Culture imitates. / La culture imite.

Hi Gwenn,

I stumbled upon your work from the thebluerider blog.  WOW, both you and your work are so refreshing!!!!  Am I glad I found you!!!!  The free culture movement is extremely interesting to me.  Thank you for sharing your views and taking time to educate. I LOVE what you are saying and for the past few years I’ve been pondering many of these same ideas, but didn’t realize there was a name for what I was thinking. 

For the last 4 years I’ve been taking painting lessons with an MFA from Yugoslavia who used to teach at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Pristine in Kosovo. We get into many debates and discussions about art in Canada, art history, the voice of visual art, culture and of course…copyright.  What I find is he has such a different view then us North Americans.  I feel most North Americans want to wrap up an item, any item (car, tv, softdrink, painting) neatly and sell the heck out of it….there is no larger reason, no bigger plan, no message other than to consume.  Many artists I know are always chasing the sale, not creating to share their opinions on something….not present in their work.  Trying to make their art a manufactured item.  Which is sad, ‘cuz that’s what is killing their work in the end.

After watching and reading a few of your posts and videos on the subject I got to thinking.  Are Van Gogh’s Irises worth any less because others (not even Van Gogh or his heirs) are marketing the heck out of that painting?  Nope. It’s probably worth even more and anyone can pull that image off the internet and hit print.  I think you are 100% correct, the original is where it’s at.  The copy is just a pale reminder, like a vacation photo.  It’s not the vacation, only a way to remind you of what you saw and experienced there.

Thank goodness, cooking and fashion is still free culture!!  Could you imagine!!! I’ll be following you closely & best wishes for great success with your new show.  Sorry for rambling…I could go on and on.

Lori

It’s interesting, what you say about America artists being focused on the sale.  I have noticed a trend towards artists and creative entrepreneurs copying big business methods, basically trying to make themselves look like a mega-corporations. 

It can be little things like having pop-ups on every page of their site that asks you to sign up for the mailing list, or it can be bigger things like refusing to be transparent (not revealing where their funding comes from, etc.).  It’s funny to me that individuals are acting like companies because we all know that corporations get all their best ideas from the little guys!  What’s more, that corporate stuff assumes that the public is stupid and, since it’s insulting when companies do it, it’s only more so when individuals do!

I’d never really thought about it this way, but all the artists who’ve befriended me through the free culture movement have been non-Americans.  This renews my desire to get the word out!  I’m glad to have met you (virtually anyway)!

Je suis tout a fait d’accord avec toi, comme tu as pu le lire sur mon blog. Il n’y aurait pas nouveauté s’il n’y avait pas certaine copie.
Mais certaine personnes ne le comprenne pas.
On réalise quelques choses on s’inspirant d’autrui. Et d’autre continue de même, jusqu’à peut être une nouvelle innovation ou courant artistique qui est pour souvent une phénomène de groupe.
Non on à tous la paternité de nos œuvres ainsi que les copier/coller sur internet. Le problème c’est que certaine personne s’approprie la réalisation d’autrui. Cela pourrait être du plagiat. Mais dernièrement on considère que c’est le choix de l’artiste qui fait l’œuvre…

En gros cela fait un long débat. et je partage le fait que si tu ne veux pas que l’on te copie ne diffuse rien. Selon moi si on me copiait ou s’inspirait de mes travaux ; je serais fière de moi. Cela voudrait dire que ce que je fait est assez bien.

Et je sais que j’ai eu ce débat avec une amie. Et j’essayais de lui faire comprendre qu’elle aurait forcément tort. En plus j’avais l’appuie d’une amie qui s’y connait en droit des contrat pour les éditions et truc dans le genre…........

En tout cas je sais que les copies et imitations c’est inévitable. Car selon moi ça montre que l’artiste a du talent pour que tout le monde veuille faire pareil.