June 2015
Look at the artists mentioned who appropriate images taken by other people and write around 300 words describing your response to photographers who work in this way.
Is appropriation appropriate?
Artists who have used appropriation in the past such as Andy
Warhol or Marcel Duchamp used every day objects such as a tin of Campbell’s
Soup or a urinal and turned them into art. In the 1980’s Andy Warhol was a
popular artist producing images of the soup tin which was accepted as art. However, on further investigation, Warhol was not sued by companies such as Campbell's
soup - only by photographers for work such as his Marylin Monroe. So what is
appropriation? The Oxford Dictionary describes it as “The deliberate reworking
of images and styles from earlier well known works of art.” So the issue is
actually about copyright.
To apply the same logic now would make photographers like Michael Wolf,
John Rafman, Doug Ricard and Mishka Henna who use Google street view to find
and make their images acceptable. These photographers acknowledge Google in
their images. These artists can be compared to Paul Strand (who used a dummy
lens) and took a different subject to what people thought he was taking, or
Walker Evans who had a hidden camera to photograph New York subways.
With the advent of social media, there is plenty of material on
platforms such as You Tube, Google Street View, Instagram, Facebook which artists
could use to make photographs. The latest addition to the Photography Show in
March this year was a stand of drones. These have also made the news as a
copyright issue. Does the person on Facebook who shares a video or photo acknowledge
the artist? Or was it taken without acknowledgement in the first place? I agree
with Wolf‘s comment that his images from google “highlights double standards
relating to government’s attempts to regulate street photography while google
is creating an unauthorised photographic map of the world”.(http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction - accessed July 16th 2015) Wolf feels that he
is reasserting “the role of the photographer”.(http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction - accessed July 16th 2015) The Google street view and drone images are
classed as surveillance photography and there is a market for it. But how socially acceptable is appropriation?
Two current issues in the news concerning appropriation are the use of landmark buildings
such as the London Eye or Eiffel Tower and the copyright issues of concert
photographers following the contract issued by the Foo Fighters (who actually owns the photograph?) With the landmarks, it has been suggested that photographers could not use images containing landmarks for commercial use. It all comes down to cost, and not even appropriation of the architect will be acceptable if the law is passed.
"We are concerned that the well-intentioned proposals to ensure that architects are paid for the use of images of their work by commercial publishers and broadcasters would instead have negative implications and represent a potentially damaging restriction of the debate about architecture and public space,' the organisation said in a statement to The Times." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3136945/Absurd-new-EU-law-mean-ll-face-legal-action-taking-pictures-famous-landmarks-Photos-punished-breach-copyright.html accessed 16/7/15)
So whilst I
appreciate that these issues need airing, I think there should a standard that
people work to. As a student I have guidelines to follow such as not plagiarising
others work etc. and have to check the rules from time to time. I feel it would be enough to credit the original photographer provided the work is different enough from the original, otherwise it may look like a copy. But there again, in the student world, we are encouraged to emulate photographers whose work we like when learning a new subject. I do use images
such as street view when planning a shoot or before I go to a new place if
travelling on my own, or even before booking a holiday cottage! But I would not
have considered publishing my investigative work on my blog before this
exercise.
References
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction - accessed July 16th 2015
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction - accessed July 16th 2015
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3136945/Absurd-new-EU-law-mean-ll-face-legal-action-taking-pictures-famous-landmarks-Photos-punished-breach-copyright.html accessed 16/7/15
Bibliography
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-street-view-new-photography?intcmp=239
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/15/photography-google-street-view
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-muse-street-photographers-interviews
http://www.google.co.uk/maps/about/behind-the-scenes/streetview/
http://weareoca.com/fine_art/whos-afraid-of-appropriation/
http://weareoca.com/fine_art/photography-meets-textiles/
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/feb/20/google-street-view-nine-eyes-in-pictures
http://www.dougrickard.com/articles/wall-street-journal-the-fine-art-of-spying-2013/
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/pop-art/appropriation
http://www.quora.com/Did-Andy-Warhol-need-Marilyn-Monroe%E2%80%99s-or-Campbell-Soup%E2%80%99s-permission-to-use-their-likenesses-in-his-iconic-paintings
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/appropriation
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-street-view-new-photography?intcmp=239
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/15/photography-google-street-view
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-muse-street-photographers-interviews
http://www.google.co.uk/maps/about/behind-the-scenes/streetview/
http://weareoca.com/fine_art/whos-afraid-of-appropriation/
http://weareoca.com/fine_art/photography-meets-textiles/
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/feb/20/google-street-view-nine-eyes-in-pictures
http://www.dougrickard.com/articles/wall-street-journal-the-fine-art-of-spying-2013/
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/pop-art/appropriation
http://www.quora.com/Did-Andy-Warhol-need-Marilyn-Monroe%E2%80%99s-or-Campbell-Soup%E2%80%99s-permission-to-use-their-likenesses-in-his-iconic-paintings
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/appropriation
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/article4478291.ece
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3136945/Absurd-new-EU-law-mean-ll-face-legal-action-taking-pictures-famous-landmarks-Photos-punished-breach-copyright.html
All bibliography websites last accessed 16th July 2015
Ideas for Assignment 2
Having chosen a couple of ideas to work with, I discovered the inaccuracies with Google Street View. It all depends where the van stops to capture the images. It is enough to give a flavour of the area although as I discovered in Worksop, it looked OK on Google street View, but in real life it had a completely different atmosphere - more akin to the segment label on Strava's cycling app!
Junction of A38 in Mansfield. Chose to screenshot this view because of the pedestrians.
With this junction (A6191) I realised I could not look at the road junction. The reason for this is the position of the car. The 9 eyes did not capture the end of the road. With this assignment I would have to give it some artistic licence and choose a building or point of interest to photograph.
Once again, I could not do a 360 degree turn on the road - hence the reason to explore a little way up the road from the junction. The idea would be that each road would have a different style of architecture or be in a different area from each other.
