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$5M In Torrented Files Presented As Art
ideonexus snips thus from Wired: "The Art 404 gallery is currently exhibiting a piece by Manuel Palou called '5 Million Dollars, 1 Terabyte' which is a 'sculpture' consisting of a 1 TB external hard drive containing $5,000,000 worth of illegally downloaded files. The hard drive is displayed on a pedestal at the gallery."
Adds ideonexus: "There is a PDF of the files stored on the device with links to the torrents." I'd like this to be an exhibit at every trial in which gigantic money damages are claimed for copyright infringement.
First, so the harddrive does not contain files, it contains one file with links to torrent files?
No, the hard-drive contains the actual files in question, the PDF is a separate listing of what files have been downloaded to the drive, and their value IIRC (I can't access the PDF file without my browser crashing as I'm at work and this computer only has Adobe Reader).
Second, THAT'S ART?!
Moreso than most things passing as art these days.
This exhibit actually aims to raise a valid point about piracy.
By highlighting how trivial it is to cause $5million of "damage" (by certain definitions of that word) and how little effect it actually has, it's supposed to get people questioning the way we deal with infringers.
I'll say it again (for the thousandth time - and this is entirely subjective but it's still true): THIS ISN'T FUCKING ART!!! What it is, however, is a coherent political statement that actually says something (unlike the proverbial paint thrown on the wall, feces on a Ritz cracker, etc, etc). Imagine that...
I know a lot of you are going to protest and complain that this isn't art, much like the protest over that sculpture made of raw meat... but in a sense this really is art because of the people downloading, the controversy over copyright, the flagrant copyright violation involved in the artist downloading these files and presenting them as an artistic work. I think it's commendable, and it definitely involves taking a risk and it does make you feel something, so it's art.
I didn't say it was good art, but it is art, and I think it's interesting.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Didn't you read the summary? It's Art 404. 404 is "not found". Therefore it is not found art.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.