Re: nature of collaboration (was live performance)

[Richard Zvonar <zvonar@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:28 PM -0500 12/10/02, ndk wrote:

>..where are the lines drawn or where should the be drawn in 
>utilizing the works of others?... what about presenting artwork 
>utilizing sourced material by someone else without their given 
>approval. Does the impulse to use such material superseded the 
>originator's rights to protect their work from not being presented 
>in a compromised manner? Does the recognizability or origin
>mean it's "fair game"? Does random selection remove responisbility?

I think of this work as audio collage, just as theatrical works I've 
created have used visual and text collage. I've been making collages 
and assemblages since early childhood, so it's a natural and familiar 
process for me.

Quotation and parody are artistic traditions that predate copyright 
law and the concept of the artist as individual creator, so I do feel 
part of a long history. The questions of plagiarism and copyright 
infringement are certainly pertinent, but I choose to disregard them 
in my case because there is no commercial element to what I'm doing 
and there is no debasement of the original works in a wide public 
forum. If I were to release a commercial CD that included quoted 
material there would be a necessity to obtain clearances. I've 
already denied posting of mp3s of some of my performances because of 
the legal issues.

>...some definition of creativity has to come to bear if it is 
>granted (or is it?) that the right to utilize other's works 
>supersedes the rights to preserve the intactness of ones own works.

This is an arguable point. This idea of "intactness" seems to have 
been a crucial factor in the action taken against John Oswald in the 
case of the Plunderphonic CD. This notion of "moral copyright" 
appears to be part of Canadian copyright law but isn't in the US. A 
recent case brought against the Beastie Boys by a composer whose work 
they had sampled without his permission did hinge on such notions. In 
this case the court ruled against the composer, since permission to 
use the recording was granted by the record company. The fact that 
the composer and his publishing company hadn't given permission was 
deemed immaterial in this case (it's complicated).

>Is it okay anytime or place or maybe it is just okay if its made 
>clear what is going on, like stating openly "I am utilizing the work 
>of this person and juxtaposing it".

It's pretty obvious that's what's going on, so an overt statement isn't need=
ed.

>But what really concerns me is if the attitude that ones right to 
>recontextualize works on a non mutual basis is acceptable just 
>because its sound and its in the uninhibited "out there".

It's a bit late in the game for that concern, I think. Any mediated 
product is by definition a part of our daily environment, so we're 
all creating collages in the process of living our lives in that 
milieu. Creating media collages is a bit like documentary filmmaking 
(which I've also done). Few are likely to argue that an advertising 
sign on the side of a bus or a bit of pop music from a passing car 
radio need to be excised from a cinema verit=E9 street scene, even 
though the filmmaker may have planned the shot quite deliberately.

>But then is it equally fair game for pretty much anyone to censor, 
>edit, remove aspects of or tacitly misrepresent these works kinds of 
>works too without the artist's approval?

This happens all the time in collages and it happens all the time in 
TV commercials that use pop recordings.

I suppose the issue becomes more than academic when the quoted artist 
invests the time and money to legally contest such use. This was the 
case when Arthur Miller sent a "cease and desist" letter to the 
Wooster Group because of their appropriation of the entire text of 
"The Crucible" in their production "LSD." Since it was a crucial 
element of the piece their response was to keep all the costumes, 
staging, and action the same but to rewrite the text (while 
preserving the overall phonemic contour of the words).
-- 

______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD
(818) 788-2202
http://www.zvonar.com
http://RZCybernetics.com

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