial Orgy" link.
(yeah, I'm one of the above mentioned too...go figure)
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
What would happen is that the artist, Boggs, would go into a shop and ask to buy something. He would try to convince the person at the checkout to accept a Boggs note rather than a normal one. So, he might offer you a £5 Boggs note in exchange for £5 worth of goods. If you felt that his art was worth £5, you would accept.
If you did accept, you were about to become very rich. He would tip off the people who collected his art that a note had been "spent", and the lucky shop assistant would be offered thousands of pounds for the note.
Of course, Boggs was charged with counterfeiting currency, because the people who govern us don't have a sense of humour. In due course Boggs appeared in court, represented by pro bono counsel. It seems that Boggs offered to paint his fee, but, not wanting to get struck off, his lawyer said that he would rather work for free!
After one of the most wacky trials I can remember, the jury voted to let Boggs off. In the process, the government made Boggs rich; thousands more people heard about his art, and the price went through the roof.
Shortly afterwards, the British currency had one of its periodic redesigns. The banknotes had changed to include a claim of copyright. Presumably the government wants to be able to get an injunction against any future Boggs, rather than taking its chance in front of a jury.
One Disney lawyer to another: Let's shut their website down -- we'll plant a Slashdot article!
.. . I dropped into the this place (western on the blue line, 2040 north milwaulkee upstairs, in the In These Times magazine office.)
The show is off the hook. There is some video pastiche and collage from the first gulf war that was on GNN (www.gnn.tv?) that is amazing and oddly precient for what is going on now, what is about to happen yet again.
They were asking for donations for the wine, but weren't pushy about it. Thusly, the wine ended up being resonably priced and quite good. It started to snow around 7pm or so, and I didn't get there till after six, so I didn't hear the opening speach (which was quite good, I heard).
I'm so glad this came to Chicago, I'd seen the NY announcement and thought it bad ass. This show rules, and the SF MOMA should definitely try to scope it (it plays to the SF Moma strength of design) for a west coast engagement.
But mostly, this stuff should be on-line. Somebody should take a good ditital camera and make some higer-res photos of the show and do a real on-line catalog, the low-res shit on the current site doesn't do it justice.
They were giving out this CD of music that looked good (and soon to be MP3'd) that says: "Not for Sale: Stay FREE! 003"
Ha. Right on. Also, it has an Invisibl Skratch Piklz track on it (also in CDDB as Various Artist Illegal Art): finally a free giveaway cd that doesn't suck. De La Soul track, Beasties, ubiquitous Negativeland "U2" track, hopefully some punk: tracks like "the JAMS - the Queen and I" sound kind of punk-rock, don't they?
right now, I guess they'd be happy to have a mirror. :-)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Art can be purely asthetic, or it can be a message. Anything can be art.
.. if you copied your CDs and put them on display, then its art. And think about it .. if you copy all your music (illegal) and put them on display (ie, youre not ripping the artist off because youre not even listning to their product, youre just making a point) .. why should that be illegal?
.. by putting the CDs on display, they cease being usable for their intended purpose, and become art - but, for reasons other than keeping artists from making free "CD Collection Exibits", its illegal to do that, and the point is made! The message is the irony that its illegal to copy information if you dont use that information in such a fasion that the original creator of the information should be compensated. Presumably, he could have copied anyones CDs .. the actual product (the music) is being completetly disregarded in this case, so no artist should get paid .. youre left wondering if this piece of illegal art, should, in fact be illegal.
.. should it be illegal to create art by copying data off of CDs, when the infomation on those CDs is never used by the purchaser? Should the purchaser owe the musicians on the CDs money for using their creations to make a statement .. should we not consider the context in which the information is being used before the law states that copying that information is illegal? Is this fair use? Etc, etc ...
If you copied all your CDs, and called it art, poof! Its art!
Whether is good art, or not, thats for you to decide. You didn't like it, good stuff.
But art is a message (in this case)
I think thats the message there
So who cares if its good or not
"Old man yells at systemd"
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.
Hmmm...perhaps if you'd take a moment to figure out why McLeod trademarked the phrase, you'd be able to make an informed commment on the subject.
McLeod, who was at the opening (I met him, chatted for a brief sec), trademarked the term and then named a zine "Freedom of Expression". He then got a buddy of his to start a punk zine also called "Freedom of Expression" and then sued his friend, hiring a lawyer whom he didn't let in on the gag. The whole point of the exercise was to show the ridiculousness of trademark. As McLeod said himself, "Freedom of Expression is not for sale." The entire suit was an exercise in analyzing culture and property rights.
He's also suing AT&T over the use of the phrase in an ad campaign they're running.
Amazingly enough, all of this information was readily available from the links in the story. Who knew?
My other computer is your Windows box
hi, we've put together a package of articles to coincide with the show. here's some links:
AN UPHILL BATTLE: INTERVIEW WITH LAWRENCE LESSIG
Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig is the nation's leading advocate for intellectual property law reform; we interview him about the state of the movement.
THE PIRATES OF HOLLYWOOD
The language of film may be universal, but don't tell that to the Motion Picture Association of America--you might end up in court.
MUSIC FOR THE MASSES
When Lester Chambers stepped onto the stage to galvanize the audience with "People Get Ready," his band included one guy who looked like he might be from the IRS. But he wasn't. He was there from the Federal Communications Commission.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
The power of corporations to censor was greatly expanded by the passage in 1998 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was written by and for the lobbies that paid to push it through Congress--the software, entertainment, pharmaceutical and other intellectual property industries.