Takeovers and Makeovers:

One of the reasons we moved to Berkeley, in addition to the French school and the food, was the culture a large part of which stems from the University right up the street. This weekend we had our first opportunity to attend a lecture series on Artistic Appropriation, Fair Use and Copyright in the Digital Age. I originally went to see the Billboard Liberation Fronts discussion on Media Banditry but we arrived early and were able to catch the Archives and Museums in the Digital Age.

Archives and Museums in the Digital Age

I found this to be a very thought provoking section on the importance of reuse of works and ideas in modern art and somewhat validating as I’ve never quite resolved digital art as being a true art form. It was good to see that it’s still finding it’s place amongst the fine art institutions and that people such as Rick Prelinger and Richard Rinehart art taking steps to archive and define it. Rick Prelinger runs a well known euphermera library an archive in San Francisco and lectured on the importance of reuse in art. His talk was fast and covered much ground in 14 very good points. I hope to check out the library at some point, maybe they’ll have my book.

Media Banditry

A more entertaining discussion on billboard liberation and the importance of documentation when performing “improvements” on “client” work. They mostly do it for the fun and fame and go to great lengths to make sure the original works and workers are respected. To the extent that they leave good Scotch for the billboard workers and instructions to undo their work.

Overall it was a great series and I hope to attend not only art but some science talks in the future. I’m not sure how much longer I can take my 9 mo. old daughter tho she’s starting to make a little to many contributions to the discussions.