Art.
Posted on 08/24/2011 8:10:27 AM PDT by mamelukesabre
Art is about freedom of expression, and it sometimes results in controversial pieces that challenge the social norms or intentionally push the boundaries of decency for one reason or another. But does there ever come a point when artwork crosses the line? A 1TB external hard drive sitting on a white pedestal at the Art 404 gallery begs that very question, the one you have to ask when someone crams $5 million worth of illegally downloaded software into a storage device and calls it art.
Credit goes to thenextweb.com for stumbling upon the "5 Million Dollars 1 Terrabyte" exhibit, which is a companion piece to "Google Search For Meaning," a pyramid shaped sculpture with a projector on the opposite side beaming a hacked version of Google Maps that drives through Street View on auto pilot.
Accompanying the $5 million piece of evidence art is a PDF file that lists all the illegally obtained software that's been stuffed into the hard drive, complete with shortened (TinyURL) links. A sample of what's on there includes $3 million worth of fiction books from 2003 to 2011, a science textbook collection worth half a million dollars, 124GB of copyrighted music, fonts, Adobe software, various game system ROMs, and more. The hyperlinks mostly reference pages on The Pirate Bay and MegaUploads, with a few other torrent sites littering the list.
Art 404, in case you're wondering, "is an online portal and exhibition space interested in the contemporary technological art movement. Through Art 404's exhibition space, Low Budget Gallery, Art 404 acts as a medium for artists to whow work as well as a place for globally accessible experimental art projects," the website explains.
So what's the verdict, is the 1TB hard drive an art piece or a crime scene on display?
insofar as art is an expression of a culture’s values, I guess a boatload of stolen software qualifies.
Duchamp displayed a urinal and called it art. That was in 1917.
This hard drive is not very different.
What if he did a sculpture with pieces of stolen jewelry? He would be guilty of theft of those items.
How is this any different?
Stolen goods, are stolen goods. If we imprison people who illegally download music/movies - then this person has basically turned himeself in.
Throw the book at him.
Who’s your Dada?
That’s nothing. The entire text of Obamacare can fit on a small thumb drive. And that represents billions and billions of stolen dollars.
Hey. At least it ain’t a Crucifix in a bucket of urine.
I don’t know that it screams art as much as it does YARD SALE!
If you have to explain to me why something is art, it isn’t.
everything is art. Artists don’t have a monopoly on art. The graphics on a can of pepsi are art. The tread on your car tire is art.
This “work of art” is about protest. It is protesting the insane lawsuits against ordinary people by software companies. This is why I like this “work of art”.
Art.
I've always had trouble with "theft" of copyrighted material. Stealing a diamond necklace is clearly theft as the physical possession of the goods is proof. When dealing with intellectual property however, physical possession is a bit more tenuous. If I take a book from the library and don't return it , that is clearly theft. If I run the book through a scanner and copy every page and then return the original it is a violation of copyright and considered theft even though the original is back in the library. However, if I sit down and read the book cover to cover, no problems legal or moral. But the book now exists in my mind and if I choose, I can sit down at a word processor and write a paraphrased copy (with names changed to protect the innocent), what then?.
In a similar manner I could decompile a piece a of copyrighted software, examine the logic and rewrite it so as to "paraphrase" the logic and maintain function without using a single line of the original code in the finished "rewrite". Were I to do that I would have stolen the idea, I guess my question is the abstract "idea" protected by copyright or is it it's expression in compiled code? There are many ways to express the same idea, be it in a work of fiction or a computer program (Lotus 123/MS Excel and Wordstar/MS Word come to mind).
I've always felt that all art is derivative and there is nothing new under the sun, check your TV schedule for empirical proof!
Regards,
GtG
The entire text of Obamacare can fit on a small thumb drive. And that represents billions and billions of stolen dollars.
Not to mention all the words of the presidential crook and the full and complete sessions of both house and senate proving conclusively their complicity in the theft of T R I L L I O N S of dollars of wealth of the citizens of the United States of America.
A Masterpiece.
And there are security guards preventing someone from stealing it.
Lets call in the FBI and turn it into a real “happening”!
It could be an empty shell. No one knows if what is on the hard drive is what the artist says it is. It’s like an air painting.
Just another symptom of sick liberal minds.
Vote: Not Art
To make it even more complicated, many software companies want their products to be by license so unless you use it you do not break the agreement and have not stolen it.
If everything is art, why even have a concept of art. While I will admit that art is a nebulous concept there has to be something that differentiates it from everything else. I simply believe that if something cannot evoke emotion without an accompanying story, it is not art.
If one could look at (or touch, or hear, or smell)a storage device and be able to tell that it was a protest it would be art. As it is, you must tell me a story about it to make it a protest. In this fashion I could take any object, make up some fantastic story, and call anything art.
In this fashion I could take any object, make up some fantastic story, and call anything art.
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now you get it. everything is art.
But lets examine the classical art forms. the old paintings, greek statues, and classical piano, ballet dancing, symphony, orchestra, opera, shakespearean plays...
These were merely cutting edge technology and ideas in their day. Why is it that the concept of art had to stop evolving at that point in time? I say styrofoam is art. I say laser light shows are art. I say fourth of july fireworks shows are art. I say helium balloons and 3D IMAX motion pictures are art. I don’t even think music should qualify as art anymore. I don’t think still photos or drawn images should qualify as art either.
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