No Copyright Infringement Intended Curator’s Tour, 11th May

On 11th May I’ll be conducting a curator’s tour of the No Copyright Exhibition currently on at Phoenix in Leicester

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 tour is free to attend. No booking necessary.

There will be two tours on the day taking place from 13:00 – 14:00 and 18:00 – 19:00. This will be a great chance to ask questions about the works and curatorial decisions. See you there!

Copyright as Frame and Prison: A Public Discussion, 28th April

On 28th April from 18:30 to 20:30 there will be panel discussion, Copyright as Frame and Prison, to coincide with the No Copyright Infringement Intended exhibition currently on at Phoenix in Leicester.

Alongside our exhibition No Copyright Infringement Intended, this discussion will highlight the disruptive power of technological innovation on culture and copyright.

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.

The panel discussion will feature exhibiting artists Andrea Wallace & Ronan Deazley (Display at Your Own Risk), Duncan Poulton (Pygmalion), alongside myself (I curated this whole shindig), and Dr Shane Burke (lecturer in Law at Cardiff University).

This event is free. Tickets available here.

Imperica – Copyright, Culture, and Creativity

Imperica recently released the first issue of its digital magazine. I’m happy to have contributed an article called Copyright, Culture, and Creativity. The article focuses on how large commercial corporations appropriate and exploit internet cultures and aesthetics.

Beginning to understand copyright on even a basic level can be a career in itself and take years of study. Just as no users of technology read the terms of service, no artist spends their time studying the Statute of Anne in order to understand Copyright. And why should they? We’re in the business of creating art, not law.

It is this naeivtiy and lack of understanding which corporations, with their teams of copyright lawyers, can exploit in order to push the boundaries of what is acceptable. Artists, which includes anyone creating anything (yes, even a tweet is your work of art), do not have the luxury of being able to call upon the advice of expensive legal teams every time they create an artwork.

One such example of this exploitation is Left Shark. This high profile case centers around a meme born out of Katy Perry’s performance at the 2015 Superbowl. The performance featured Perry performing with dancers in costumes, including two sharks positioned either side of her. Viewers noticed that the shark on the left appeared out of sync with the other one, appearing even slightly drunk. The internet loved this and quickly Left Shark was born, with the memes appearing almost immediately.

It’s a good article to read to gain a greater understanding of the concepts behind No Copyright Infringement Intended.

The magazine also features some great articles and essays from Philip Ellis, Catherine Young, Ana Mendes, and more (they’re also looking for contributions for issue two. It’s available to buy now for £/$/€2.

No Copyright Infringement Intended, 7th April – 21st May

I’m happy to announce that I’ll be curating the No Copyright Infringement Intended exhibition at the Cube Gallery at Phoenix, Leicester, taking place from 7th April – 21st May.

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.

The exhibition features work by Nick Briz, Emilie Gervais, Nicolas Maigret, Christopher Meerdo, Jan Nikolai Nelles & Nora Al-Badri, Duncan Poulton, Fernando Sosa, Andrea Wallace & Ronan Deazley.

In addition to the awesome exhibited works there will be a panel discussion and curator’s tour. More information on those to follow.

Many thanks to Phoenix/Chris Tyrer for inviting me to curate this exhibition and Arts Council England for their support 💯

Elephant Magazine – Logos & Protest

The latest issue of Elephant Magazine is out and is focused on brands and copyright:

I’m With The Brand

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Are brands out to get us? Could our food, sartorial, satirical and political choices now all be considered as brand alliances? Most importantly, do we secretly really love the idea of being defined in this way?

In Issue 27 Elephant investigates the paradoxical relationship that a host of the art world’s new generation of makers have with brands. We meet Chloe Wise, Antonio Roberts, Jemma Egan, Holly White and Rachel Maclean to discuss the changing face of branding and the rise of subliminal messaging.

In this issue I was interviewed by Molly Taylor about my how I relate to logos, copyright and brands:

Logos & Protest

elephantlogosprotest

Antonio Roberts doesn’t like being told what to do by big corporations with clever lawyers. A proponent of free culture, the Birmingham-based glitch artist explores notions of ownership and copyright—often by testing the limits of the latter.

How is copyright affecting the way that artists are able to create and distribute works that remix or reuse images belonging to other people, particularly brands?

I’m not against copyright, I just think it reaches too far. For smaller artists, other people appropriating their work isn’t so much of a problem because if you’re not making much money, you haven’t got much to lose. Whereas for the larger corporations like Disney, they see it as losing them potentially millions and millions of pounds. So I chose Disney for the Transformative Use piece because they have really lobbied to get copyright terms extended in their favour.

Read the interview text on the website and pick up a copy of the issue now!

OpenGLAM – Copyright, free culture and art

OpenGLAM published a feature on my Permission Taken exhibition on their site on 9th May. It talks not only about the exhibition but also on the need to communicate issues surrounding copyright in a variety of ways:

Remix of Cathode Ray Oscilloscope by Carla Gannis

Remix of Cathode Ray Oscilloscope by Carla Gannis

Copyright is an incredibly important law that can have massive implications on individual artists and the cultural sector as a whole. Unfortunately, it isn’t until it affects us negatively that we begin to seriously consider it. Legal cases such as the estate of Marvin Gaye versus Robin Thicke , Katrijn van Giel versus Luc Tuymans, and earlier examples such as Art Rogers versus Jeff Koons, and TufAmerica versus Beastie Boys show that the law can negatively affect creativity. If we allow this behaviour to continue we risk entering into a permission culture where even being inspired by an artist can have dangerous consequences.

Click through to read the whole of the article. The Permission Taken exhibition ends on 30th May

Permission Taken launch, 7th April

It’s been open since 2nd March and now the second part of Permission Taken, taking place at the Bramall Music Building at University of Birmingham, will be having its launch event on 7th April from 17:30 – 19:30.

Join us this Thursday 7 April in the Bramall Music Building from 17.30 for the launch of Permission Taken! This exhibition displays work by Antonio Roberts created during his 2014/15 artist-residency at the University of Birmingham. Roberts focused on issues surrounding copyright, permission culture and art: issues which become ever more pertinent as online communities become more prolific and harder to police.

Permission Taken

Permission Taken

This iteration of the exhibition presents some of the work exhibited at Birmingham Open Media alongside works made for the Remix Party! in addition to a reinterpretation of Dead Copyright.

Permission Taken

Permission Taken

Photo by Greg Milner

Please RSVP to rcc@contacts.bham.ac.uk if you wish to attend. The exhibition continues until 30th May.

What rights in Copyright? Interview with Filippo Lorenzin

Following the opening of the Common Property exhibition at Jerwood Visual Arts I was interviewed by Filippo Lorenzin about the exhibition and my views on copyright in general. On 8th February this interview was published on the Furtherfield website.

furtherfieldcommonproperty

I think Copyright as a whole is in a terrible state. As Cory Doctorow suggests in the exhibition programme (which is in itself an excerpt from his book “Information Doesn’t want to be Free”) Copyright as we know it isn’t written for artists or any individual. Its verbose terms and complexities cannot be understood and are probably not even read by most of us. They are written for other lawyers. If, in order to go about our creative business, we are expected to read and understand the terms and conditions and law – it is estimated that it would take 76 days to read all of the Ts and Cs of websites we use – what time do we have to be creative?

Read the full interview on the Furtherfield website.

Copyright and Intellectual Property at London Art Fair

On 21st January I went to London Art Fair to take part in a discussion about Copyright and Intellectual Property and the Common Property exhibition at Jerwood Space. If you weren’t there, or you were and wanted to refresh your memory, the audio is now online.

lafcopyright

The discussion featured myself, Hannah Pierce, Curator of Common Property, Shane Burke, current PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London, and Shonagh Manson, Director of Jerwood Charitable Foundation. The exhibition runs from 15th January – 21st February,

Copyright and Intellectual Property, 21st January

On 21st January I’ll be in London for a discussion about Copyright and Intellectual Property at London Art Fair

laf2016

This panel discussion will consider how contemporary artists contend with issues of copyright and intellectual property in their practice, taking the most recent Jerwood Encounters exhibition, Common Property, as its starting point.

Panel:

  • Hannah Pierce, Curator of Common Property
  • Shane Burke, current PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London, who is researching the relationship between copyright law and conceptual art
  • Antonio Roberts, exhibiting artist in Common Property

Y’all can register for it here.