"Art and politics as usual"
The Art Newspaper just published a short article by Lene Berg, the artist whose work was allegedly censored by Cooper Union. We covered this story last year, with an update linking to a website which details the events surrounding the removal of Berg's work. A bit from her Art Newspaper article:
If the Civil Liberties Union is right in assuming that the banners were removed because of their content, this case is probably a good example of how censorship works in a liberal democracy. Instead of direct censorship, we have rules and regulations that allow people in power to stop whatever does not please them, without making their reasons public.
Luke Jerram: A Photography-Analogized Patent Process for Creating and Reproducing an Ephemeral Retinal Afterimage that Dodges the Realm of Objective Documentation but Burns within the Subjective Arena of Comparative Social Experience
"Intellectual Property: A Chronology Compendium of Intersections between Contemporary Art and Utility Patents," by Robert Thill, was first published in Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Science and Technology 37, no. 2 (2004), pp. 117-124. An expanded, adapted version of it is published here in serial form with the abstract, introduction, and summary extracted. Starting on March 10, 2008, a different project in the compendium will appear biweekly. Please note that each entry is a unique electronic publication and will not be stored in an online archive after the two-week publication period. Below is the twenty-first entry of this series (published here on January 5, 2009).
 Luke Jerram, Patent drawings (figures 1--6) for "Retinal after-image projector and amplifier," Great Britain patent no. 2340621, filed 18 August 1998, granted 23 February 2000. Patent invention used to create Jerram's artwork Retinal Memory Volume.
Luke Jerram: A Photography-Analogized Patent Process for Creating and Reproducing an Ephemeral Retinal Afterimage that Dodges the Realm of Objective Documentation but Burns within the Subjective Arena of Comparative Social Experience
Luke Jerram's artwork Retinal Memory Volume is an intimate, precise, and interactive examination of visual and cognitive perception in relation to light, color, form, space, subject matter, and recall [1]. Developed with university optometry assistance and first made public in 1997 [2], the installation-based art project is secured by a patent named "Retinal after-image projector and amplifier," [3,4] which outlines Jerram's novel use of the retina of the viewer's eye as a kind of light-sensitive film, with the biological chemical rhodopsin playing a prominent role in the creation of a multicolored image from its activation by a flash of shaped white light [5]. Using flash guns that sequentially shoot light through three different stencils that together form a graphic image of a three-dimensional chair in perspective on the individual viewer's retina [6], Jerram's invention causes the viewer to see an afterimage of the chair in the space of the installation, creating a kind of interior light sculpture within the viewer. The stencils of the chair [7] and the viewing room are carefully scaled and calibrated to enhance the illusion experienced by the individual viewer that the chair has materialized in the space of the room with him or her, despite its being only a flash imprint on his or her retina. To activate an additional optical dimension of the project, the seated viewer is positioned in a chair facing a specific corner of the room in which a dim strobe light acts as what Jerram describes as a "blinking machine" [8], serving to hasten the flash images' change from a light afterimage to a darker afterimage, and intensifying the image of the chair's form and dimension within the space to approximate what could be described as a holographic-like, if fleeting, form. Jerram's project contains the paradox of the creation of an image that is visible only to the individual eye and mind that has received it, thus producing a singular experience that can then be repeated and duplicated in an assembly line of viewers seeking the same experience, which can mostly immediately be confirmed through individual accounts [9]. Fittingly, Jerram's project description on his Web site offers insightful "audience responses" to the experience in the installation space where the text for another kind of project might contain critical reviews [10]. In the same way that a scientific method can be used to confirm a theory, the experiment can be reliably tested, repeated, and expanded upon with variations [11]. It is interesting that one of the testimonials notes the force of suggestion on people's experience of the project [12], adding another dimension to the idea of perception in this context---as does Jerram in discussing his own problems identifying colors [13]. Jerram offers a description of the project that highlights its title: "The work allows people to observe their own eyesight, and asks the question, at which point does perception end and memory begin?" [14] With both images and memories often interconnected and impermanent, the project raises the fundamental question of where exactly the image of an object in front of an open eye actually resides [15,16].
--Robert Thill is an independent writer.
References and Notes
1. Jerram deliberately borrowed the title of the project from an artwork by Robert Irwin, a leader in the light and space movement in Southern California, to reveal his inspiration for the work. In an undated interview by Ben Wheeler, Jerram said, "[Irwin's] artwork employed after-images in a subtle and minimal way." Referencing his own training in provocative live art, he continued, "but I wanted to make an artwork that would demand people's attention and visually blast them out of the water." Jerram's project recalls Marcel Duchamp's experiments with optics and perception and his discussion of retinal and non-retinal art. The interview is available at a hyperlink named "installation_history_& interview" on Luke Jerram's Web site, http://lukejerram.com/installations/retinal_memory_volume.htm.
The rich-text-format file is named "installation_history___inteview." In a PC platform, the file should open on a double click; if you are using a Macintosh platform and the downloaded or opened document only shows the name of the project, a short description, and a list of exhibitions, you can open the document by using the TextEdit application to reveal more information about the project and the complete interview.
2. Under the heading "Retinal Memory Volume" in Jerram file [1].
3. Luke Jerram, "Retinal after-image projector and amplifier" and
Great Britain patent no. 2340621, filed 18 August 1998, published 23 February 2000 (the same patent also appears under the title "Illumination method and apparatus for creating retinal after-images"), the European Patent Office, http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?KC=A&date=20000223&NR=2340621A&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_V3&CC=GB&FT=D.
4. Asked about his intention in seeking patents, Jerram has written, "I thought, and still think there's potential for the technology to have more commercial applications---to be used in nightclub advertising/stadium lighting, perhaps? Rather than exploring this potential, I'm always far too interested in making the next artwork." To clarify the artist's idea of how this would work, the author asked, "Would this be like a group retinal exposure or something else?", to which Jerram replied, "As you say---group exposure." Two separate e-mails by Jerram to the author, 22 December 2008.
5. Under the heading "Technical Description" in Jerram file [1].
6. Ibid.
7. Jerram describes his choice of an image of a chair as follows: "I'm using a chair image as it's a generic object of a known size. Built in the three separate sections (top, side and front), the after-image of the chair demonstrates the three-dimensional potential for the technology. To experience the work the viewer sits on an identical and real chair in the installation space. The chair also makes sure the viewer faces the right direction!" Undated interview of Luke Jerram by Ben Wheeler in Jerram file [1]. However, it also brings to mind Joseph Kosuth's artwork One and Three Chairs (1965), which explores the epistemology of art, especially in relation to its linguistic structure. Through the juxtaposition of three representations of a chair---a wooden folding chair, a mounted photograph of the same type of chair, and a photographic enlargement of a dictionary definition of "chair"---Kosuth's work challenges viewers' assumptions about art and ideas. One of Three Chairs, 1965, Joseph Kosuth, the Collection, the MoMA.org, http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=81435.
8. Under the heading "Technical Description" in Jerram file [1].
9. The work has been exhibited in over nine different countries and "has been experienced on a 'one at a time' basis by over 100,000 people." Under the heading "Retinal Memory Volume" in Jerram file [1].
10. For example: "The chair is like a ghost or a solid memory. It is like an object in a dream, yet your eyes are open." Terrance, Lisbon, 1998, under "Audience Responses..." in Jerram file [1].
11. A related work by Jerram explores the visualization of numbers. See Matrix, Luke Jerram's Web site, http://lukejerram.com/installations/matrix.htm.
12. "When I first went in, I didn't know what to expect. I saw the after-image chair in black and white floating in the corner of the space. It was pretty amazing. But when I came out, someone told me they saw different colours---green, pink and blue? The next time I went in, the colours were instantly apparent, so was I just not 'tuned into' seeing colours originally?" Hilde, Graz, 2000, under "Audience Responses..." in Jerram file [1].
13. "I get colours mixed up and what I think I see changes according to what people tell me is actually there. I remember seeing a t-shirt change from grey to pink before my eyes after someone told me its true colour." Jerram further explains, "The fact I'm colour blind has given me a natural interest in visual perception though, which I suppose could be one reason why I've become an artist? I like the fact that with after-images I can affect and recalibrate the viewer's vision. For me the work highlights the fact that we all see the world differently and that our senses are calibrated uniquely." Undated interview of Luke Jerram by Ben Wheeler in Jerram file [1].
14. Ibid.
15. Jerram's patent appears not to have been renewed by the artist as of 18 August 2004, http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/inpadoc?CC=GB&NR=2340621A&KC=A&FT=D&date=20000223&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_V3.
16. Diagrams, instructions, and stencils for making a Retinal Memory Volume installation are reproduced in Luke Jerram, Art in Mind: An Artist's Journey Exploring the Edges of Perception (Bristol, UK: Watershed Arts Trust, 2008), 15,16.
Previous Articles in the Series
"Catherine Richards: Patent Protection for the Mediation of Emotions," December 15, 2008
"Mars Patent: Posing an Innovative Challenge to Earth Culture," December 1, 2008
"L. A. Angelmaker: What Constitutes Completion in Art, Invention, or Anything Else?," November 17, 2008
"Steve Mann: Patent Archives as Venues for Disclosure and Enclosure," November 3, 2008
"Hideki Nakazawa: Art-Related Patent Inventions in the Framework of Identity, with Language as a Dividing Form and Subject Matter as a Connecting Form," October 14, 2008
"Luis Camnitzer: The Vanity of the Inventor and the Vanity of the Artist," September 22, 2008
"Olga and Alexander Florensky's Russian Patent: A "Science-Technical Museum" Displays an Invented Truth," September 8, 2008
"Christoph Keller: Resisting the Anti-utilitarianism of Art," August 25, 2008
"Lisa Schmitz's World Artistic Property Organization: A Patent-Office Equivalent for Art," August 11, 2008
"Walter Martin: Contemporary Witness to Historic Patent Drawings, " July 28, 2008
"Michael Asher: Circumstance and Perception of Originality," July 14, 2008
"Hubert Duprat: Stakeholders in Art, Science, Industry, Theory, and History Converge on a Fragile Casing Created by Individual Insect Larvae for the Purpose of Self-Protection," June 27, 2008
"Buckminster Fuller: Visual Reflections on Patent Inventions," June 13, 2008
"Nancy Burson: Exploring the Passage of Time through Morphing Portraits," June 2, 2008
"The European Patent Office: Contemporary Art as a Transcending Force in an Institutional Patent Context," May 19, 2008
"William W. Adkins: An Untrained Innovator Is Reclassified as a Visionary Artist," May 5, 2008
"Alice Hutchins: Moveable Elements in a Personal Magnetic Field," April 21, 2008
"Konrad Lueg: Centralizing the Spectator in an Ephemeral Art Invention," April 7, 2008
"Jean Tinguely: Kinetic Sculpture as an Expressive Drawing and Painting Device," March 24, 2008
"Yves Klein: Artistic Expression, Technological Progress, and Spiritual Evolution," March 10, 2008
 
Buying a Kiss With An Oral Contract
This week's New York Magazine has an interesting story on New York's MoMA and their recent acquisitions of performance art. The ephemeral nature of the works highlights the legal issues raised by art works that supposedly are not memorialized via film, video or props. Adding to this complex schema is the contractual nature of MoMA's contract with Tino Sehgal regarding his performance, Kiss. According to New York Magazine, the contract was not memorialized in writing but rather "sealed...with a spoken contract."
Purchasing Kiss was especially complex, because the hallmark of Sehgal's work is that it's undocumented. (In the piece, couples dance, touch, and make out for two choreographed hours.) There's no script or manual. The how-to is passed on orally, like a folktale[.]
We're trying to ascertain the validity of this claim, and if so, the nature of the agreement.
Works Stolen from Berlin Gallery
Thieves stole more than 30 art works over the New Year's holiday, including works by Picasso and Matisse. The works, stolen from a Berlin gallery, are worth an estimated $250,000. More from Yahoo! News.
Descendant of Louis XIV Sues Jeff Koons
Prince Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parme, who alleges to be a direct descendant of Louis XIV, has initiated a legal battle against Jeff Koons in what he describes as a "mercenary" and "pornographic" stain on his illustrious family's honour.
According to The Guardian, Bourbon-Parme "says the exhibition, which is due to close in just over a week, is an attack on the 'right immemorial' of all human beings not to see their ancestors disrespected. Undeterred by an initial ruling this week from a judge in Versailles which rejected his plea to ban the installation, De Bourbon-Parme vowed yesterday to take his mission to the council of state, France's highest administrative court."
"Simply disappeared"!
During this season of gifts, unwrappings, and surprises, British embassies and government buildings have discovered numerous public artworks missing.
Works of art worth hundreds of thousands of pounds are missing from British embassies and other official buildings around the world. At least 50 paintings from the Government Art Collection are unaccounted for, according to the latest audit. None was insured. Some are known to have been stolen but more than half the total simply disappeared.
Lawyer Sentenced
The Massachusetts lawyer who was charged with possessing stolen art works earlier this year has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Catherine Richards: Patent Protection for the Mediation of Emotions
"Intellectual Property: A Chronology Compendium of Intersections between Contemporary Art and Utility Patents," by Robert Thill, was first published in Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Science and Technology 37, no. 2 (2004), pp. 117-124. An expanded, adapted version of it is published here in serial form with the abstract, introduction, and summary extracted. Starting on March 10, 2008, a different project in the compendium will appear biweekly. Please note that each entry is a unique electronic publication and will not be stored in an online archive after the two-week publication period. Below is the twentieth entry of this series (published here on December 15, 2008).
 Catherine Richards, Method and Apparatus for Finding Love, 2000, partial view of installed display copies of the patent application in a secured room, Ottawa Art Gallery, Canada.
Catherine Richards: Patent Protection for the Mediation of Emotions
Exploring the intersection of science and art from the conventional and restricted site of the patent application, Catherine Richards collaborated with W. Martin Snelgrove to create a patent application for a "Method and apparatus for finding love" [1]. The invention "communicates with like devices in such a way as to divine the likelihood of attraction due to relative sexual, social, intellectual or spiritual interests of the bearers" [2]. Richards exhibited the work in the fall of 2000 at the Ottawa Art Gallery as an installation, which consisted of four shelves displaying copies of the draft patent application. Prior to inspecting the work, viewers were required to sign a nondisclosure agreement, which protected the artist/inventors' intellectual property. This mediation of viewing had the added function of documenting the viewers' visits while discouraging them from talking about the invention---which was inseparable from the art. Because contemporary art is often engaged in raising questions and creating a multifaceted dialogue, the project's deliberate shutting down of viewers' discussion of it is a noteworthy component [3]. Richards has written that the patent application is a costly shielded environment that offers an established form and "an extraordinary opportunity to entwine both science and art as agents of desire" [4]. The explicit, legally binding control of the audience's relationship to the artwork is a fitting foil to its subject: the art disconnects the viewers from others in the act of considering an invention designed to bring people together [5,6]. Although Richards's seemingly narrow targeting of the potential user of the device---"a lonely or socially inept individual"---may read as somewhat mean-spirited, seeming to point to the quintessential "nerd," a quick glance at the contemporary terrain of "love" (increasing divorce rates, transient relationships, and the adoption of conventional legal contracts between same-sex couples) might confirm the larger market alluded to in her broader statement from the period: "The mediation of emotions was on the cultural/technological agenda with the unspoken implication that it would be a breakthrough to huge new markets" [7,8].
--Robert Thill is an independent writer.
References and Notes
1. Catherine Richards and W. Martin Snelgrove, U.S. patent application no. 20030083544, "Method and apparatus for finding love," 1 May 2003, filed 25 October 2002, United States Patent and Trademark Office, http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=20030083544.PGNR.&OS=dn/20030083544&RS=DN/20030083544.
2. Richards [1].
3. Richards has written, "In the original installation, people signed the nondisclosure that warned them they couldn't talk about what they were about to read. Then, the attendant took out the keys and unlocked the door. They were let in to read it. I wanted to keep it in its 'patent form,' that is, 8-x-10 inch Xeroxed papers. As an object in itself, it isn't precious in any way. The room was square with a reading shelf on each wall. In the room, people started to laugh and talk as if they were in a bubble. Being locked into the room together with this document seemed to change the dynamics." Richards has added, "For the original installation [the laughing and talking] was reported by spectators (but they didn't talk about the patent!)." E-mail by Richards to the author, 24 July 2007.
4. Catherine Richards, "Method and Apparatus for Finding Love 2000 (Artist Statement): A Patent," Catherine Richards, http://www.catherinerichards.ca/artwork/patent_statement.html.
5. Richards expands on this observation: "Yes, overtly, the device brings people together but at the same time it gets in the way. It is also about how we feel we must externalize everything before it is 'real' or 'trustworthy.' If a device (which, of course, we have to pay for and has its own agenda) manages to convince us that what we feel isn't 'real' unless it is mediated and represented, then it has it made."
6. About Richards's project, which is filled with paradoxes, it is of interest to note that the nondisclosure agreements became part of the art; two of the forms, which disclose the viewers' identities, were published with the patent in the catalogue of the exhibition, Excitable Tissues, which was distributed by ABC Books, Montreal, http://www.abcartbookscanada.com/SculptENG.html#oaatg.
7. Richards [4].
8. For further information on this project, see the Fondation Langlois, http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e-art/e/catherine-richards.html.
Previous Articles in the Series
"Mars Patent: Posing an Innovative Challenge to Earth Culture," December 1, 2008
"L. A. Angelmaker: What Constitutes Completion in Art, Invention, or Anything Else?," November 17, 2008
"Steve Mann: Patent Archives as Venues for Disclosure and Enclosure," November 3, 2008
"Hideki Nakazawa: Art-Related Patent Inventions in the Framework of Identity, with Language as a Dividing Form and Subject Matter as a Connecting Form," October 14, 2008
"Luis Camnitzer: The Vanity of the Inventor and the Vanity of the Artist," September 22, 2008
"Olga and Alexander Florensky's Russian Patent: A "Science-Technical Museum" Displays an Invented Truth," September 8, 2008
"Christoph Keller: Resisting the Anti-utilitarianism of Art," August 25, 2008
"Lisa Schmitz's World Artistic Property Organization: A Patent-Office Equivalent for Art," August 11, 2008
"Walter Martin: Contemporary Witness to Historic Patent Drawings, " July 28, 2008
"Michael Asher: Circumstance and Perception of Originality," July 14, 2008
"Hubert Duprat: Stakeholders in Art, Science, Industry, Theory, and History Converge on a Fragile Casing Created by Individual Insect Larvae for the Purpose of Self-Protection," June 27, 2008
"Buckminster Fuller: Visual Reflections on Patent Inventions," June 13, 2008
"Nancy Burson: Exploring the Passage of Time through Morphing Portraits," June 2, 2008
"The European Patent Office: Contemporary Art as a Transcending Force in an Institutional Patent Context," May 19, 2008
"William W. Adkins: An Untrained Innovator Is Reclassified as a Visionary Artist," May 5, 2008
"Alice Hutchins: Moveable Elements in a Personal Magnetic Field," April 21, 2008
"Konrad Lueg: Centralizing the Spectator in an Ephemeral Art Invention," April 7, 2008
"Jean Tinguely: Kinetic Sculpture as an Expressive Drawing and Painting Device," March 24, 2008
"Yves Klein: Artistic Expression, Technological Progress, and Spiritual Evolution," March 10, 2008
 
The Stalin by Picasso Case: Cooper Union vs. Lene Berg
On November 8th we reportedon Cooper Union's alleged act of (questionable) censorship of Lene Berg's art installation. For those interested in a more detailed account of this situation, there is a link to documentation of it at The Stalin by Picasso Case site. Below is a brief introduction to the information found on this website.
New York City's Cooper Union college approached Berg in August about an autumn show; she agreed, if she could hang the banners on the school's historic Foundation Building, as well as display the book and video. The exhibit opened as planned October 29. Then, on October 31, without notifying Berg, the administration had the banners removed. Berg learned of this from exhibition curator Sara Reisman on November 1 and demanded her show be shut down. Only on November 6 did the college issue a statement, which blamed a permit violation. It also mentioned the seventy-fifth anniversary, on November 15, of the Holodomor, the forced starvation of millions of Ukrainians by Stalin, which the neighborhood's Ukrainian community was planning to commemorate nearby.
What follows are video excerpts of Stalin by Picasso; documentation of the installation, controversy, and de-installation, in the form of materials provided by Berg and culled from the Internet; and a statement.
Peru to Yale: Return Our Cultural Artifacts
We reported early last month that Peru was considering suing Yale University for the return of what it alleges are stolen Incan artifacts. Well, according to the Miami Herald, on December 5th Peru filed that lawsuit. The Peruvian Prime Minister defends this suit:
"The government of Peru authorized that the pieces leave the country on loan. Thus, Yale has no right to demand certain things in order to return" objects it does not own, Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde told Lima-based RRP radio late Wednesday.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington, demands that Yale return what it says are more than 40,000 artifacts taken by famed scholar Hiram Bingham III between 1911 and 1915. Yale University states that it would have returned the artifacts had Peru accepted some of the (seemingly imperialistic) conditions demanded by Yale, such as building a jointly financed museum that would meet "standard technical requirements for security and preservation." It seems a bit odd that a U.S. university would be demanding anything of a sovereign nation, especially when it becomes an issue of cultural preservation and historical narratives.
More on this story from the Miami Herald.
India to Pakistan: "You can't just go and copy historical monuments"
Pakistan's construction of an exact copy of the Taj Mahal has sparked a diplomatic fight between India and Bangladesh, centering on the question of whether or not it is possible to claim copyright on a building.
According to The Times Online, "[t]he project has cost about £40 million and is being built about 20 miles northeast of Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital. But the Indians are upset. 'You can't just go and copy historical monuments,' an official at the Indian High Commission in Dhaka told a reporter this week."
Bangladeshi officials are enraged by suggestions that the Taj Mahal is protected by some sort of copyright.
"I'm not sure what they are talking about," one said. "Show me where it says that emulating a building like this can be illegal."
Nazi 'loot' to Return to Rightful Owner
Two paintings that once belonged to Montreal art dealer Max Stern, but were looted by the Nazis during the Second World War, will be returned to his estate today in Berlin.
A 2007 court decision was the first in U.S. legal history dealing with the forced sale of Jewish-owned art in Nazi Germany. The judge in that case equated the forced sale in 1937 to theft.
Clarence Epstein, the director of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project, which has spent the past seven years tracking down works from Stern's former collection, says the judgment is groundbreaking for all claimants of looted art. "This means that every painting that was part of that forced sale ... is equivalent to the Winterhalter," Mr. Epstein said. "If that painting was deemed to be a looted work, then so are the other 227 paintings sold during that auction."
"The great majority of Jewish artists and dealers lost their art not through straight confiscation, but because they were forced to sell it," Mr. Konte said. He added that they were generally sold considerably below fair market value.
According to Anna Rubin, director of the New York State Banking Department's Holocaust Claims Processing Office, more than 600,000 works of art, rare books, pieces of furniture, sculptures and jewelry were looted during the Nazi regime.
More from the Ottawa Citizen.
Damien Hirst Threatens 16-year-old Artist With Lawsuit
Damien Hirst, arguably an appropriationist king himself, threatened a 16 year-old artist with a lawsuit unless the young artist stopped using Hirst's diamond-studded skull image first. According to The Independent, Cartrain (the young artist's moniker), "was surprised to learn Hirst had not only seen the work but also contacted the Design and Artists Copyright Society (Dacs), who apparently informed the young artist he had infringed Hirst's copyright. The older man [Hirst] has reportedly demanded that Cartrain not only remove the works from sale but ;'deliver up' originals, along with any profit made on those sold, or face legal action."
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