Week 46: 14 - 18 November, 2022
Abstract:
Contemporary art's relation to copyright is paradoxical. Copyright gives artists a claim of ownership over their own work. Yet, it enforces a type of individual original authorship that poorly fits contemporary artistic practices, which are often collaborative, generative, and building on the works of others. Since Dada, many avant-garde movements intended to undermine the notion of artistic control and originality. At least since the 1960s, numerous artists and activists have explored this paradox in their works, coming into conflict with copyright, exposing the weakness of its conceptual foundations in the digital domain, instigating collective practices, and, recently, through blockchain-based mechanisms (NFTs) pioneered notions of “ownership” that seemingly abandons 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. We will also look at the rise (and possible fall) of NFTs as the latest incarnation of the paradoxes of copyright.
Attendance (80%)
Participation in reading, discussions, and group presentations
https://pad.vmk.zhdk.ch/paradoxes_of_copyright
Submission of two very short texts (1-2 pages, each)
1. Text. Requirements:
2. Text. Requirements:
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”
Can a non-human be an author?
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
Jean-Luc Godard: »It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.« source
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/magazine/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. Initial publication, with footnotes 2012 via Waybackmachine
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
Cornelia Sollfrank and the net-art Generator
Warhol's Flowers:
Patricia Caulfield Hibiscus Blossoms (1964) – Andy Warhol Flowers (1964) – Elaine Sturtevant Warhol Flowers (1967) – Cornelia Sollfrank. Anonymous Warhol Flowers (2004 -). OG flowers (2010-2021).
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
Collaborating with AI
Infinite Conversation: an AI generated, never-ending discussion between Werner Herzog and Slavoj Žižek.
AI Art and Copyright
Tools to use (registration requirements)
Introductory materials NFTs Explained: A Must-Read Guide to Everything Non-Fungible https://nftnow.com/guides/what-is-nft-meaning
Financial Times: The FT Crypto Glossary
Technical Specs:
Reading in groups
Stalder, Felix, and Janez Fakin Janša, eds. 2022. From Commons to NFTs. Ljubljana: Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art. https://aksioma.org/from-commons-to-nfts-book.
Additional Material
Dan Olsen: Line Goes Up. Jan. 2022, 140 Minuten
Afternoon: Beyond NFTs, there are DAOs
Catlow, Ruth, and Penny Rafferty, eds. 2022. Radical Friends: Decentralised Autonomous Organisations and the Arts. United Kingdom: Torque Editions.
Read: Introduction. What is Radical Friendship made of? 26-46
Jonas Lund Token (JLT) https://jlt.ltd/
Visit: DYOR @ Kunsthalle, Meeting Curator Nina Roehrs (Intro Video)
Additional Materials:
Major NFT Market Places
The twisted case of Emily Ratajkowski
The even more, yet differently twisted case of Beeple
Morning: Finishing up and comparing AI-assisted essays
Afternoon: Writing reflection
