Symbiotic Souls

I told myself  I'd resist covering the copyright theft stuff , but here we go, it's rife !

Arabelle Sicardi with Tayler Smith

So the 'Jezebel' piece name - checks the usual suspects , well Richard Prince anyways.
It's a well written piece, and a very emotive subject, obviously.
By the way, if you or anyone you know is involved in creativity and have encountered issues, there is a very active group on Facebook who are worth hooking up with, link here.

Personally, my jury is still out on the whole wider issue, and I take it on a case by case level. Certainly with regard to the recent furore over Mr Prince, I feel that people -  sorry - 'creators', are rightly aggrieved - but in the opaque world of publicity and dubious patronage (Suicide Girls), it all gets rather murky in a sea of symbiotic souls...

'Adolf,  the superman who turns gold into tin'

Long ago in my younger daze , I admired the works of Dadaists and surrealists, including John Heartfield, one of the first photomontage satirists, who  re-appropriated photographic images but with a clear message added.
During WWII , his powerful images were used as propaganda against the Nazis.

Radical reworking or lazy theft ?

In the case of the above photo theft, I would argue that there is no clear 'message' or otherwise, and the final piece is all too obviously derived from the original image.

Arctander retitled the piece 'Cheek', and certainly in the u.k. it is more than a little 'cheeky' to blatantly modify work and call it your own, but I don't think the title was intended ironically.

Forgive me being an Art philistine and all, but I would argue that it comes across as the work of someone who thought that applying splashes of colour and random bits of tape was enough to elevate a piece from the workaday to the realms of Art.
I would argue that more interesting permutations would result if the original photographer had perhaps used 'cut and paste' on original negatives or contact prints - but where Mr Arctander has been restricted to only using the finished piece, the limitations are very obvious.
I'd go so far as to say he's not even trying.

Did someone read up on the Richard Prince controversy and see a guaranteed method of garnering publicity ?

Part of the difficulty is that Art is such a nebulous thing now that it has no visible boundaries or definition.
It has passed through so many classifications , definitions and 'Movements' that it can be anything.
On that basis then, the original photograph is Art.
And so is the end result.

Personally, I would question whether the original image was 'Art' as opposed to merely a quirky photograph of the subject .

I'm not going to add to the controversy, I'm just an observer, after all.
But tell that to Shrödingers cat.

And is my flimsy piece of opinion valid at all, or just another 'symbiotic' layer ?

In this world of rehashing, reworking and reposting...perhaps this is art.

Are we guilty of arguing over how fine The Emperors New Clothes look ?

I'll just leave that thought.

Konspiracy Korner!

Today I noticed two old photos, rebranded as new outrages , doing the rounds on social media and garnering the expected shock horror responses as they did so.
What really saddened me was the ease with which it could be discovered that the photos in question were actually old .
People seemed to prefer to be outraged and ill-informed.
I know that in this era of online mobs wielding virtual pitchforks , all announcements on social media must be taken with a pinch of salt .
It's almost too easy to be swept up in righteous indignation , so online fact-checking should always begin with the date of a post.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present Exhibit A:

It's a couple of days after an apparently quiet and well attended Midsummer Solstice at Stonehenge.
Suddenly, on Facebook:

Instant outrage. 

Cries of 'Ill-mannered scum, litterbugs, 'etc.

That particular thread descended into classist rants about overprivileged rich kids, blah blah.

The photo in question actually dates from 2012.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I present Exhibit B:

 Who is holding the old ladies arms?

Apparently a retired nurse who was arrested and taken to Paddington Green following the Anti-Austerity demo on Saturday 20th June 2015.
It's actually a photo from Feb 2012 of a protesting retired teacher (who was escorted to the pavement).

This kind of badly Photoshopped misinformation is surely damaging to the credibility of anyone who is against the current regime...so is it the product of a misguided activist attempting to raise the ire of the people ?
Or is this a double bluff designed to undermine the credibility of protestors ?

You see how easy it is to drift into the realms of the fabled  'Tin-Foil Helmet ' ?

Someone posted a lengthy piece on how spies spread misinformation online too - perhaps to reinforce a point: after all, it's hardly likely that our friends in GCHQ (or the NSA if you're Stateside) would actually tell us what they're doing, and how they do it
I mean, seriously...

I know this is a brief post, but I'm just going to put it out there before it is too late, and they surpress my wanton reality checks !
As if