La obra ‘Kournikova’ critica las leyes de propiedad intelectual
Anna Kournikova, la Sirenita y Mowgly son algunos de los personajes reinterpretados con técnicas de 'sampleado', copia, apropiación y plagio
R. B. / S. C. 18/09/2008
Ciberpaís
Año 2067, los diarios anuncian la muerte de la ex tenista y modelo Anna Kournikova eliminada con un potente rayo láser enviado desde un satélite, por haber sido erróneamente confundida con una imitación de sí misma.
El terrible incidente ha sido posible porque, según elucubra el artista estadounidense David Rice, en el futuro las estrellas como Kournikova, patentarán su aspecto físico y se protegerán de las copias a través de un sistema vía satélite capaz de identificar y eliminar los parecidos no autorizados.
Anna Kournikova Deleted By Memeright Trusted System
Art in the Age of Intellectual Property
PHOENIX Halle Dortmund, July 19 - October 19, 2008
‘You can’t use it without my permission ... I’m gonna sue your ass!’ shouts Disney’s Little Mermaid with the angry voice of a copyright lawyer in the video Gimme the Mermaid (4:49 min., 2000).
The video by Negativland and Tim Maloney, situated at the exhibition entrance, is only one of more than twenty works included in ‘Anna Kournikova Deleted By Memeright Trusted System: Art in the Age of Intellectual Property’, an exhibition presented by Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) It is part of Arbeit 2.0 – copyright and creative work in the digital age, one of thirteen projects in Germany funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation focusing on ‘The Future of Labour.’ In the framework of Arbeit 2.0, HMKV – together with the Berlin-based collaborative partner iRights.info/mikro e.V. – explores the relationships between creative work, intellectual property law, and technology (www.iRights.info).
Armed citizen
1998/2006 Website with linked images www.irational.org/tttp/Crypto/armed1.html Presented in the exhibition with large-format DVD slide projection and Folder Presented in the exhibition as an upgrade of almost 100 images, the internet project Armed Citizen shows a series of 17 small arms. No information is given on their origins. Who owns them? Are they being used as criminal evidence? Are they perhaps murder weapons? Who does the ›armed citizen‹ of the title refer to — the police? Or a citizens’ defence group that has taken up arms? Is there some allusion to the liberal firearms laws in the United States, to bloody incidents like the amok shootings that took place in Columbine High School, Colorado, in 1999, or in the Gutenberg Gymnasium in Erfurt in 2002? Armed Citizen is difficult to pin down. But it is safe to assert that it deals with an indeterminate feeling of fear and menace, and, by association, with the growing longing for security in a world felt to be increasingly less safe. The exhibition deliberately groups Armed Citizen in a kind of »security zone« together with Heath Bunting’s CCTV and Rachel Baker and Heath Bunting’s CCTV Sabotag — further irational works pointing to the essential futility of technology —
Language (property)
1997 Website with trademarked sentences linked with URLs www.irational.org/tttp/TM/trademark.html Presented in the exhibition as wall installation Daniel García Andújar – the Spanish media artist better known by his company name Technologies To The People — almost ten years ago created with Language (property) a work addressing the increasing privatization and commodification of language. A plain HTML page presents a list of sentences that have become registered trademarks and thus the property of their corporate owners. Examples include »Where do you want to go today?™« (Microsoft), »A better return on information ™« (SAP), »Moving at the speed of business™« (UPS), »What you never thought possible™« (Motorola). By giving his project the title Remember, language is not free™, Andújar anticipated the disputes surrounding ›intellectual property‹ in the following years (and increasingly evident in the second half of the 1990s with the ruthless scramble for domain names in the World Wide Web). While on the website the individual sentences are linked to the copyright notices of the relevant companies, a large-format, almost ›immersive‹, wall Presented has been chosen for the exhibition.(Inke Arns)
Heimatwechsel (Change of Home)
International Student Workshop
10 July – 10 August 2004
PhoenixHalle Dortmund
with
Antoni Muntadas
Daniel García Andújar
Bettina Lockemann
The Project
"Heimatwechsel" is an interdisciplinary 4-week workshop for students specialising in the areas of design, visual communication, art, media and culture sciences. The tutors of the workshop are three internationally renowned artists from the USA, Spain and Germany: Antoni Muntadas, Daniel García Andújar and Bettina Lockemann.
Awards and Acknowledgements
1997 Online display of awards for the TTTP website www.irational.org/tttp/Awards/awards.html Presented in the exhibition with framed printouts of the logos A long list of awards conceivably and inconceivably bestowed on the Technologies To The People website which, as its makers would have us believe, is »one of the most popular art sites on the internet «. Framed in silver like a collection of especially valuable postage stamps, the some 30 distinctions presented in the original thumbnail format include »Browser Watch — Net Fame!«, »An Internet cool site of the day«, »Magellan Star Site«, »Prescribed by Dr. Webster’s Web Site of the Day«, »Art Dirt« — »Your Webscout Way Cool Site«, and »Orchid Award for Page Excellence«. (Inke Arns)