"If you're going to steal..."

[M. Valdemar]

Ceci n'est pas une pissoir

Actually, it IS a pissoir, by Duchamp.

It's not a pipe either. but what YOU'RE looking at is a bunch of electrified pixels.

Or chemically stimulated synaptic tendrils. Actually, you're not looking at anything real at all, if you're here at all.

 

[M. Valdemar]

The internet is becoming one huge vindication for Sherrie Levine.

EVERYTHING is appropriated or regurgitated, usually by idiots.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Just playing devil's advocate, if I set up a shot, adjust the lighting, point the camera on a tripod, tell the model to smile, then ask my photo assistant to press the shutter button for me, whose image is it? His? "Mine"?

What is "mine"?

That's as much splitting invisible hairs as making air sandwiches with gas flavor; that path of logic can take you to conclude that the camera took the photo, not the person who pressed the button.

If you can show me a camera that can take photos without any human intervention (no humans charging batteries, changing film/memory cards, dialing in aperture/shutter settings or shooting modes/programs, mounting, etc.) I'll show you a pen that signs itself with clear evidence of self-awareness.

 

[M. Valdemar]

No, it's clear cut. Someone other than you took the photo. At what point does it become "yours"?

That's as much splitting invisible hairs as making air sandwiches with gas flavor; that path of logic can take you to conclude that the camera took the photo, not the person who pressed the button.

If you can show me a camera that can take photos without any human intervention (no humans charging batteries, changing film/memory cards, dialing in aperture/shutter settings or shooting modes/programs, mounting, etc.) I'll show you a pen that signs itself with clear evidence of self-awareness.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Here are two photos of signage I took in Manhattan. Are these "my" images, or if I published them do the sign painters "own" the images?

Here we go...

If I typed exactly what you just typed, are these your words?

Or are people really that much lacking in intelligence to think that they can get away with this kind of logic (or lack thereof)?

Oh, wait... I'm looking at a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

No, it's clear cut. Someone other than you took the photo.

It's the camera that took the photo.

I too can reduce any argument to hyper-gloriously-silly arguments just for the sake of argument.

And who owns the camera? You? What if you didn't pay it, but somebody else handed over the money for you.

I can go Ad Nauseum. This sort of fallaced, Fox-News style of logic can only take your mind off the real argument.

Now you can ask: what is "real"? What is an "argument". Is it really "your" argument? Do "you" own arguments?

🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄

 

[M. Valdemar]

It's got you all vehemently debating the point, which I think IS the point. I think the Sherrie Levine stuff is crap, for example, but it's crap which inspires thought, which is the real point after all. Therefore it has validity.

As for typing my words, there are those three monkeys still pounding on the typewriters........

Here we go...

If I typed exactly what you just typed, are these your words?

Or are people really that much lacking in intelligence to think that they can get away with this kind of logic (or lack thereof)?

Oh, wait... I'm looking at a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup.

 

[sirius]

I find it sad.

This artist's art is about the frame, the context, he places around these found objects.

Too bad that the original spark of creativity is someone else's.

 

[Rhoyle]

An old friend of mine who used to produce sculpture in neon light said to me..."Ya want to know what art is? It's what ya can get away with!" And I think that definition fits perfectly. This Prinz character is smooth enough to convince gallery people that his stealing other people's material is art. Those who buy into it are the fools.

BH

 

[M. Valdemar]

A little further up you just said cameras don't take photos. You're entirely missing the point just to make a straw man argument, then somehow you make the leap to Fox News, an entirely different agenda.

It's the camera that took the photo.

I too can reduce any argument to hyper-gloriously-silly arguments just for the sake of argument.

And who owns the camera? You? What if you didn't pay it, but somebody else handed over the money for you.

I can go Ad Nauseum. This sort of fallaced, Fox-News style of logic can only take your mind off the real argument.

Now you can ask: what is "real"? What is an "argument". Is it really "your" argument? Do "you" own arguments?

🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄

 

[M. Valdemar]

Modern "art" as dispensed through the gallery system is not really "art" but the manipulation of speculative marketing to well-heeled idiots.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/fashion/08storr.html?em&ex=1194757200&en=d9e94cfd8f38ca70&ei=5087

An old friend of mine who used to produce sculpture in neon light said to me..."Ya want to know what art is? It's what ya can get away with!" And I think that definition fits perfectly. This Prinz character is smooth enough to convince gallery people that his stealing other people's material is art. Those who buy into it are the fools.

BH

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

"I imagine if you look more closely you will find the law in France to be exactly like here, if you use the photograph commercially in an ad, then you may need permission, especially from trademark holders (there are at least 2 in MVs photo of the sign)."

No no no !!!
<snip>
I could go on all night, it is so so CRAZY !

Yes. You are correct.

It's all like a Monty Python sketch.

Usually, in a non-dark-matter world, somebody who claims rights to an image is the owner of the image, unless it can be proved that somebody else took the exact same image which you then used to make your own.

If somebody paints a moustache over a photo of Julia Roberts and claims it his own, sells it for profit (or uses it outside of fair use laws --which other m@r@ns stretch to suit their own twisted mind), that guy (or gal) is going to get his (or hers) pants sued off.

If Da Vinci had been alive, he very well have sued Duchamp's facial hair, each follicle one by one. He had an open mind, but he didn't suffer fools either. Duchamp challenged established views. And like Warhol, laughed at them.

By the way...did I write this, or did the keys on my keyboard do it?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

A little further up you just said cameras don't take photos.

Show me where I said that.

Or did I?

Laptops don't type, so it wasn't my laptop. I haven't opened my mouth... so...

 

[M. Valdemar]

I don't find Fox News very logical at all......it's simply the 21st Century brand of 1910 Hearst journalism combined with moving Composographs.

 

[LuckyKarma]

Maybe that's the point of his "art".

I'm not saying that's it right or it's wrong. At what point does an image become something else from the original image.

Don't get huffy and immediately trumpet moral indignation.

Think about it.

OK - I'm not familiar with this guy's work, I was just basing my opinion on what I read in the article. I don't know if all of his stuff is like this so I suppose I shouldn't be so quick to judge.

But I don't see how he can just blatantly take

this photo

and

call it his own.

He hasn't done anything here, besides using someone else's photo.

 

[M. Valdemar]

he hasn't done anything here, besides using someone else's photo.


He got a million dollars for it, and the original guy got zippo. I'd call it pure genius.

 

[LuckyKarma]

he hasn't done anything here, besides using someone else's photo.


He got a million dollars for it, and the original guy got zippo. I'd call it pure genius.

Touché. It's a shame the original photographer didn't see any of that million though 😉

 

[M. Valdemar]

If I made a million off a copied photo, I would be certain to offer the original photographer a sincere handshake.

 

[jan normandale]

Haven't had a fun read like this in a while! What I find interesting is the fact people will agree music is one of the arts. Samples used by other artists (and the cases are many) have resulted in the sample user being successfully sued even if the sample was only seconds long.

I'm waiting for someone to take this perspective into the other arts... or are we really discussing art? Maybe we're discussing business practice.

As a sidebar there is a market for 'known art forgeries'

 

[jan normandale]

Ceci n'est pas une pissoir

non.. c'est Duchamp