FGCU sponsors show glorifying intellectual banditry
BY CARL-JOHN X _VERAJA Florida Weekly Correspondent

COURTESY PHOTO Members of Negativland, an experimental music and sound collage band, pose with their attorney, Hal Stakke. The band ran into legal problems with U2 when it released a single with the title "U2" displayed in very large type on the front of the packaging, and "Negativland" in a smaller typeface.

There is a saying "Talent borrows. Genius steals." It's been said many ways and attributed to many sources. However, with the advent of the mixed media culture of the internet, borrowing or stealing the intellectual property of another has become a major economic issue, philosophical quandary, legal conundrum and political football. What better time to celebrate artists whose lifework extols such behavior?

This is just what an upcoming show at FGCU called "inAppropriations" will do. It is to be curated by FGCU gallery director and assistant professor, Scott Snyder, and promises to deliver an overview of the history of artistic appropriation starting with the surrealist and Dadaist and link it to the development of new media vis-a-vis technological advances.

In Rene Magritte's "The Treachery of Images" the viewer was shown an illustration of a pipe below which was written, in French, "This is not a pipe." Magritte said that if he had written that it was a pipe he would have been lying.

This is the sort of question that the artwork of featured artists Mark Hosler of Negativland, Vyd, Paul Harvey Oswald and others might raise when you see the intellectual property of others has been incorporated into their productions. In this case the question is more complicated.

Would Magritte have complained if someone took his image of a pipe and wrote over it that this was a pipe? If this were done in order to make a comment on the statement that Magritte produced, could he complain or should he be complimented that his subversive illustration has provoked discourse? Should he have, would he have, made legal issue of it involving copyright and the protection of his intellectual property?

Local artist, Vyd (just Vyd), chose to comment, turning the argument on its head as is a characteristic of his work which redesigns popular imagery.

"To quote Bob (Robert Rauschenberg) - "Image as palette" Beg, Barrow & Steal has always been," he wrote. "Its just that time and technology has made it so obvious to point that it's recognizable to the general public; not just the guild insiders. Litigation isn't limited to Art. Besides: they sold me that object - Capitalism dictates it's mine to do with as I wish."

Scott Snyder spoke of the subject in more serious terms.

"The history of borrowing objects and recontextualizing them begins with Dada and Surrealism of the early 20th century," he said. Artists such as Duchamp would put everyday objects in a gallery setting (bicycle wheels, a urinal, etc.) in order to showcase obscurity of western culture. Mix in the influence of Pop art and contemporary culture and you have the basic roots of this show. Artists that wish to make comment on socio-political issues often will 'sample' or borrow imagery, sounds, video, etc. of the targeted subject in order to create a visual commentary."

Scott Snyder, whose deep-fried beanie babies occupied the Space 39 gallery in downtown Fort Myers for some time, also said his artwork fits into the same category as the featured artists. Which brought to mind Jeffrey Scott Lewis, a local artist featured in the April 26 edition of Florida Weekly, whose art attempts to totally avoid outside influences while operating as a collage.

The question of where the lines of copyright infringement are actually crossed has become one of popular discussion. Piracy of movies and music on the internet is being performed by many of the media-savvy youth across the planet and there seems to be little to stop it. In this case, the only point seems to be fed free art whereas Negativland, when it "borrowed" the band U2's name and featured it in large letters on their work with their name in tiny letters underneath, was accused of trying to usurp U2's market and make a name for themselves. Whatever their motives, the act did gain the band notoriety.

When asked whether it was Negativland's intention to create a controversy with the U2 album, Mark Hosler, one of the founding members of Negativland, did not comment.

Vyd, however, remembered the controversy as it occurred while he was in college.

"Being that it was before the internet, it was amazing that it became a hot topic on campus," Vyd said.

Negativland became involved in copyright law interpretation and argued that their use of the material fell under the "fair use" clause of copyright law. This allows limited use of intellectual material without needing permission from the rights holder. Negativland also became involved in the non-profit organization Creative Commons which strives to create greater copyright options for artists.

Hosler will provide a lecture at the show and Paul Harvey Oswald is set to give a performance in late September. ¦ If you go

>>What: inAppropriations: Contemporary Artists that Copy, Sample, Beg, Borrow and Steal

>>Where: FGCU The Art Gallery, 10501 FGCU Blvd. S

>>When: Opening Reception 5-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept 6. The exhibit runs Sept 6- Oct 13

>>Info: phone: 590-7238, on the Web http://artgallery.fgcu.edu/inAppropriations.html Q and A with Negativland's Mark Hosler

Q and A with Negativland's Mark Hosler Mark Hosler spoke about his experiences with U2 and other topics. Negativland creates collages of sound with their own musicianmanship and samples of other's works or other recordings, videos, etc. Hosler said I could sample his responses and I promised not to rearrange them. >>FW: Starting off with a sort of stock question… the U2 album…at the time you created that were you purposefully seeking to create a challenge to copyright law? >>MH: No. All the answers to these questions are kinda tricky…it goes to the question of why do this kind of work at all. Why not do something original. Why are you stealing from people? What is the deal?…There's just something that's very fascinating, very fun about taking things out of their original context, away from their intended meaning and re-purposing them…using them in a new way…you can rearrange things and make people say things they didn't mean to say. ..it turns out you can do stuff that is really funny, really surreal, goofy but also really quite thoughtful and serious as well…actually there's something more truthful…oddly enough, more honest about taking all these things and putting them together in a new sort of way…you don't know why we took that work…did we take it because we agree with it, because we disagree with it, did we take it because its funny, sad, stupid, poignant- any number of reasons, and usually the answer is that we picked it for three or four of those reasons all at the same time…it makes terrible background music… >>FW: Who influenced you or who do you look up to? >>MH: Well, who did I listen to? That would be the Beatles. I was born in '62. But that doesn't really answer your question…I'm not actually interested in making things that sound like something I know. I am interested in making things that sound like nothing I know…as the years went by and I realized the history of this I saw that we were part of a continuum of people working this way…when I was 16 years old, I was living in the suburbs I was ignorant of all this…one of the reasons this was so exciting was that it felt like we were inventing this on our own…We thought "My God, we discovered this whole thing we can do with sound and cutting up this is amazing."…when records were invented there's this whole story of concerts being performed…in the mid to late 20's when people would take records…and play them at the same time and create this crazy sound collage. The interesting thing is that as soon as the technology was available to play music in a normal way as soon as it was out there somebody wanted to screw around and change it and figure out how to do with it something you are not supposed to do. How can we use it in some upside-down backwards sort of way. So, I can relate to that… >>FW: You think it's more of a natural artistic instinct? >>MH: Yeah. I think it's true of any new technology that comes along…Just look at samplers. The people who invented samplers…they thought people would just use it to play back instruments… it never occurred to them that people who use it to take out chunks of conversations and works and make music with it.