Jonathan 5: Copy Assignment

For the copy assignment, I opted to go without the grid and try to make the piece my own. I picked this one because I just think this photograph is beautifully composed. The way it is read offers the viewer a very elegant path of movement from the spiral staircase to the tail of the dress

Lizette: Charles Copy

For my assignment, I thought about the notion of reframing art in a different context. I cam across the work of Michael Ray Charles, an artist who reframed blackface caricatures in the 90s to make social criticism.

Madeleine: Rubens Copy

For my copy assignment I chose a painting by Peter Paul Rubens of a portrait of a child. I picked the painting because the little girl's smile reminded me a little bit of the Mona Lisa's smile, and I was interested in looking at developing that idea further. Originally, I meant to incorporate another image in some way--I had intended to use an old Italian sculpture of a beautiful woman to refer to ideas about beauty and the many ways youth is idealized and often coveted over experience. However, I ran out of time so I ended up just beginning to copy the original Rubens painting. Maybe if I come back to the drawing I'll redo the background to further resemble the background of the Mona Lisa.

Monica: Owen Smith Copy

For this assignment I really wanted to try to make this piece my own. I wanted to ensure that the focus was on the man and the woman in the bedroom, therefore I decided to add a closed shade to the window. Despite the grids, I had trouble with the proportions and I found it extremely difficult to capture the facial expressions. I would have also like to match the shading better.

Jason: Botticelli Copy

 

I really enjoyed this assignment (partly because I was surprised that I could put something like this together). Areas that I'd like to improve on going forward: learning how to give the piece more depth, and also to work on drawing eyes. I'm not sure if this is related, but learning how to shade properly I think could also help me add depth. For example: Botticelli's arm really pops and feels curvy, but I had a tough time translating this to the page.

Carmen - Lessig, Berger, and Translation/Imitation/Emulation

I found it interesting to compare my experience with the imitation assignment to the ideas posed by Larry Lessig and John Berger about the role of appropriation in art. Both discussed the ability of technology to reframe the context of an art piece. In “Ways of Seeing,” Berger described how, before the invention of the camera, art was inherently tied to its context. People would make pilgrimages to view famous works, instilling them with gravity and importance. The uniqueness of the pieces’ surroundings contributed to the experience people had with the art itself. With the arrival of the camera, it was possible for these pieces to travel to people’s homes, placing the art within the context of their own lives. He seemed to resent the loss of the pilgrimage, but to some extent I believe that viewing art in a familiar context can actually instill it with increased significance. I have a more intimate relationship with my poster of a Van Gogh painting than I might have viewing the original painting in a museum, because this poster has traveled with me to different homes and has been privy to many of my life events. To some extent, my shared experience with the poster has changed its meaning.
     This idea ties into Larry Lessig’s idea about the recreation of art. He talks about how technology has allowed our generation to transform the works of other artists by placing them in a different context (usually form is altered as well.) I think it’s interesting to distinguish this type of appropriation from the photographs that Berger discussed. People have no problem with the copying of masterpieces for books about fine art, but the use of someone else’s art in another piece makes many people uncomfortable. I think that this distinction arises from the definition of art: no one is claiming that the photographs in art books are their way of expressing creativity, but young people re-vamping video clips are calling them their own. This is very interesting to me, because it demonstrates how concerned our society is with ownership.
      The imitation assignment touched on both of these forms of appropriation. I copied a Van Gogh sketch, but I copied it off of a printed out scan of a photograph in an art book. I have a much closer relationship with my copy of Van Gogh’s piece than I do with the original, even though the two pieces are many steps removed. However, I would not go as far to say that my drawing is my own creative expression, because I did not change the content of the piece to reflect any of my own ideas. However, the formal aspect of copying this sketch was interesting. It is clear that Van Gogh’s drawing is extremely free, yet I tried to copy his haphazard lines as well as I could to imitate the precise image. In some ways, my copy would have been closer to the original (in content, at least) if I had looked at the woman and drawn her in my own free style rather than worrying about the exact placement of each line and shadow. Regardless, I had a great time developing a relationship with this drawing in my own personal context.

Amber Bledsoe: Copy

I did my copy a little different from everyone else. I found a painting I liked but it was boring and didn't look very good after I redrew it, so I decided since I didn't have the materials to copy it nicely in color I'd do it in black in white. I used charcoal pencils as the medium. 

Jane: Toulouse-Lautrec Copy

The difficulty I faced in the reproduction of this Toulouse-Lautrec painting was within the change of medium. Toulouse-Lautrec, as an impressionist, does a lot with brushstroke and color, two things that I lacked with pencil. I started out drawing very controlled lines, using the grid to create basic outlines of shapes, but as so much of the painting was determined by brushstroke, I soon resorted to copying shading. I loosened up, got a bit messy with rough sketching, turned the palm of my hand silver with graphite, and the whole thing seemed to settle more into the impressionistic style. I really do regret the lack of color, though: the red hair just attracts the focus in the most perfect way, and pencil isn't fit to capture that effect.

Jane: Larry Lessig

What struck me most about Larry Lessig's talk was the way he referred to copyright laws as a form of prohibition: an unnecessary inconvenience that ultimately hinders our ability to remain a "read-write" culture. In a lot of ways, I think he has a valid point: so much exists to day in the form of copies, remixes, and sequels that it begs the question, what defines originality? One could argue that reframing another's work constitutes innovation, but I definitely agree with the sense of discomfort expressed in class the other day: sometimes appropriation of another's hard work, even a reinvention on a conceptual level, doesn't quite sit well. Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code presents a great example of such an uncomfortable situation of copyright. In 2006, the authors of a book titled The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail filed a copyright suit against Dan Brown for stealing their basic premise (Jesus has ancestors by Mary Magdalene). Brown won the suit on the grounds that ideas are common property, a decision that seems fairly reasonable. Yet the whole thing seemed a bit unsettling when I learned that he had used the authors' names, Michael Baignet and Richard Leigh, as an anagram for the character Leigh Teabing. Perhaps a nod of respect, but without citing the two authors as a source and having appropriated their ideas, the reference seems more tongue and cheek than reverent. 

I agree with Lessig: information sharing is so rampant today that it becomes a hassle, almost a barrier to creative thought to follow strict copyright. If we are to maintain a status as a read-write society, we should accept that inspiration from another's work isn't stealing, it's evolving, expanding, variations on a theme. Still, blatant appropriation never really feels right, and giving credit where credit is will always be a necessity, out of respect for originality (a rarer thing in this world).

And if you liked the dubbing videos, here's another Blair/Bush one (which I like better):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3319967978568410735#

Suji - Translation, Imitation, Emulation: the copy!!!

I decided to copy the original by Michelangelo as closely as possible. The detail is absolutely mind-blowing! I can't imagine how much genius and effort went into this piece. By emulating a great artist, I think I better understood the real mastery in skill it requires to create such a masterpiece. I was humbled - I could not dare improvise what was, to me, perfection!

(taken from my phone, so it isn't that great of a picture)

Hands are one of my favorite objects to draw because they are a crucial part to our lives. We all use them for so many tasks, yet each person's hands are unique. No two people's lines or creases are the same and they tell stories and contain history of the person's life to which they belong. Hands also serve as a way of communicating, whether it be through shaking hands, a wave, a peace sign, or even giving the middle finger. Hands are intricate and contain so much detail that I always find drawing them enthralling. 

Jesse - Picture "Copy"

I tried to do something different with the grid assignment. When we were first assigned the task to copy the picture with the option of recreating it, I originally thought of putting the painting, above, in photoshop and chopping it up into different pieces of a grid. I then wanted to take the pieces of the painting and mix them up to form a new painting with a different meaning. However, as I was doing this I realized that technically putting the pieces together results in a jumbled picture with no real continuity, meaning, or image. At that point I hit a roadblock because I was not sure what I wanted to do to the picture since the grid idea did not work out. I started to think about what small shift I could do to change the entire meaning of the piece and the way that people would perceive it. That is when I decided to drastically shrink the size of Jesus. Between the two paintings, Jesus goes from something  of great worship and awe to almost being a figurine in a museum. However, you can derive your own meaning from this....

Monica - Larry Lessig Reaction

While watching the Lessig video, I found myself asking why people are so opposed to the idea of change. I think one answer could be that people feel our culture is becoming more impersonal as more advances in technology are made. Take Sousa's argument against "talking machines" for example, as he felt that such technology would ruin the artistic development previously generated by folks gathering in front of the house and singing the songs of the day. I don't believe technology stifles traditional artistic development or forces us to abandon the old way of doing things but instead creates new avenues for modern artistic development. I have never truly considered myself to be the most creative or artistic individual and I often look upon the work of others to draw inspiration. I personally believe that outright copying somebody else's work is wrong, but I think that using the work of another as a foundation to build upon is a form of art to be embraced.

In this day and age where an endless amount of information is readily available at our finger tips I can understand the concern for the protection of certain property rights and I agree that credit should  be given where credit is due. But because we do live in a society where we are constantly sharing information and have the technology to keep producing without limits, I think we should maximize our potential instead of "choking our creativity."

Kim- Copy

I was really struck by the emotion in the faces of the dancers in Renoir's "Dance at Bougival," so I chose to focus on the upper half of the painting. (The original includes the dancers' full bodies.) Although I was trying to copy it exactly, I think that my version has less room for interpretation because the woman's eyes point in a different direction and she is obviously not interested in the dance.

Berfu: Copy

I wanted to copy either a black and white photograph or a sculpture, because I thought the drawing of such a piece would emphasize the different aspects of it, and even if I choose to stay faithful to the image, the effect the drawing creates at the end would be very different than the effect of the original piece. While going through the images at RISD, I found a close up Michelangelo's famous sculpture "Pieta".

 I didn't change much of the original image, except that I brought it a little closer and cut some parts from left and right corners to get rid of a part of the dark background and work easier with a grid. I can't say my drawing looks as good as I wanted it to be, but I guess I achieved my point by not smoothening the edges and emphasizing the line, thus creating a completely different effect than the smooth texture of the original sculpture creates.

Abby-- T-Shirt Design

T-shirt design! Way overdue (my bad)! I love threadless shirts and here is my interpretation.  I drew the unicorn and scanned it into photoshop and added the tiny burger w/ pickle. My unicorn drawing was so large I had a little bit of trouble at first because I had to scan it in parts and then photoshop it back together. 

Chris: Copy

I was intrigued by the coquettish expression of the woman in this Red Cross advertisement. I noticed that this artist also had done numerous illustrations of pin-up girls and "erotic women throughout history" that had the same expression as the woman supporting this wholesome organization. It's a little difficult to see here, but in my copy I tweaked the woman's smile to make it even more flirty and I centered the word "GIVE," with the intention of creating an ambiguous potentially suggestive image.

Lucy: The Copy

 My drawing lacks the sharpness of the original and I couldn't quite figure out how to achieve the texture of the stone. That's something I'd be interested to hear advice on. But in terms of proportion, I found the grid to be very helpful. I stayed fairly faithful to the image, but if I were to bring up some departure from the original I might say that because my pencil lines are softer than those created by the camera lens, and because I chose to outline the image not with solid black but clearly sketched charcoal, my has more of a mystical, unreal-like quality than the original.

7- Berfu: Lessig talk

Lessig suggests that the 21st century marks the reemergence of the read-write culture after a period of read only culture, in which a very limited number of people created while others consumed only. His idea of recreation reminded me of Picasso who said that bad artists copy, good artists steal. Stealing in this case is getting inspiration from someone else's work, learning from others and creating one's own piece which eventually becomes a combination of all the ideas he/she "stole". In Picasso's time, the traces of the stealing in that sense appeared subtly in the artworks; in our time it is more obvious as the artists sometimes create an artwork directly "stealing" a part of another creative piece and integrating it to their work in a unique way so that it can be regarded as a completely different artwork. This "copy-paste-create your own" movement is far from plagiarism since the artists puts something from their own into his piece, thus asserts his unique point of view about a certain subject. Their interpretation of the "original" artwork gives way to another artwork which is equally original.

Lessig says that this type of creativity is inevitable in our age especially because of the availability of various media that make easier to reach to any artwork and modify it. He carries this idea a step further and claims that this is how the new generation speaks. So trying to stop them from expressing themselves with laws such as copyright would be useless and would only lead to crime in the form of "piracy". I agree with Lessig's idea and support organizations such as Creative Commons, where it's possible to reach legally to artworks that are labeled as "some rights reserved". However, I still believe that the creator of the original piece still deserves recognition and should be at least referred to in some way in the new piece. Although I support the free culture movement, it also concerns me since it's almost impossible to detect how and in which context the artworks are used. I don't know how one can be sure that their artwork is not completely stolen and used without modification.

Asya: copy of Schiele

Egon Schiele was a painter from Austria who unfortunately died young, and produced art in the early 1900s. He studied under Klimpt. This is a reproduction of one of his self-portraits, titled "Self- Portrait, Screaming". I was very taken by the intense expression on the artist's face and his silent scream. I could not decide whether the scream appeared genuine, but it did not look like one of terror. I also really like the edgy, brutal brush strokes surrounding the figure and framing the face.

I would like to color the jacket later, probably with ink, because it is not dark enough.

Asya: response to Walter Benjamin and Lessig talk

I agree with Walter Benjamin that the authority of a piece is lost when it is copied, but I argue that the replicated piece, if it is a good one, can withstand this. The process of replication, the act of appropriation touts authority. I believe the authenticity of a copied piece can be retained as long as the replication has some kind of message. This message can be a comment on the original piece or on society, but something about the replicated piece needs to change so that it can still be called a work of art. Benjamin would argue that replicas intrinsically are changed, because their creation takes place in a different time period than the original piece, and I would tentatively agree. For example, if I took a photograph of a painting from 1900, my photograph would be intrinsically different from the painting because the setting of the photograph has changed. Once a piece changes context, an original piece is born.

I liked the idea of using a copy as a medium by which laypeople can access the original piece, but I also agree there is a downside to mass production of art. I feel that the copies we made allowed us to be "absorbed" by the piece, as Benjamin put it, because we spent hours staring at a masterwork and figuring out the exact contour placement of such - and such- line; in short, we ruminated over the piece and became extremely familiar with all of its parts. I think this kind of exercise is valuable, wherein the copy serves as a way for a student to access the original, such as when a person remixes a song. However, if such a copy was produced on a large scale, I imagine Benjamin is right in that the masses would absorb the copy, and by proxy, the original. This is because replication to the point of distraction is neither beautiful, nor can it teach us about the original in a meaningful way. Therefore, the act of producing a copy can be informative, but the act of consuming or absorbing a copy may not be.

Such mindless consumption links to the Lessig talk, particularly when Lessig mentions the development of a "read-only" culture. I fear that this RO culture may happen/is already happening, for a strange reason - since information is so easily accessible, consumers that might otherwise create are placated into absorbing media, because the responsibility of creation has been dissipated by countless, often anonymous individuals encountered through the internet. This makes me sound like a Luddite and like I want to restrict access to content, which is not the case- I want people to become motivated by all of the art available online, not use public domain works such as those under Creative Commons (and even works that are not public domain) as an excuse to torrent everything they can get their hands on and in the meantime forget about creating new content. Complacency is a poor excuse.

Kati: Copy

I'm not sure if we were supposed to post out copies for this class or next class, but this is mine so far. I REALLY want to figure out a way to add color to my pencil copy. I have pastels and water color and was thinking about one of those. I think my copy is missing a lot of the mood of the original, which was what drew me to the piece in the first place. The image is called "Portrait of Meret Oppenheim" and it was painted by Leonor Fini, an Italian artist, in 1938.

Abby--Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

The discussion of “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” as well as the in class discussions we’ve had regarding “What is Art?” seems not only to point out discrepancies among a physical piece of art and the concept behind a piece (for example the depression-era photograph and the 1980s copy version), but also says something about contemporary American society. In post 1960s America, there seems to be an interesting and important societal debate emerging regarding art for the masses versus art for a select few. “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” describes copying and photographing art so that it becomes an object for the masses. We have discussed the pros and cons at length as to whether this entrance into the mainstream has been beneficial to the art world. I understand that this is not a uniquely American phenomenon (the popularization of art and the debate of whether or not this is a good thing) but I can’t help but to wonder about the ramifications of our societal and political views on this artistic debate (sorry, Poli Sci concentrator). Much of this questioning of what is art and in turn using reproduction as a tool came from Americans such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Could the age old question of is the United States run by a single elite (our founding fathers were all rich white guys after all) or a populist nation for the common man be spilling into the minds and artworks/ “artworks” (in quotations for those “pieces” such as the photograph of the photograph) of modern day artists?

Chris: Lessing Response

Benjamin's discussion of the new "progressive possibilities" that arose with the capacity for mechanical reproduction led me to contemplate how art, in addition to serving as a reflection of the social, cultural, and political issues of the present, also involves a careful consideration of the past and future. Basically, that art exists solely within the context of our time - it is not absolute and cannot be an independent entity. What Benjamin describes when he speaks of the introduction of film and other art forms that can be appreciated by the masses is the creation of an entirely new way of perceiving not only art, but also life - this concept of "reception in a state of distraction," which I interpreted to be art's subtle infiltration into daily life, and the new power of a piece to provoke/enable discussion by the masses and to affect the way people perceive unrelated elements in their lives.

I think it's interesting how "meta" art has become - how now the issue at hand is neither the talent/ability of the artist nor technical mastery demonstrated in the piece, but rather the concept behind the piece itself. Everything is viewed in relation to the initial concept - every element within a work exists for a reason, and this reason is integral to understanding the work itself. Our obsession with symbols and the potential for mass distribution that Lessig describes with regards to the internet has led people to take already existing works and reinterpret them in new ways. Yet interestingly, some of the significance of the used work remains - the people making these remixes used certain clips from certain videos/songs for a reason, because of their original social/cultural/political meaning. I think it's become a fantastic new way to convey both an event in society as well as its critique - like those news clips we see re-edited to make fun of politicians.

However, I wonder if we are taking this concept of reappropriation too far. It's apparently become marketable - so much of our popular music features clips from older songs, and now it seems like all of the movies that are coming out in theaters are a throwback to some other movie/comic book/book/cartoon/action figure of the past. We call it "retro" and it's cool. So cool, that it's probably going to get "old" soon - and I wonder what will come next.

Jonathan 4: Lessig Response

I find it very interesting that today's generation and culture has brought about the debate of the validity in the copying of works of art. You don't have to travel far to find a copy of any video, photograph, painting, ect on the internet. In the current times, a work of art doesn't have to be any where near famous to be replicated and reproduced dozens upon dozens of times.

The process of copying a work of art can often times undermine the conveyed message of the original, but that is not always the case. The effect that a copy can have on an original piece of art is definitely conditional. It all depends on what an artist is intending to express by replicating a certain piece of artwork. This is why I believe that original does not always lose validity upon being reproduced because it may have a new message from a different artist. Copying in the digital age is often times about the act of doing so, as opposed to the copy itself.

5 - Hadley: Lessig Response

Lessig states that "every single use of culture produces a copy." In that case, we are all trespassers. The shift of our society to a more digital world is what makes it impossible to distinguish between what is original and what is a copy. I appreciate what he had to say about the read-write culture being revived by the increasing use of the internet. The internet allows media and culture to be shared faster and more broadly than ever before, which is something I have taken complete advantage of. However, I find this whole topic hard to debate just because it is so inconclusive. Most things are copies of something else, and there's really know way to pinpoint the source of "creativity."

I haven't quite finished Exit Through the Gift Shop, but the essay by Walter Benjamin was intriguing. I specifically liked his discussion of the reaction people have toward art and how mechanical reproduction can have a great effect. It's strange to think that the way in which a painting or another piece of art reaches a person can have such a great effect on how they view and react to it. For me, thinking about the discrepancy between artist's perception of what they're trying to capture and what they end up conveying to an audience is extremely significant and it does have a great deal to do with the mode of art (the difference between a canvas of a painting and a film).

I feel that instead of taking away from what pieces of art have to offer, replicas, copies and remixes can add meaning to the original work.

Kati: Copies and Seeing

Watching the "Ways of Seeing" episode reminded me of this new method of teaching I heard about last year. Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is basically the same thing that John Berger did with that group of kids, inviting them to speculate on art and support their ideas with things they see in the pictures, only now its been given a name and turned into a form of curriculum. Teachers facilitate the discussion, but do not challenge or agree with their students' interpretations. Here is a video of VTS done with a bunch of kids if anyone is interested :

In the video, one of the things someone says is that kids really want to understand what they are looking at. I don't think that applies just to kids, but I think at some point, we're taught that only experts can understand art, like John Berger says when he talks about the very verbose, inaccessible art catalog. Sherrie Levine's photograph of Walter Evan's photograph gives us so little to work with to try and understand, which I think makes it frustrating. We expect, as John Berger said, that art will create this tunnel between us in the present and the moment of the image's creation, and the image is what gives us clues and allows us to connect to that moment. Sherrie Levine seems to be rather deliberately shifting the window away from the Great Depression and to the moment when she and her camera looked at Walter Evan's picture, but she gives us no new information to understand her mood or her motives. We're forced to speculate rampantly, and I suspect that makes many of us uncomfortable. I'm glad that through methods such as VTS, kids are being taught that there isn't a right answer and rampant speculation is okay; however, how do you support your argument when there is no physical evidence?

On the idea of copying and appropriating being one way that our generation digests new information and material, discussed in Lessig's Ted Talk, I found this interesting art project from a French photographer. Mathieu Lambert: Fake Tales of America. The artist, who has never left France, took pictures in France and then subtitled them with the names of American cities to create the idea that he took the pictures on a trip to America. While the project is incredibly original, it is also a form of plagiarism, in the sense that he is duplicating images of American culture and then pretending to pass them off as being authentically American.

Jason - Could $5,000,000 make you cringe? How money can help us measure value.

Question: Let's play the same game that we did in class (with the photograph and the exact copy), but let's pretend that we're at an auction and the two pieces are going up for sale. How would you feel if both were sold for the same amount? How would you feel if the copy was sold for more (because it's, you know, witty and "modern")?

To make things more concrete, let's say that the copy sold for $5,000,000. 

Whether or not you think that's a little too much, the second you make that judgment call, you're doing something really interesting: you're placing a relative value on the copy.

Spending money is all about choosing. When you spend something on X, it's because you think X is more important than acquiring Y (so when you buy a loaf of bread instead of giving your money to a charity, you're choosing your own livelihood over the charity). Likewise, when you see someone pay five million dollars for a copy, something in your brain might be saying -- that money could be used to save lives in an impoverished country, and it's outrageous that a copy be valued that much.


The difference between this copy and what Jessie was talking about (taking photographs) is that most photography brings artistry to a piece (via an interesting perspective or some other technique). The remixes that Lessig values are the ones that bring new life to the original (by chopping it up or changing it in some way). The difference between appropriation and stealing is that appropriation brings this new value.

For me, the copy is not sufficiently different from the original to warrant any protection from the law. In fact, this isn't even creative thievery. I'm not sure when the copy was made, but if a Xerox machine existed before it was created, the idea behind making the copy is hardly unique! (Doesn't this bother anyone else!)

Here's a link to a famous remix of the Pixar Movie: Up -- really cool, and a great example of bringing new life to a piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2yt1ooLQGo

Jesse - Lessig Response

Lessig was right when he said that the culture of our parents is so very different than the culture of our generation.  While they lived in a more "closed" culture, we experience a culture that is incredibly open and free. This explains why people currently are exploring art in more diverse and varied ways that bring into question the legal matters related to the creation of art. However, these legal problems arise only when the past culture comes into contact with the current culture.

I think that it is rare for me to look at a piece or art and question its "validity". However, there are times when I look at a piece of art and think about whether it is "right" that the artist took the majority of the work from another artist. While at times I believe that it is okay for artists to sample works from another artist, like in the creation of remixes of songs, I do not agree with Lessig's assertion that modern artists need to accept that their works will be reproduced and redistributed by people in order to reach a certain end (money, notoriety, etc.). It bothers me to think that I can produce a work of art and then have someone else profit off of it or a different variation of it. It would make me feel good that someone was so inspired by my work that he/she used it to make their own work of art, but I would still feel that I would at least have some rights to that "new" piece of art. Even if somewhere in the title of the piece there is a mention: "inspired by Jesse's [work of art]) I would be content with that. However, I do not think that I would be okay with someone taking full credit for their version of my work of art.

My opinions on the copyright topic may end up reducing the variety of art that exists today, but I ultimately think that it is the right thing to do.

Lizette: Lessig & Bansy Response

Lessig said, "in the digital world, the one fact we can't escape is that every single use of culture produces a copy." When I watched Exit Through the Gift Shop, this line came to mind often. I was, I have to say, a little annoyed by Thierry. I think that the street art shown in the film is art. In fact, I think it is a terribly interesting form of art because it challenges the most mundane things. These artists have a purpose and a message that inspires their work, even though their form of expression is illicit. Thierry was certainly inspired by these artists. He seemed to have an obsession with their work, but didn't quite understand it, as he sometimes asked the artists common sense questions. 

I could handle Thierry for most of the film, though. But when I saw his show, I was rolling my eyes in almost every scene. His exhibition seemed like a regurgitation, a race to produce the largest amount of work for the sake of being big and known. He even priced his art highly without, as Shepard Fairey pointed out, being fully formed as an artist. Thierry's work was not art to me; it was uninspired copies or reinterpretation of authentic art that had no purpose or made no statement. 

3 - Suji: Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin states that each individual work of art retains its own unique force - an "aura." He further explains that this "aura" mainly exists through the uniqueness and originality of a creation. When printing technology and photography were developed, it became possible to mechanically reproduce art and create a perfect replica of a copy of a copy of a copy. The reproduction of art destroys its originality and, thereby, its "aura." Though Benjamin insists that the loss of an "aura" is a good thing (i.e. for political benefit), what does mechanical reproduction do to the value of an art and its title as "art"?

I personally believe that mechanical reproduction does not destroy but instead expands the definition of art. The focus of art becomes not in the material but in the immaterial - the context, the conceptual, the meaning. This is not a bad thing. However, it is true that the shift in what is being presented to how it is being presented creates an even harder criteria for what is good or bad art. At the same time, it becomes increasingly harder to impress.

In our assignment for "Translation, Imitation, Emulation," our interpretations of the original works of art can indeed be considered an "art" of its own. There is definitely a lack of originality, which may not impress some spectators, but interpretation is in itself a creative process of production and so I consider it to be art. In fact, parody (or satire) is a form of art I personally highly revere. 

Essentially, though the emphasis is on the conceptual, good art still needs to be founded upon mastery of technical skill. This is partially why I, for the "Translation, Imitation, Emulation" assignment, decided to focus on works by the traditional and classical artist of the Renaissance, Michelangelo!!! (The Mona Lisa is just a bonus...)

Leah: Lessig Response

Some say it is hard to be completely original now because all the “good” ideas have already been used. I can’t decide if I completely agree. As Lessig says, it is true that our generation often recycles old works and remixes them into something we call a modern or innovative form. For example, in the music world, many songs have used parts of past songs in the chorus or in the background. In Rihanna’s Please Don’t Stop the Music, she uses Michael Jackson’s famous line “mama se mama sa ma ma coo sa” from his song, Wanna Be Startin Somethin. Being an avid Michael Jackson fan, I knew that she copied those words when I first heard the song, but not everyone would know that. In this way, I feel she is plagiarizing Michael Jackson’s song until it is somehow known by the majority that those lyrics were not her creation. This relates to the Great Depression photograph we were shown in class. The second picture that was the same as the original disturbs me because it was practically identical. Yet, someone in class made a good point that whenever we take a picture of something, isn’t that also plagiarizing? This question still intrigues me and after giving it some thought, I think I have come to a conclusion that fits for me: In order to make a continuation of any original work, there must be some change to it to add the vision of the new artist. Even if that change is minimal, it is acceptable as long as he or she notes who or what they took the idea from.

Corey - Thierry absolved

Much like some of the other artists in Exit Through the Gift Shop, I feel somewhat betrayed by art due to MBW's massive success. I could not help but feel like life is beautiful was a disgusting collection of mass produced formulaic art. While I still strongly believe Thierry didn't have this purpose, Lessig gave life is beautiful a new definition for me. Life is Beautiful is the in your face rebellious climax of taking what's been given and changing it to recreate it. In this sense Thierry sums up a generational struggle. It could be argued that the whole exhibition is fighting for the rights of UGC.
However, I feel a new question arises. Even if UGC was all considered legal, could it be considered art. I can see a message behind Thierry's show but are countless iterations of a single idea, like the campbells chicken spray paint, considered art? In the same way is every person lip sinking a song on the internet art?
I suppose I think no matter how painful to the ears or irritating most youtube videos are, it is still a mass generated movement through creativity and expression and in that sense it defines art.

Charlie--Lessig Reaction

I couldn't watch the whole video because my internet was giving me problems, but let me just start off by saying that I think Lessig is one of the greatest presenters I've ever seen. My junior year history teacher loved him and modeled his presentation style off of Lessig. Lessig's method of using mostly pictures and minimal words is really creative and one that a lot of my professors at Brown could learn from. The issues that he brings up reminds me a lot of "The Social Network" and the issues in the creation of Facebook. Can somebody own an idea? Where does the law have jurisdiction when the human mind comes into play?     I think the public should have a more active say in what power the law has.

Madeleine: Larry Lessig Talk

I think Larry Lessig brings up some important issues with the debate over art and plagiarism in the digital world, but I think an even clearer distinction can be made between the practices of adaptation and appropriation. Basically, Lessig advocates for a world which does not criminalize artistic invention which builds upon (or is based entirely upon) old media. I think that this idea has a lot of merit, because in many ways art is inherently referential--I don't mean that original art doesn't exist, merely that the definition of "original" is a little bit more complicated than most people allow for. In many senses, all art is an adaptation of our experience, and that being said it would be impossible to prove the originality or legality of one person's adaptation of another's work. I think appropriation is an attempted adaptation in which the appropriator fails to produce something new from the conglomerate of ideas and materials. This distinction is admittedly hazy, but I think it could serve as a useful guide when evaluating the artistic intention and sincerity behind someone's work--is it an adaptation? Did the artist refer to cultural/societal influences which are inescapable and build upon them to form a unique work of art? Or did he or she merely hodge-podge together a group of other works without really creating anything new? I think art which refers to existing art or other work is inescapable, especially in a society which is so pervasively digital, but I do think that it is imperative to maintain this distinction.

7- Kim: Larry Lessig reaction

I appreciate how Lessig believes that reusing and repurposing someone else’s creation is still a form of creativity instead of plagiarism. It reminded me of texts I read in a comparative lit class last semester where authors took the characters or plot lines from classic stories and re-wrote them from another perspective. Each version of the story was not a copy, just a different interpretation. I agree with Lessig that artists should make their work available for others to use, because revision is a continuation of the creative process. Every re-written story or re-mixed video adds to the power of the original instead of detracting from it.

EDIT:
I just watched "Exit Through the Gift Shop" last night, and it might have changed my views on ownership. Watching Thierry take credit for his art confused me because in the film, we never see him make anything. Thierry has vision, and he certainly enjoys publicity, but I cannot see him as an artist. In his studio, Thierry hires prop designers and printers to execute his vision. We never see Thierry sketching or building, just pointing and directing. If Thierry had the idea to make a monster out of televisions, but the prop designer actually built it, then to whom does the art belong? Is it wrong for Thierry to take credit for a piece that someone constructed for him? Or is art entirely independent of its creators?

Lucy: Larry Lessig talk

Lessig views the internet as an opportunity to revive a "read-write" culture in which the consumers also create. I responded to his comments about remix being the language of youth in two ways: first, I wondered where exactly the types of video/music remixes he used as examples came from (whose idea was it to create something like that? As far as I know, the genre came into the spotlight of recognition along with youtube, but who did it first and why?), and second, I grew slightly defensive of my generation in that he didn't seem to give the internet babies the credit for creating new things. "This is who your children are," he says (or something to that affect)--but I know that's not really who I am. I'm not a technology person.

A different approach to Lessig's points is to think back to Andy Warhol, many of whose creations were contested as possibly not his own. Pop art comments on or reuses what is already there, so could we send Lessig back through a time machine and allow him to deliver the same speech, using for examples Brillo boxes instead of anime mashes? Maybe so. Maybe this remix/sharing/community artistry was always where we were headed. They say that there are no longer any new ideas in the universe, and everything is recycled. But I'm not so sure.

Jane: Eye Heart New York

My design is a play on the classic I <3 NY t-shirt, using photographs instead of letters and symbols to imitate an iconic image: a human eye with an iris manipulated into a heart, and the city-scape of New York imposed on top of it. I wanted to play around with the satirical capabilities of a t-shirt, as well as take the opportunity to express a simple idea in a brief composition of images: something you'd look at for a few seconds before making the connection. I experimented with cutting out the eye at first, but decided that it looked strange and jarring against a white background. Instead, the eye would probably be very large across the center of the t-shirt, with the rest of the background a faded grey to match the skin tone in the photo. 

Amber: T-Shirt Design

I decided to design a poster instead of a t-shirt. When I was thinking about what I wanted to create I decided I wanted something with a message that would be empowering. I thought of a girl looking in a mirror and not seeing herself, but remembering her childhood dreams. I struggled a lot with Photoshop and wasn't sure how to clean the image up or arrange the words like I wanted to but these are two of my drafts. 

Carmen - Shirt Design

The video camera graphic symbolizes the ways in which our clothing interacts with our environment. Our clothes witness everything we do and become documentation of our experiences, both consciously and unconsciously. Perhaps this record manifests itself as a small stain, perhaps a memory associated with a certain experience had while wearing the article of clothing. Also, shirts (like video cameras) perform active functions. Just how a camera chooses what scenes to shoot and how to frame them, we choose our clothes in order to make a specific statement about ourselves. The bird coming out of the camera is meant to illustrate this active role our clothing plays in shaping our encounters.  

Aesthetically, I think I could do more with the design. I like its simplicity, but I think I could add a few elements that would make it more exciting. I also think I can clean up my drawing a bit. Finally, I want to overlay this design onto an image of an actual shirt so I can play with its placement. (I think I would put the camera on the lower corner, with the bird coming up)

Corey - Excuse Us

I started this project just messing around Photoshop. but I came to like the strong image of the horse becoming a stronger image of a unicorn style horse with a sword on its head. I think its a bold design and it backs up the phrase on the shirt. Excuse our charisma doesn't ask to be excused but it states it.

Madeleine - T-shirt

My shirt design is based loosely on the idea of a window, because I was interested in how people use t-shirts to express facets of their personalities. I was interested in using the t-shirt as the window to the soul, but I also wanted to look at the idea of privacy which is why there's the representation of a partially-drawn blind. The window is also abstracted because I kind of dislike the idea that someone can understand you just based on your apparel, and therefore I wanted the window actually only appear to grant the viewer any insight. The design is black and white, but it could be printed on colored shirts and in a smaller form it could be printed onto the pockets of shirts.

Monica - TShirt

I think it's really fun when you can put an image to song lyrics, and even more fun when you can wear them on a t-shirt. For my design, I started with the lyrics to Shot Through The Heart by Bon Jovi and created an image I thought would be appropriate to go along with them. I began with a bullet hole in shattered glass and placed a heart behind it to peek through the hole. I aligned the lyrics on the front of the shirts so that it would appear that they were released from the pistol. The lyrics on the back and the red hands placed in the shape of a heart over the wound offer the idea that the culprit has been caught red-handed trying to cover up their crime.