Let me start this by saying that artists definitely deserve credit. The amount of effort and time many artists put into their work, for it to be completely ripped off. This, in my opinion, is definitely not fair. Although, think about art for a second. What really is art? Well, in my opinion, art is a form of expression, specifically an expression of peoples experiences, and their interpretation of the world. So with saying that, I don’t necessarily believe that ideas or concepts are all unoriginal, or that they were all “copied”, but I do think that the vast majority of them have gained inspiration from the ones that came before them. Think about the atomic model. If you aren’t aware, the atomic model is the scientific theory that everything is made up of tiny particles called “atoms”. The theory of what these atoms look like, has changed drastically over history. Each model builds off the one before it, and the sharing and transfer of ideas is absolutely vital to this theory. So let’s say that someone “copyrights” their atomic model. Now, no one is allowed to use any of the ideas copyrighted in their atomic model, and this limits the possibilities of what we are then able to accomplish. Think about where we would be now if that happened in the past. Although, I do understand that it is almost foolish to compare art to scientific theories, as they are entirely different, but this works as an example. Furthermore, throughout history, ideas and culture have evolved because of inspiration. And now, because of our capitalist driven society, we are told that ideas can be owned, and are now more valuable than gold. I think personally that this is preposterous, and is only serving those who have enough “power” to make personal gain. As made clear in the documentary: RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, Disney is a prime example of this. In some of Walt Disney's earlier successful works, such as Snow white and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and several others, it is evident that these stories are not original and are basically retellings of old stories. Although, when even as little as Mickey Mouse is painted on a wall at a daycare, Disney nearly has a heart attack and often goes on the offence to defend their “copyrighted” ideas. This further shows my belief that copyright may have started to credit the original artists, but has turned into a greedy business. See, as humans, we are constantly evolving and adapting. And with that is the evolution of ideas, culture, beliefs, and our complete worldview. I have another great example that shows how the evolution of art goes. It is called Artbreeder. Artbreeder.com is one of my greatest inspirations as an artist, and it definitely showcases how art evolves, using artificial intelligence. Artbreeder works with a massive online database of images and art, uploaded by users. You basically scroll through this database, pick two “parents” (two pieces of art) and it uses artificial intelligence to create the “child” aka a combination of the two parents. You can alter the “genetics” settings, to alter the effects of each parent, and even use different filters. Then, you can pick your favorite one, and add it to your profile. From there, other users can use your photo, combine it with another, and the chain goes on. My favorite part of the program is how you can click on the photo, and see the “family tree” of where this piece came from, and see the usually long list of photos coming before it, in it’s lineage. Furthermore, I think this is almost exactly how art in the real world works, except in a more loosely based method. As you can probably tell by now I am a “copyleft”. I am a copyleft because I don’t believe that you can own ideas. Sure, if someone deliberately takes your Idea and uses it to make personal profit, I don’t think that this is fair. Although, I think that it is your responsibility to bring positive ideas to society, and I don’t think that you should make these ideas unusable by society. In earlier times, they used to sing songs. Now, you have to listen to them. I believe that there is an interesting relationship between media consumption, and media production. Now with advancing technology, more and more people are able to create what you would call media. And now, the so called consumers, are also the producers, so where is the line drawn? Are people who sample songs in their songs consumers? Or are they producers? I think that if everyone makes songs, and they take samples from other songs, then they are consumers, but also producers. So we have this weird shift and I think in the near future, we won’t have these few media giants deciding everything. At least I would like to hope, with services like Youtube, we can give the power to the people. In conclusion, I believe that copying and especially inspiration is definitely an integral part of visual art, and I think that any good artist would agree. If you are an artist, remember when you were a beginner. Did you just invent a completely different style and culture every time you made a piece? No, you most likely did not. In fact, I think that as a beginner artist, it is vital to take inspiration from other works before you, and even remix their art into yours, whether consciously or unconsciously. I think that artists should be able to use the images of other artists freely in order for them and art in general to evolve. Although, I don’t think it is okay for people and especially companies to take images with the intention of making independent profit.
0 Comments
|
AuthorTyler Vincent is a mainly visual artist that does character and story illustrations, as well as experiments with Landscape and portrait painting. Archives
May 2021
Categories |