Since May 2017, alongside everything else, I been undertaking a fellowship with Near Now in Nottingham. The Fellowship, now in its third iteration, is for anyone interested in developing a project that uses technology in a creative way.
For my fellowship I have been conducting research into the relationship been copyright, curating and automation. There are no concrete outputs yet but do take a look at the blog, Curating the Machine, which collates all of my research to date.
If any of this sparks an interest or it you want to know more please do get in touch! I’ll also be at Transmediale on a research trip (thx Near Now) at the end of January if you want to meet IRL 😺
Copyright as Frame as Prison, taking part as part of No Copyright Infringement Intended, will be a conversation around the disruptive power of technological innovation on ideas around copyright.
Featuring a panel including Jan Nikolai-Nelles and Nora Al-Badri, the artists behind The Other Nefertiti artwork, Lisa Beauchamp, Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at Birmingham Museums Trust, and more TBC.
Using the works within the exhibition as a starting point, a panel featuring participating artists and experts in copyright will discuss how emerging technologies are shaping creative processes, how (perceptions of) copyright enable/inhibit those technologically-enabled creative processes, the appropriateness of appropriation and its effect on creative practices.
Join No Copyright Infringement Intended curator Antonio Roberts for a guided tour of the exhibition, followed by a chance to ask questions about the show. The tour will be preceded by a short presentation called Ctrl + C, looking at the one-way system of cultural appropriation by corporations.
The primary goal of CopyCamp 2017 is to broaden the scope of the debate about exclusive rights. We want to talk about culture, science, and education, but we also want to discuss how exclusive rights are used in, for example, health and food. We will listen to stories touching on real-life issues in the following thematic tracks:
business models, heritage digitization, remix
health, food, security, and exclusive rights
text and data mining, machine learning, online education
IoT: autonomous cars, smart homes, wearables
hacking government data, public procurement, public aid in culture
As always, we will be pleased to host all interested parties in a neutral and friendly space, and encourage participants to share thoughts and exchange ideas.
Granular noise is explored as a condition of material transfer in this exhibition. A central concern across the works on display is the material state change that occurs within the processes of mediation. Here, disintegration and/or reintegration of elements at a granular level is encountered as a mode of transference between states, whether physical or digital, and as a phase at which a thing starts or ceases to be.
Exhibiting artists include: Jim Hobbs, Benjamin McDonnell, Antonio Roberts, David Ryan, Audrey Samson and Rob Smith.
The exhibition features my work Transformative Use, which was originally commissioned by Hannah Pierce for the Common Property exhibition in 2016. It’s the first time it’s been exhibited since then. If you want to see some work-in-progress installation shots check out my all new arty Instagram account.
Alongside the exhibition is the Granular Colloquium, taking place on 27th January:
Utilising a range of formats from audio-visual performance to talks, this event is an experiential investigation of noise as a granular entity. State changes are a central theme. Processes of disintegration and/or reintegration of material elements at a granular level are explored, both as the mode of transference between states (whether physical or digital) and the means by which a thing starts or ceases to be.
I’ll be at that, talking a bit about glitch and its relation to copyright, as well as regular ol’ copyright. Tickets are £10.
If you didn’t get the chance to see Transformative Use in 2016 now is a great time to see a new and updated configuration of it.
Utilising a range of formats from audio-visual performance to talks, this event is an experiential investigation of noise as a granular entity. State changes are a central theme. Processes of disintegration and/or reintegration of material elements at a granular level are explored, both as the mode of transference between states (whether physical or digital) and the means by which a thing starts or ceases to be.
The colloquium will take place from 10 am – 5pm at The University of Greenwich, Stockwell Street Building and is held in association with the exhibition Granular: The Material Properties of Noise. The event will be followed by a private viewing of the exhibition.
Chaired by Dr. Stephen Kennedy, University of Greenwich, Department of Creative Professions and Digital Arts
(author: Chaos Media: A Sonic Economy of Digital Space – Bloomsbury 2015)
Keynote: Greg Hainge , University of Queensland, Associate Professor, School of Languages and Cultures
(author: Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise – Bloomsbury 2013)
Contributors include Russell Duke, Jane Grant, Antonio Roberts, Dr David Ryan, Charles Danby and Rob Smith.
Tickets cost £10 (£5 for students) and are available via this link to our Eventbrite page. Tickets include free access to the performance of “Recitativo” on Friday 26th January.
The video of my presentation, No Copyright Infringement Intended, from CopyCamp has now been uploaded.
The presentation is largely about the No Copyright Infringement Intended exhibition along with some thoughts about how we can help artists better understand the complex area of copyright.
I’m happy to announce the second iteration of No Copyright Infringement Intended will be taking place at Vivid Projects, Birmingham, from 1st – 23rd September.
Image: Still Not Sure if Art or Copyright Infringement by Emilie Gervais
No Copyright Infringement Intended is a group exhibition exploring the relationship between copyright and culture in the digital age, investigating how the concept of ownership and authorship is evolving and coming into conflict with outdated copyright and intellectual property laws.
Since the 1990s the internet has provided the opportunity for mass copying, redistribution and remixing of content – profoundly changing the way culture is produced and shared and sparking legal battles and debates that still rage on. Today, the increasing availability of technologies like 3D scanning and 3D printing have extended the ability to digitally copy and reproduce to the physical realm.
For many people now, mass sharing, copying and remixing seems like a natural form of self expression. Rather than embracing this change and using it to their advantage, rights holders and lawyers often resort to reinforcing outdated laws – penalising those who copy – and placing barriers on technology’s ability to share information and content freely.
Meanwhile, among artists there is widespread misunderstanding of copyright and how it affects their work. The phrase “No Copyright Infringement Intended” is often used as an attempt to avoid repercussions of copyright infringement. The phrase has no legal standing, but its widespread usage shows a lack of awareness of existing laws and the consequences of breaking them.
Featuring 10 national and international artists working across a range of creative practices, the exhibition highlights the ongoing tension between production and copyright, considers the new artistic, social and political possibilities created through this tension and suggests new ways forward for artists, rights holders and the wider creative community.
Is your life affected by copyright? No doubts if you are into culture, as you are certainly aware that you have to adjust to it when building upon others’ work or when planning to make a living from creativity. You must have heard about copyright also if you are a teacher, a scientist, or a programmer, as copyright-protected works are used in education, research, and technology.
But were you aware that using a mixture of copyrights, other exclusive rights such patents or database rights, and technology (the so-called DRM) virtually all information goods may be appropriated? In the age of “Internet of Things” this means that more and more things you own contain a computer program or data subject to someone else’s exclusive control. Obviously, this has a profound impact on every aspect of everyone’s life.
The primary goal of CopyCamp 2017 is to broaden the scope of the debate about exclusive rights. We want to talk about culture, science, and education, but we also want to discuss how exclusive rights are used in, for example, health and food. We will listen to stories touching on real-life issues in the following thematic tracks:
business models, heritage digitization, remix
health, food, security, and exclusive rights
text and data mining, machine learning, online education
IoT: autonomous cars, smart homes, wearables
hacking government data, public procurement, public aid in culture
I’ll be delivering a presentation about copyright and digital culture, focusing largely on the No Copyright Infringement Intended exhibition that took place at Phoenix in Leicester and will be making it’s way to Vivid Projects in September. I’ll be talking alongside a great many copyright experts, artists, hackers and more including Mitch Altman and Nick Briz.
Did I mention it’s all free?
Many thanks to Near Now for providing financial support for me to be able to attend CopyCamp.
CREATe have put the video from the Copyright as Frame and Prison panel discussion online.
Using the works within the exhibition as a starting point, a panel featuring artists and copyright experts will discuss how emerging technologies are shaping creative processes, how (perceptions of) copyright enable and inhibit those technologically-enabled processes and the appropriateness of appropriation.
