Open source / open content increases accessibility of material and information for creative work and research by decreasing restrictions and limitations, which seems to offer nothing but advantages for remixers of culture. The possibilities for derivatives would be like an infinitely nesting matryoshka doll (but the layers are nested in a progression of depth rather than size). And maybe you just keep adding doll layers to the outer most doll layer, instead of opening more and more doll layers. I guess it can work either way. Or picture endlessly peeling an onion, but in reverse, so the layers are peeled on rather than off. Imagine anything with many layers, I guess, is how I’m thinking of it. Sort of like what the discovery of a new easy-to-visit planet or additional dimension -- complete with orange sky and purple ocean and inverted mountains -- might to a landscape painter… overwhelming but exciting.
Also, open source’s increased (or at least, democratized) availability of basically everything would either feed the over-developed sense of entitlement of the average consumer, who seems to never stop wanting more acquisitions, or perhaps de-center the ownership aspect of that entitlement syndrome. Sharing is supposed to be good for people. Being a contributing member of an active community is also supposed to be healthy, but it’s probably going to be hard for most folks to give up on this ingrained notion of individual authorial superiority. Which is perhaps why even though the idea of copyright appears archaic (ESPECIALLY when applied to digital/networking culture) people continue to cling to its false (?) sense of security. Does it effectively guard against someone taking credit for something that you created? If that’s what most artists are afraid of, then it seems like the attribution option of Creative Commons licensing should provide adequate peace of mind. Alternative licensing procedures (like creative commons) appear to be trying to evolve along with creative output and technology, unlike the US copyright laws, which seem mostly irrelevant to the “protection” of creative expression. Copyright is useful to those who make money from distributing copies of things and want to prevent unsanctioned reproductions from reducing their ability to make money, right? From this view, it deals more with distribution than creation, and since I frankly don’t expect to ever make money off of copies of my art work, I’m not personally very concerned with copyrighting.
Regardless of source material being freely accessible or fiercely protected, I don’t believe in a purely personal production that is immune to contamination by or reflection of cultural production. Even if your work isn’t obviously derivative, it’s inescapably a product of culture, because you are too. Going back to Jonathan Letham’s article The Ecstasy of Influence, artistic voice “isn't just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.” I sure do agree, but I almost want to object to Letham’s use of the word “humbly”, which implies a lowering of pride, or an expected drop in esteem… as though “creating out of a void” is the preferred, more respectable practice rather than what it is: a harmful mythological view of creativity that continues to haunt and confuse the minds of artists.
No comments:
Post a Comment