[Reader-list] re: reader, boell, lab, adorno, jail, textz.com

[Britta Ohm]

Oh Sebastian, I'm afraid this is going to be a bit polemic after all: pretty
easy to stick a hip, intellectually sounding argument together on Kafka's
back and even easier to put the label of fascism on it, the ultimate
arument-killer. Great. Perfect way to scare 'small authors' back into their
little holes of ineffectivity and self-delusion, let them rot there unless
they wake up to the new times we claim for ourselves and unless they bend
down to our authority of defining what's art now and what is not and what's
a text worth reproducing and what's not. Who's more of the petty bourgeois,
the pedantic property-holder (even if there is no intellectual property to
be held, really) or the self-righteous definer of 'new eras' which will
finally wipe out those who are declared to have been an obstacle for them to
unfold? If you ask me, which you obviously didn't, they are two sides of the
same coin, both lacking self-reflexion, with one in addition lacking
generosity and the other respect. I really don't think that dwelling upon
new (or rather old) dichotomies leads us any further.
By the way, I didn't introduce the term 'only artist' - which is why I set
it in inverted commas -, I picked up a term Andreas used in his mail: "so
long as the digital avantgarde has to play the 'I'm only an artist' card,
rather than offering a tenable political economy of copy culture, i doubt
whether those property regimes will go away so soon." The flip side is that
the one who is losing property rights can actually be identical with the one
'playing around' with them - as I might lose out on royalties for our films
whilst I'm at the same time copying unauthorised texts or listening to
pirated music, sometimes without even knowing it. I think this is a more
interesting problem to think about rather than unleashing verbal attacks or
boycotts on 'small authors' of pre-war colouring.
All the best for your case  --  Britta


----------
>Von: sebastian at rolux.org
>An: reader-list at sarai.net
>Betreff: [Reader-list] re: reader, boell, lab, adorno, jail, textz.com
>Datum: Don, 26. Feb 2004 15:22 Uhr
>

> dear all... i'd like to thank you for your discussion and your support. i also
> have a remark or two.
>
>> Dear Monica, dear Andreas,
>> you're not a party-booper, Andreas, as I also think that a blind support of
>> copy culture would just amount to being the opposite of what it proposes to
>> be: rather narrow-minded. But this comes especially into play when it
>> concerns the 'only artists' as it is particularly them who are on a smaller
>> scale dependent on royalties and recognition. Just to give a small example
>> that concerns actually you and me, Monica: a photograph of mine was printed
>> in your name in Melissa's book that's just come out. It sucks, but it is,
>> well, a mistake, can happen, and I know that you declared that not to be
>> your picture when you saw the book. Yet it gets you thinking: if it becomes
>> obvious that the property right of the photo is with somebody else (even if
>> we might not know yet who it is), wouldn't that be enough to do something
>> about it rather than let it go (I know, all difficult, book is printed, what
>> to do?). But in principle, isn't that rapidly becoming integral part of a
>> hailed-as-democratic copy-culture as well: not just the cheap dissemination
>> of high-capital outpout, but the simple ignorance of or laissez-faire
>> attitude towards somebody else's work, time, investments and efforts? I
>> meanwhile have come across a number of cases in books as well as on the web
>> where my work or material - which I generally have made available quite
>> generously - suddenly appears without name or in somebody else's. As much as
>> I have seen our films being copied without me seeing any royalties for it.
>> This is still slightly different as at least the 'property holder'
>> definitely shows in the credits, but should I be happy that more people get
>> to see it that way, or should I get angry as I barely know how to finance my
>> next project? Don't you guard your property rights as a photographer,
>> Monica? Doesn't sarai? I think the whole matter of copy culture walks a
>> tightrope which asks us to learn to very clearly differ between enabling
>> access, creative freedom as well as cash-flow away from 'big capital' and
>> arrogance and ignorance towards rightful property holders, particularly
>> 'only artists'. In this sense, I think, Monica is right in saying that this
>> might change the very way we think and conduct ourselves in this world, even
>> though it seems to only reflect a hope that might have come with our
>> experiences gained from earlier avatars of supposedly anti-capitalist
>> movements (the dictatorship of the proletariat was mainly a dictatorship in
>> the end...).
>
> this intoduces the figure of the 'only artist'. i think it's the very same
> person as the 'small author'. that's what i usually call him. he's almost
always
> a guy. above all, he's small. and now as an artist, he's even only. he is the
> biggest obstacle for getting rid of the political, technological and also
> intellectual monstrosity that is "intellectual property". he's even an
obstacle
> for any debate on it. friends of mine have adopted a policy to immediately
leave
> the room once such a small author raises his voice. and i guess they're right.
> please don't get me wrong. this is not polemic. an absolutely hallucinatory
> description of this small author can be found in kafka's diaries. it's the
text
> at http://textz.com/kafka/. i haven't found an english translation. what this
> description shows is that the work of this small author is totally fictitious.
> what it shows is that no one has ever copied it. it shows he is caught in an
> oedipus triangle. he's an anti-feminist too. he hates a secretary, and i'm
just
> starting to think he hates her precisely because he has surpassed him
socially,
> in  regards to the technologies of reproduction. beware of the small author.
the
> kleinbuerger. in post-war times he's just a drag, but in kafka's and
benjamin's
> time, he's a fascist in the making. all this is not very precise. i should
> elaborate on it, and i hope i will, later.
>
>> The case of Reemtsma and textz.org seems pretty blatant in this context:
>> Reemtsma is not the author of the texts, he simply owns them as he owns a
>> hell of a lot of other texts without having written them, and Sebastian is
>> not an artist but a mere distributor who does not gain profit from his
>> activities. His move effectively undermined Reemtsma's authority to decide
>> about the dissemination of knowledge and is particularly interesting as he
>> did not even intend to do so: he took it for granted, rightfully so (at the
>> same time, he always responded to claims from authors and publishing houses
>> earlier). Reemtsma, who refuses to deal with the web and even e-mail, missed
>> out on a chance to live up to the image he seeks to create of himself in
>> public and the very name of his institute; the whole matter could have been
>> settled between the two of them over a cup of tea. But whilst this
>> represents a particular case of stone-faced ivory tower-attitude, the next
>> case could be completely different...
>
> adorno, reemtsma, jail, copyright, internet - these are strong signifiers.
maybe
> you need them to distribute a story. transportation, i don't know. in german
> feuilleton, the last days, you could see how the issue gets diverted. stops to
> signify anything, starts to signify something completely different. maybe even
> something more interesting. but nothing about "intellectual property". more
than
> reemtsma, "reemtsma" is despotic. so i'm just wondering: if you take
everything
> personal out of that story: what remains? or is that a stupid question? what
> would be a better question? what is textz.com's most obvious weakness? hint:
> single point of failure. not even technically. -- and, on a side note:
> personally, the most productive thing about all this so far was reading
> benjamin. maybe whoever wrote that "open letter" should change their stance:
> keep adorno, free benjamin. or free adorno with benjamin. you're all invited
to
> the opening of the hamburg foundation's benjamin archive. berlin, 2004. date
not
> set yet. i'll let you know. it's going to be fun. but still, there must be
more
> to it. call for a more critical critique. call for papers. call for bricks.
>
>> Cheers -- Britta
>
> best regards,
> sebastian
>
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