Week 42: 18 - 22 October
Abstract:
Contemporary art’s relation to copyright is paradoxical. On the one hand, copyright gives artists a claim of ownership over their own work. On the other hand, it enforces a type of individual, original authorship that poorly fits contemporary artistic practices which are often collaborative and building on the works of others. At least since the 1960s, numerous artists and activists have explored this paradox in their works, variously coming into conflict with copyright, exposing the weakness of its conceptual foundations in the digital domain, instigating collective anti-copyright practices, and, recently, through blockchain-based mechanisms (NFT auctions) pioneered notions of ownership that seem to abandon copyright entirely.
In this module, we approach copyright not as a fixed legal system but as a contested cultural domain in which artists play a key role in developing new models for the 21st century. We will focus on artists such as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Cornelia Sollfrank, Elaine Sturtevant, and on movements such as copy-left and look into the strange case of the model Emily Ratajkowski who sold ownership rights to an image of herself she probably doesn’t own.
Attendance (80%)
Participation in reading, discussions, and group presentations
https://pad.vmk.zhdk.ch/paradoxes_of_copyright
Submission of a very short paper (1-2 pages), with a focus on personal interests in relation to the theme of the module.
Swiss Copyright law
Bundesgesetz über das Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte
Art. 2: “Werke sind, unabhängig von ihrem Wert oder Zweck, geistige Schöpfungen der Literatur und Kunst, die individuellen Charakter haben.”
Art. 6: “Urheber oder Urheberin ist die natürliche Person, die das Werk geschaffen hat.”
Art. 10: “Der Urheber oder die Urheberin hat das ausschliessliche Recht zu bestimmen, ob, wann und wie das Werk verwendet wird.”
Art. 11: Der Urheber oder die Urheberin hat das ausschliessliche Recht zu bestimmen; (a) ob, wann und wie das Werk geändert werden darf.
Background: History of Copyright Wikipedia
When a photo is not “individual”
Reading:
Ortland, Eberhard. 2008. “The Aesthetics of Copyright:” In Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy, 227–32. Philosophy Documentation Center. https://doi.org/10.5840/wcp22200811225 PDF
Stalder, Felix. 2014. “Urheberrecht - Wenn das Recht kunstfeindlich wird.” Kunstbulletin, 2014. https://www.artlog.net/de/kunstbulletin-1-2-2014/urheberrecht-wenn-das-recht-kunstfeindlich-wird.
Group Readings:
Woodmansee, Martha. 1992. “On the Author Effect: Recovering Collectivity.” Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 10: 279–92 PDF
Barthes, Roland. 1967. “The Death of the Author.” Aspen, 1967. https://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/index.html
Foucault, Michel. 1998. “What Is an Author.” In Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, edited by James D. Faubion, 205–22. Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, Vol. 2. New York: New Press. https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Foucault_Author.pdf
Works:
Flowers:
Patricia Caulfield Hibiscus Blossoms (1964) – Andy Warhol Flowers (1964) – Elaine Sturtevant Warhol Flowers (1967) – Cornelia Sollfrank. Anonymous Warhol Flowers (2004 -).
Legal Perspective, 2004
I don't know, 1968/2006
Readings Net.Art Generator:
Sollfrank, Cornelia, and Winnie Soon. 2021. Fix My Code. Berlin: EECLECTIC. Introduction & Chapter 3, Ebook Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Jacob Lillemose. 2009. Keep on Generating. On Cornelia Sollfrank's Multiple Authorships. In: Himmelsbach, Sabine (ed) Expanded original: Cornelia Sollfrank [anlässlich der Ausstellung “Cornelia Sollfrank. Originale und Andere Fälschungen”, Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg, 24. Januar bis 19. April 2009]. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz.
Sollfrank, Cornelia. 2010. Anonymous Warhol Flowers: Urheberrecht als Material und Gegenstand der Kunst. Irights.Info
Zoom Conversation:
Cornelia Sollfrank
Jean-Luc Godard: It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.“ (as quoted by Jim Jarmusch)
Elaine Sturtevant
Heartney, Eleanor, and Eleanor Heartney. 2014. “Re-Creating Sturtevant.” ARTnews.Com (blog). November 1, 2014. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/re-creating-sturtevant-63492/.
Phelan, Richard. 2015. “The Counter Feats of Elaine Sturtevant (1924-2014).” E-Rea, no. 13.1 (December). https://doi.org/10.4000/erea.4567.
“Hans-Ulrich Obrist in Conversation with Elaine Sturtevant.” 2008. https://032c.com/elaine-sturtevant.
Jeff Koons
Fair Use (US Copyright) Copyright and Fair Use (Standford Library): What Is Fair Use? | Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors
Richard Prince
Harrison, Nate. 2015. “In The Wake of Richard Prince and Instagram, Revisiting Copyright Law, Appropriation and History.” AMERICAN SUBURB X (blog). June 4, 2015. https://americansuburbx.com/2015/06/in-the-wake-of-richard-prince-and-instagram-revisiting-copyright-law-appropriation-and-history.html
Nate Harrison Can I Get An Amen?, 2004
Further Reading:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984, 2009
Evans, David, ed. 2009. Appropriation. Documents of Contemporary Art. London : Cambridge, Mass: Whitechapel ; MIT Press. Read Introduction. p.12-23
Replicas. Originality on Trial in and around Olivier Mosset’s Collection. 30.06 –29.10.2017. Musée Des Beaux-Arts, La Chaux-De-Fonds. Catalogue
Free Licences and Commons
Sollfrank, Cornelia, Felix Stalder, and Shusha Niederberger, eds. 2021. Aesthetics of the Commons. Zurich / Berlin: Diaphanes. Read: Introduction: p. 11 - 33 https://www.diaphanes.net/titel/aesthetics-of-the-commons-6419
Kirb Filby Everything is a Remix, Video Series
Sonvilla-Weiss, Stefan. 2015. “Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal. Reflections on Cut-Copy-Paste Culture.” In The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies, edited by Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher, and Xtine Burrough, 54–67. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
PDF
Stalder, Felix. 2009. “9 Thesen Zur Remix Kultur.” Irights.Info, June 2009. https://irights.info/wp-content/uploads/fileadmin/texte/material/Stalder_Remixing.pdf
Catlow, Ruth, Marc Garrett, Nathan Jones, and Sam Skinner, eds. 2017. Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain. England] : [London: Torque Editions ; Furtherfield.Intro: PDF
What is an NFT
Introductory materials NFTs, explained. The Verge, August 2021 https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq
Technical Specs:
Major NFT Market Places
On the difference between contract (coin) and artwork
Kenny Schachter on NFT
Full-spectrum critique of NFT
The twisted case of Emily Ratajkowski
The even more, and differently twisted case of Beeple
How Crypto Art Might Offer Artists Increased Autonomy
https://hyperallergic.com/626274/nft-crypto-art-artist-autonomy/
Terra0, Two Degrees NFT, 2021
https://terra0.medium.com/two-degrees-nft-5af1263bfcc
Adi Wagenknecht & Matt Dryhust. 2021 A guide to ecofriendly CryptoArt (NFTs)
https://github.com/memo/eco-nft
Financialization of Art
Zoom Conversation
with Ruth Catlow on NFT, Crypto etc.
Afternoon: Individual/Group writing.
