Description
Book SynopsisWith a focus on collage and appropriation art, essays exploring the legal ramifications of such practices in an age when private companies can own culture using copyright and trademark law
Trade Review“Spanning media from visual art to popular music, literature to culture jamming, this series of essays challenges the litigious environment in which copyright is used as a blunt weapon to prevent reinvention of existing works and the transformative process of reuse to inform the creative cycle of ideas. . . . Advanced undergraduates through faculty in art, art history, media studies, film, literature and music will appreciate the interdisciplinary treatment of collage.” - Cara List,
ARLIS/NA Reviews“I believe this is an important book, specifically because the issues discussed affect much of our future artistic creations; as mentioned this has profound social and cultural ramifications. As such, this book should be at minimum included as a recommended text in a variety of applicable tertiary education courses. The stakes are too high to ignore the erosion of artistic freedom brought about by ignorant and greed driven application of copyright law.” - Rob Harle,
Leonardo“Where the most prominent works on the subject tend to dwell on digital’s infinite capacity to reproduce and share itself freely and its current kowtowing to corporate rights management, this book begins by situating appropriation art and collage in the earlier recesses of the twentieth century with Walter Benjamin, the Surrealists, and Dada. Along the way, it touches upon zine culture, audiotape collage, street art, and new wave science fiction; it critiques the international outflows of copyright-subject culture and then it critiques the debate itself.” - Allie Curry,
Rain Taxi“Communication is much like a work of art—it is a process of copying, repeating and varying what we hear. There is no originator or owner of that which shapes our very being, and
Cutting Across Media demonstrates how placing restrictions on creative commentary can stifle our cultural development.”—
Vicki Bennett, aka People Like Us
“Reflecting both McLeod’s spirited cultural critique and Kuenzli’s interdisciplinary approach to the arts,
Cutting Across Media explores diverse forms of collage and appropriation in music, painting, publishing, spoken broadcasts, poetry, and narrative. In this collage of essays, readers are challenged to rethink notions of intellectual property and to consider the complex political and cultural issues that accompany collage and appropriation aesthetics.” -- Christine Masters Jach * American Book Review *
“What separates this volume from other contemporary works around sampling and intellectual property law is that research in this area rarely attempts to
marry aesthetic and political concerns so overtly. . . . [A]n edited collection that successfully manages to explore the political and artistic imperatives that inform the practice of collage and appropriation.” -- James Meese * Media International Australia *
“I believe this is an important book, specifically because the issues discussed affect much of our future artistic creations; as mentioned this has profound social and cultural ramifications. As such, this book should be at minimum included as a recommended text in a variety of applicable tertiary education courses. The stakes are too high to ignore the erosion of artistic freedom brought about by ignorant and greed driven application of copyright law.” -- Rob Harle * Leonardo Reviews *
“Spanning media from visual art to popular music, literature to culture jamming, this series of essays challenges the litigious environment in which copyright is used as a blunt weapon to prevent reinvention of existing works and the transformative process of reuse to inform the creative cycle of ideas. . . . Advanced undergraduates through faculty in art, art history, media studies, film, literature and music will appreciate the interdisciplinary treatment of collage.” -- Cara List * ARLIS/NA Reviews *
“Where the most prominent works on the subject tend to dwell on digital’s infinite capacity to reproduce and share itself freely and its current kowtowing to corporate rights management, this book begins by situating appropriation art and collage in the earlier recesses of the twentieth century with Walter Benjamin, the Surrealists, and Dada. Along the way, it touches upon zine culture, audiotape collage, street art, and new wave science fiction; it critiques the international outflows of copyright-subject culture and then it critiques the debate itself.” -- Allie Curry * Rain Taxi *
Table of ContentsI Collage, Therefore I Am: An Introduction to
Cutting Across Media / Kembrew McLeod and Rudolf Kuenzli 1
Digital Mana: On the Source of the Infinite Proliferation of Mutant Copies on Contemporary Culture / Marcus Boon 24
Copyrights and Copywrongs: An Interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan / Carrie McLaren 38
Das Plagiierenwerk: Convolute Uii / David Tetzlaff 51
PhotoStatic Magazine and the Rise of the Casual Publisher / Lloyd Dunn 57
Plagiarism®174; 101: An Appropriated Oral History of the Tape-beatles / Kembrew McLeod 76
Ambiguity and Theft / Joshua Clover 84
Where Does Sad News Come From? / Douglas Kahn 94
Excerpts from "Two Relationships to a Cultural Public Domain" / Negativland 117
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Lawsuit: William S. Burroughs, DJ Danger Mouse, and the Politics of Grey Tuesday / Davis Schneiderman 132
How Copyright Law Changed Hip-Hop: An Interview with Public Enemy's Chuck D and Hank Shocklee / Kembrew McLeod 152
Hip-Hop Meets the Avant-Garde: A Cease and Desist Letter from Attorneys Representing Philip Glass / Warner Special Products 158
Getting Snippety / Philo T. Farnsworth 160
Crashing the Spectacle: A Forgotten History of Digital Sampling, Infringement, Copyright Liberation, and the End of Recorded Music / Kembrew McLeod 164
Billboard Liberation: A Photo Essay / Craig Baldwin 178
On the Seamlessly Nomadic Future of Collage / Pierre Joris 185
Cultural Sampling and Social Critique: The Collage Aesthetic of Chris Ofili / Lorraine Morales Cox 199
Remixing Cultures: Bartók and Kodály in the Age of Indigenous Cultural Rights / Gábor Vályi 219
A Day to Sing: Creativity, Diversity, and Freedom of Expression in the Network Society / Jeff Chang 237
Visualizing Copyright, Seeing Hegemony: Toward a Meta-Critique of Intellectual Property / Eva Hemmungs Wirtén 252
Collage as Practice and Metaphor in Popular Culture / David Banash 264
Assassination Weapons: The Visual Culture of New Wave Science Fiction / Rob Latham 276
Free Culture: A Conversation with Jonathan Lethem / Kembrew McLeod 290
The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism / Jonathan Lethem 298
Bibliography 327
Contributors 341
Index 345
