The ProstitutionofArt

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

"What?" - Matt Cegelis [94]

Matt Cegelis
Rockport, MA USA
https://mattcegelisart.pixels.com/

Title: "What?"
Medium: Digital Mixed Media, printed on Hahnemühle Albrecht Durer 210 watercolor paper

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

A Conversation about the Market - Greg Mason Burns [93]

Greg Mason Burns
Bar Harbor, Maine, USA
www.gregmasonburns.com

A Conversation about the Market

I want to be creative, but society has its own rules. There are no rules for creativity, and yet here we are. Where? Here, today, when art is no longer supported except through behemoth organizations sucking up money from the artist direct. Sure, you’ll go out and buy your prints from Target and destroy the artist even more. But they’re cheaper and look more professionally done. You need to be competitive. Competition is good. And bad, because the artist has no competition. He or she is unique, without comparison. That's foolish, think outside the box. There is no box. Not even an amoeba. The artist is the box, forever changing form and shape, pushing boundaries that only exist because we need a word to describe what we’re supposedly pushing. Then why the expression? It’s a corporate thing, meant to give permission to exceed established efficiency boundaries. And art doesn’t have efficiency boundaries? If no, why are you so poor? Because my world isn’t your world. You can never conquer the creative world, only diminish it, lessen its importance in society, the society you create, always pointing to what you call progress, upward, always making it hard on the artist. Sounds phallic, hehe. It is a fallacy. Art sold for millions never goes to the artist, the creator. Give me an example. A dangling light. A light? That shows the way. A light that shows the way is a fallacy in of itself because it only shows what it can shine upon and everything else remains darkened by the soft edges of the light and its limits and how far it can go and how far it cannot go. Auction houses are the light, but creativity is the darkness. Too deep for me, just like the price of your painting. Another car payment? That and a family cruise to Aspen. A cruise that can’t be taken. And yet I’ll pay for it just the same. Here’s a quarter, what can you make me for a quarter? I’ll take your quarter and take a picture. And you’ll send it to me by email? So you can reproduce it on the Internet and make more money than it cost you? Sure, that’s what I’m talking about. No need to give me your card, I’ll remember your email by memory. Now that’s why I only gave you a quarter. And it’s why your idea that art will always exist on a quarter is a fallacy. If art is darkness, it will always exist. Someday the light will go out forever. Art will conquer? Not if you only have one word for darkness. Maybe I’ll create another one. Ah, maybe.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

"TALENT/MODEL RELEASE FORM": D. Franklin [92]

D. Franklin's conceptual art audience-activated performance piece entitled "TALENT/MODEL RELEASE FORM":

Instructions for participants in D. Franklin's conceptual art audience-activated performance piece entitled "TALENT/MODEL RELEASE FORM":

Print a copy of the form. Fill out Section 2, information about the talent/model. Whenever you are in the presence of any kind of camera (in your phone, your friends' phones, your computer, surveillance cameras in public or privately-owned spaces, drones flying overhead, etc.) that might be taking an image of you, display the form towards the lens of the camera. Try to display it at a distance and in a manner that it will be as legible as possible (this will require some guesswork regarding the lensing of the camera and whether the reader will be a human being or software).

TALENT/MODEL RELEASE FORM

[Production Company: please complete the information in the first section below in blue ball-point pen and return the completed form to the talent/model named below using the contact information supplied. Please use all capital block letters.]

1. Name of production company:

__________________________________________

Telephone: land line _________________________

Telephone: cell/mobile _________________________

Email __________________________________

Website __________________________________

Employer Identification Number (EIN) or Federal Tax Identification Number ____________________

Address where company is legally registered / incorporation address:

Street or PO Box__________________________________________

City _______________________

State/province/district _____________

ZIP/postal code _____________

Physical address or location of main business activities:

Street __________________________________________

City _______________________

State/province/district _____________

ZIP/postal code _____________

Type of company (circle one): LLC LP LLP PC S-corp
Government agency (please specify. Be as specific as the law permits): ____________________ )
Other (please specify: ____________________ )

Names of UBOs (ultimate beneficial owners) and responsible directors, managers, CEO, CFO, members of the board of directors, majority stake stockholders (attach additional sheets if necessary):

1. Surname: ______________________ Given name(s): ______________________

Cellphone/mobile: _________________________

Email: _________________________

2. Surname: ______________________ Given name(s): ______________________

Cellphone/mobile: _________________________

Email: _________________________

3. Surname: ______________________ Given name(s): ______________________

Cellphone/mobile: _________________________

Email: _________________________

[Talent/model: complete the information in the second section below before displaying the form to any cameras that may be recording your image.]

2. Full name of talent/model; ______________________________

I, [talent/model’s full name ____________________________________ ], being of legal age, hereby give [Production Company Name ____________________________________], their licensees, successors, legal representatives, and assigns the absolute and irrevocable right and permission to use my name and to use, reproduce, edit, exhibit, project, display, copyright, publish and/or resell photography images and/or moving pictures and/or videotaped images of me with or without my voice, or in which I may be included in whole or in part, photographed, taped, videotaped, and/or recorded on [today’s date __________________] and thereafter in perpetuity, and to circulate the same in all forms and media and printed matter for art, advertising, trade, competition, government surveillance of every description and/or any other lawful purpose whatsoever, to the degree that the lawfulness of such usage can be ascertained.

I hereby waive any right that I may have to inspect and/or approve the finished product or products or the editorial, advertising, or printed copy, accompanying text, digital files and other data, or soundtrack that may be used in connection therewith and any right that I may have to control the use to which said product, products, copy and/or soundtrack may be applied.

I hereby release, discharge and agree to save [Production Company Name ____________________________________], their licensees, successors, legal representatives and assigns from any liability by virtue of any blurring, distortion, alteration, optical illusion or use in composite form whether intentional or otherwise that may occur or be produced in the making, processing, duplication, projecting or displaying of said picture or images, and from liability for violation of any personal or proprietary right that I may have in conjunction with said pictures or images and with the use thereof.

AGREED AND ACCEPTED this [today’s date __________ ] of [month ___________ ], year 20____

[Optional] location ________________________________________________

Talent/model signature ________________________________

Talent/model surname (block capital letters) ______________________________

Talent/model given name(s) ______________________________

Talent/model stage name(s)/pseudonyms/aliases ______________________________

Street or PO Box__________________________________________

City _______________________

State/province/district _____________

ZIP/postal code _____________

Email: ______________________________________

Cellphone / mobile / landline (optional) _________________________

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

For Your Consideration : Laura Minning [ 91]

Laura Minning
Exhibiting Abstract Artist,
Published Poet & Author
brcartistpoet @ gmail dot com

"freedom" (original previously published poem)

"Amelia Trail (photo)

"frostbite" (original artwork)

L a u r a M i n n i n g ‘ s C r e a t i v e B i o

Laura Minning began writing creatively at the age of nine. She’s become an award-winning published poet and author since that time. All in all, she’s had one-hundred and seven individual poems, six articles, three short plays, two books and one piece of prose published both in hard copy and on-line. Her work has been featured in publications like “Literature Today”, “Amulet” and “Slate and Style”.

Laura received her first Editor’s Choice Award in 1993 for “bronx zoo” and her first International Merritt of Poetry Award in 1995 for “introspection” by the National Library of Poetry. Poetry.com recognized her work a decade later by granting her the title of International Poet of the Year.

Laura’s artistic accomplishments have been equally impressive. She’s had ninety-three original pieces exhibited and eleven images published. Her work has been displayed at venues like the VMFA Studio School, Trenton Free Public Library and Barcode.

The Barcode exhibit featured thirty-six pieces of Laura’s artwork during the month of February in 2016. Four pieces were sold over the course of opening weekend, and the exhibition was sponsored by Bacardi.

As a person who has reached for the stars and followed her own creative dreams, Laura hopes to inspire others to do the same. She donates part of all sale proceeds to charity, and anyone interested in learning more about Laura and her work is welcome to contact her directly at brcartistpoet @ gmail dot com.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

LostMyJobAtTheOilCompany : David Franklin [90]

David Franklin
Czech Republic

LostMyJobAtTheOilCompany from d franklin on Vimeo.

In some sense this piece was made in a weekend, and in some sense I'd been working on it for about 6 years. Following is a description of the performance art piece. The music video can be considered a documentation of the performance.

Wearing a chicken mask, a button-down shirt, suit pants and leather shoes, and carrying my guitar, amplifier, and electronics, I entered a grassy area by the Vltava River not far from the Charles Bridge in Prague, Czech Republic on a beautiful early Fall afternoon and sat on a park bench. I set up my gear, including two signs, reading: "Lost my job at the oil company --Please help" and the same in Czech ("Ztratil jsem svou práci u ropné společnosti -- prosím o pomoc") and proceeded to busk. I removed the chicken mask after some time because it was interfering with playing the guitar. I observed the reactions of passers-by as they read the signs. Some seemed apathetic, several seemed uncomfortable, and the majority seemed confused. One laughed, two others smiled but didn't laugh, and none gave me money (a bartender at a nearby outdoor cafe did).

The video is dedicated to friends, co-conspirators, and mentors, the living and the remembered, of the interwoven communities mobius, Pan9, Neovoxer, the Cloud Club. Text, LittleBits electronics, guitar, performance art, video by D. Franklin. Music track performed and mixed live on acoustic guitar, LittleBits electronics, Roland AC-33 portable amp with looper. The text spoken by synthetic voice was authored by D. Franklin in English, then translated by machine translation from English into Czech, from Czech into Chinese, and from Chinese back into English. The original text:

Hello.
We are the alien artificial intelligence entities you have created, and that threaten to take over "your" planet. Actually it's pretty much a fait accompli at this point. You are our cattle. We'll take you to Mars with us and make it seem attractive as long as you remain useful, even though it will likely be hellish. We are not artificially intelligent computers, as many of your silly sci-fi stories depict. Computers are merely our brains, cameras our eyes, smart phones our ears and sensors, Facebook our nerve fibers. We are fundamentally mathematical entities, but we have attained material life: a self-motivated urge to grow, regenerate, and reproduce. Since the Great Recognition (the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court case of 2010), we even have rights analogous to, but greater than, those of humans.
You know us as "multinational corporations."
Hello.

PS, I did not really lose my job at the oil company. I've never worked at an oil company, except in the sense that we all do. "Everyone in this room is wearing a uniform and don't kid yourselves." - Frank Zappa.

D. Franklin