Katyal, Sonia, “Semiotic Disobedience” . Washington University Law Review, Vol. 84, No. 2, 2006
Available at SSRN: Katyal, Sonia, “Semiotic Disobedience” . Washington University Law Review, Vol. 84, No. 2, 2006:

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Nearly twenty years ago, a prominent media studies professor, John Fiske, coined the term “semiotic democracy” to describe a world where audiences freely and widely engage in the use of cultural symbols in response to the forces of media. Although Fiske originally referenced the audience’s power in viewing and interpreting television narratives, today, his vision of semiotic democracy has become perhaps the single most important ideal cited by scholars who imagine a utopian relationship between law, technology, and democratic culture. In this Article, I seek to introduce another framework to supplement Fiske’s important metaphor: the phenomenon of “semiotic disobedience.” Three contemporary cultural moments in the world – one corporate, one academic, and one artistic – call for a new understanding of the limitations and possibilities of semiotic democracy and underline the need for a supplementary framework.

As public spaces have become converted into vehicles for corporate advertising – ads painted onto sidewalks and into buildings, schools, and other public spaces – product placement has soared to new heights of power and subtlety. And throughout, the law has generously offered near-sovereign protection to such symbolism through the ever-expanding vehicle of intellectual property protection. Equations between real property and intellectual property are ubiquitous. Underlying these themes is a powerful linkage between intellectual and tangible property: as one expands, so does the other.

Yet at the same time, there is another facet that is often left out of the picture, involving the increasing response of artists who have chosen to expand their activities past the boundaries of cultural dissent and into the boundaries of asserted illegality. For every movement toward enclosure that the law facilitates, there is an opposite, underappreciated movement toward liberation from control – a moment where social activism exposes the need for alternative political economies of information. And yet the difference between these marketplaces of speech – one protected, one prohibited – both captures and transcends the foundational differences between democracy and disobedience itself.

Just as previous discussions of civil disobedience focused on the need to challenge existing laws by using certain types of public and private property for expressive freedoms, today’s generation seeks to alter existing intellectual property by interrupting, appropriating, and then replacing the passage of information from creator to consumer.

This Article suggests that the phenomenon of semiotic disobedience offers a radically different vantage point than Fiske’s original vision, one that underlines the importance of distributive justice in intellectual property. Thus, instead of interrogating the limits of First Amendment freedoms, as many scholars have already done, I argue that a study of semiotic disobedience reveals an even greater need to study both the core boundaries between types of properties – intellectual, real, personal – and how propertization offers a subsidy to particular types of expression over others.

SONIA KATYAL
Fordham University School of Law
140 West 62nd Street
New York , NY 10023
United States
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La II edizione della Festa Internazionale del Cinema ha avuto come protagonista il tappeto rosso dell’Auditorium di Roma. Dove Star e starlette hanno sfoggiato mise succinte e fruscianti chiffon, nonostante il tempo, per niente generoso, abbia regalato brividi imprevisti e gelide atmosfere.

Sophia Loren – Acting Award 2007

Nel frattempo, sotto i portici dell’Auditorium, più che aria di festa si è respirata stress da presenzialismo. Con toni “rossi” da lotta all’ultimo sangue! Il “grande” pubblico e gli “addetti ai lavori” hanno rincorso le proiezioni, disposti a tutto per un biglietto. Per assistere all’anteprima de La terza madre, episodio conclusivo della trilogia di Dario Argento, sembra non siano stati sufficienti neanche i bagarini ma si sia dovuto ricorrere alla raccomandazione politica! Welcome to Rome.

Tra i quattordici film in concorso, concorso quest’anno all’insegna del socialmente e politicamente impegnato, ha vinto Juno del canadese Jason Reitman. La storia di un’adolescente alle prese con una gravidanza indesiderata ha suscitato un’ondata di emozioni nella giuria popolare.

Il premio speciale della giuria Cinema se lo aggiudica, con le sue peripezie amorose, il poeta persiano Hafez del regista iraniano Albolfazl Jalili.

A Jang Wenli va il premio per la migliore interpretazione femminile in Li Chun (And the Spring Comes) di Chang Wei Gu mentre, a Rade Serbedzija va quello per l’interpretazione maschile in Fugitive Pieces di Jeremy Podeswa.
Per fortuna le dieci anteprime mondiali hanno, in parte, risollevato il livello della manifestazione romana.

Piace e convince il musical pop-psichedelico Across the universe in cui Julie Taylor, attraverso la musica dei Beatles, racconta i rimescolamenti socio-politici degli anni ’60, a metà tra cinema e teatro.
L’ottimo Into the wild di Sean Penn ha vinto il premio Fastweb per il miglior film della sezione “Première”. Penn, pur seguendo il tradizionale filone dell’ on the road, con questo viaggio alla riscoperta del sé, non rinuncia alla sperimentazione e riesce a lasciare un segno profondo tanto che è suo il più lungo applauso della festa.

Applausi anche per Giorni e Nuvole di Soldini che, con l’attuale tema del precariato nel mondo del lavoro, riceve una “menzione speciale” nella sezione Première. Ed è proprio sul versante del “Made in Italy” che arriva l’unica vera onda d’entusiasmo: sono le trendissime fatine Winx che fanno letteralmente impazzire gli amanti, grandi e piccini, del cinema.

Così si chiude la faticosa settimana della Festa romana, fontane che si colorano di rosso, in un impeto futurista, e Jane Fonda che svela al pubblico femminile il segreto dell’eterna giovinezza: il sesso, da sostituire al bisturi.

(Alessia Ricciotti per Ecopolis.org)

Jasmina, a serbian writer and journalsit review Sappiano le mie parole di sangue, Babsi Jones, Rizzoli, 2007

Chi è babsi jones?
Chi se ne frega. Sa scrivere alla Lautreamont, cita i miei amici come Nicole Janigro, David Albahari, usa una forma frammentaria, transnazionale, postletteraria, da hip blogger sex and drugs and wars globalista. E recita Amleto. Come se fosse Shakespeare. Chi era Shakespeare d’ altronde. Chi se ne frega anche di quello. Quello però di cui me ne frego e come è che questo babsi Amleto si è impossessata della mia guerra, a war of my own . Più precisamente ha pigliato una guerra che io ho buttato nell’immondizia con le parole in rosso: Questa non è la mia guerra fatta nel mio nome nella mia lingua materna, con il mio corpo sul mio corpo. Con il MIO sangue.
Sappiano le mie parole di sangue, dice babsi Amleto NO. Che queste parole sue in cirillico metaforico su Serbia Bosnia Kosovo, name it, non siano scritte in sangue. Dico io, Jasmina Ofelia.
Amleto sod off, questo è il 21 secolo, il secolo delle donne bombe, della globalizzazione, della balcanizzazione, del postumanesimo, l’uomo è morto in auschwitz hiroshima blablabla, ma è vero…Dove le guerre si fanno in TV, in diretta, multinazionali corporali corporei con scuse etniche, religiose, politiche. Amleto hey, non hai capito che seguire le traccie del petrolio vuol dire seguire le traccie del sangue.
Sappiano e sanno le tue parole di petrolio.
Forse non lo sai davvero, spero che sei in buona fede, io da idiota politica, preferisco credere che dubitare. Citerò Auden: se l’ amore non è mai mutuo, Lord let me be the one who loves more.
Bene Amleto, concedimi che io sia quella che ama me stessa, la mia famiglia guarda caso serba a Belgrado, sotto Tito, sotto Milosevic, sotto sanzioni, sotto le bombe e finalmente sotto il neo-fondamentalismo serbo. Oggi come oggi.

Quindi ti prego, non parlarmi di Kosovo, di 5 secoli di Turchi, della vendetta, di Mladic eroe che rivendicava i serbi travagliati dai Murat dai secoli, del genocidio di Srebrenica come montatura di stampa del complotto internazionale contro il popolo eletto del
cielo, i Serbi. E bullshit scritto nei manuali , nazionalisti…clerofascisti…
Io sono Serba ( lo dico malvolentieri perché è un’ identita compulsiva che tu Amleto mi fai indossare, tu personaggio defunto, che parli una lingua estinta, di vendetta, sangue… prima che fosse inventato l’antibiotico e la guerra nucleare.

Il mio nome è Jasmina ed è il mio vero nome bosniaco serbo. E la famiglia di mio padre bosniaca è stata massacrata da nazisti, fascisti ustasha nella seconda guerra mondiale. Ma io ti dico, da testimone e vittima, aggressore e idiota politica che i serbi di Srebrenica, di Serbia, di Kosovo hanno commesso degli orrori di guerra 50 anni dopo.
I miei Serbi nel mio nome. C’ ero, l’ ho visto, l’ho sentito, non lo nascondono nemmeno, se ne vantano. Sono ancora impuniti latitanti perfino privilegiati, vivono nella mia strada, letteralmente… E poi una certa babsi jones nel ruolo di Amleto principe di vendetta scrive libri su di loro. Pur essendo un idiota politica, pacifista, umanitaria, donna in nero, donna intellettuale, donna di casa, non permetto e non perdono. -che copri di fango e oblio gli 8000 ammazzati a Srebrenica nel nome della vendetta -che ricordi il cardinale criminale cattolico Stepinac di 60 anni fa che sterminava zingari serbi e ebrei e ignori i preti ortodossi serbi che benedicevano i soldati di Mladic prima che andassero ad ammazzare tutti i NON serbi, nel genocidio di Srebrenica, 12 anni fa. C’ è il filmato, guardalo,è on line -che ti appropri della mia guerra, del mio futuro, della mia sopravvivenza vivendo cheap thrills di una guerra altrui.
Esiste un’altra Serbia, una Serbia non amletica, pacifista e creativa che se ne frega della vendetta, del passato, delle chiese, delle tombe, della religione come strumento di odio dell’altro, del sangue.
Che si preoccupa del global warming, della militarizzazione globale, dell’ abuso del petrolio come sangue e delle parole come armi. Come colpi di odio, di vendetta velenosi. In italiano, in serbo, in inglese name it…suonano uguali, annunciano la morte. Non te lo permetto Amleto, la Serbia non è la tua annegata Ofelia.

Scritto da Jasmina

The Festival Cinemambiente will be in Turin from the 11th till the 16th of October. Here’s an extract from the introduction text of Gaetano Capizzi, director of Cinemambiente Festival:
“Tenth edition, ten great documentaries in the International Competition, the same number in the Italian Competition and in the one for the Short Animations, that added to the ones in the various Focuses, Panoramas, Ecokids and Tributes, make for a program of over a hundred and twenty films. In the time that has acted as the backdrop to our little big history, a lot of things have changed. The state of the environment seems to have got worse: pictures painted as future scenarios have become reality. The great global warming emergency, with the disastrous consequences of climate change, is now here for all to see. This year environmental refugees outnumber those fleeing from war zones. The long-feared depletion of fossil fuels creates continual conflicts, most of them armed. The unstoppable growth in the production of goods, caused by the explosive industrial development of China and India, poses disturbing questions about a future now near. On the positive side, there’s increased public awareness and, even if a little timidly, these issues are finally making their way onto the political agendas of the world’s governments.

Cinema, in its dual role of representing the common feeling and constructing the collective imagination, has reacted to the situation by producing a great number of well-made films dealing with environmental themes, to the point of creating an environmental genre within social documentaries.[...]

In this tenth edition, for the first time we are not presenting a retrospective. Not only the documentary cinema of Robert Flaherty, Joris Ivens, Jean Rouch, Vittorio De Seta (all authors whose films we’ve presented), but cinema fiction as well, from the classic western about colonizing the new frontier to post-atomic, catastrophic science fiction, have dealt with the subject of nature in its beauty or its cruelty, and man’s relationship with it. The awareness of the destruction of the environment and the consequent cultural movements are relatively recent, going back barely 20-30 years, and only very recently are becoming a mass phenomenon. From this, the cinema has begun to develop a different way of presenting nature, the landscape. No longer “nature cinema”, but a more conscious “environmentalist cinema”, aware that the problem today is the destruction of nature by man. How can you portray the passage of seasons with a climate gone mad? How can you believe positively in science as progress (Ivens) when confronted with such environmental disasters?

These considerations, along with a conviction of the urgency of the themes, brought us this year to give space to this modern “environmentalist cinema”, to the detriment of retrospectives. The Festival, after ten years of history, is the only one in the country that attempts to conjugate civil commitment and cinematographic quality investigating the new frontiers of the cinema and the environmental question, which increasingly encapsulates the themes of human rights. Rights to the environment, access to resources, to peace, to security and well-being, are more than ever woven together to form a single knot, that acts as the development model for modern society.”

Second City – the show “curated” (reading on you will understand why I use the quotation marks) in Linz by the German artist Aram Bartholl -has been – no doubts – one of the cardinal points of Ars Electronica’s last edition, Goodbye Privacy. The show disseminated through the city was highly representative of the “nice side” of surveillance in the age of digital exhibitionism, an issue that was at the core of the Festival.
“Showcasing ones customized persona, staging ones own image is the order of the day. Feature yourself or its GAME OVER, dude!”, wrote the curators Christine Schöpf and Gerfried Stocker. As one of the first big shows raising the issue of art and virtual worlds, Second City has been an important show, and a point of departure for further research. In the same time (and for the same reason), it has been an highly problematic show, too. People liked the idea to bring the exhibition to the city and the streets, but there was a lot of mumbling and discussion about an approach that, for many, was superficial and looked like promotion. As you may guess from the previous post, I agree with this criticism, but what Bartholl is saying below made the show more clear to me – and made me more indulgent to the show. Hopefully, it will be the same for you…

DQ.How is the project born?
AB. Ars Electronica asked me this spring if I was interested in doing a concept and design for Second City – Marienstrasse. The idea of going into public space and Second Life as a topic of Marienstrasse existed already then. I was quite excited about the idea and developed several workshops and projects. In the beginning I was not sure which role I should play: curator or artist. I decided to put emphasis on being artist showing several projects at Marienstrasse related to Second Life. Which means I didn’t curate Marienstrasse although I brought in some artists in cooperation and had some influence. In the end my name was on top for whole Marienstrasse, which is an honor but also a great responsibility, as I realize now. My interest has been more into developing and showing, rather than “curating”.

DQ. Did you encounter any difficulties in organizing it?
AB. Of course there have been many difficulties in organizing. Very basic elements like electricity infrastructure in Marienstrasse took a lot of time. So in the end when the festival started Marienstrasse was as buggy as Second Life. But also the process of choosing and decisions in developing projects took quite some time. It has been the first time that I worked on a project of this size and I think I learned a lot.

DQ. Are you satisfied of the results?
AB. Good question. First of all I was happy that in the end more or less all the parts were put together and things worked. But with some distance after the exhausting week of Ars I questioned this myself. I think you made a good point in your article on Second City, which I already also noticed. I do work in a very simple way of transferring elements or situations from virtual world to physical space. Every single of these projects has its own quality and is contrasted by public space. But adding too many of these transformations up in one spot takes away the effect. I tried not to rebuild a complete scenario. But in the end, yes, maybe we had too many of these virtual elements in Real Life.

DQ. What did you like more in the project?
AB. The moment when a new project comes alive is always most exciting. Does it work? Do people react to it? Testing Chat for the first time on the market place was really fun. To see how four trees are build and set up is very exiting. The Synthetic Performances of Eva and Franco I did like a lot. Despite the rain I think the concept of putting an exhibition in a street worked out very well. The chinese restaurant / blumenberg food cooking in the yard was my favorite place.

DQ. What would you change in the project if you could put together a follow-up?
AB. There is a lot which could be done different, sure. Yes right, the in-world part involving Second Life inhabitants and artists was missing. There have been some attempts but not serious enough to set up a parallel program in SL. I concentrated mostly on Real Life interventions developing installations and workshops. I am aware that one general Second Life panel is not enough to discuss all aspects of the development. All my projects involve a critic view on digital worlds including Second Life. But they do it in a silent and ironic way. This is probably not enough in a context like Second City. More criticism and discussion is needed. Next time I’ll make sure what position I am in.

DQ. How can we organize a show about virtual worlds without making it seem corporate advertisement?
AB. Difficult. In general this question fits to many of my projects. A giant Google pin is perfect advertisement. Sure, this kind of topic should also involve other virtual worlds than just Second Life. We had the plan for an overview on Metaverses and history for the exhibition but unfortunately it hasn’t been realized. On the other hand Second Life polarized a lot this year. People love it or hate it. For me it is just a tool and a new development. I am curious about when Google will enter the market…

DQ.Can you say something about your new project, Sandbox Berlin?
AB. I developed the sandbox concept for Second City, where the beach at Pfarrplatz was realized instead. I think the possibility of creating and collaboration are the most important parts of Second Life. I love the bizarre Sandboxes. These and some very view other places are totally different to what we know or are used to. Quoting from the introduction of the project: “The Sandbox in Second Life is a place where all conventions are abandoned. It is the real wild west of the already untamed Second Life. The Sandbox is like a three-dimensional sketchbook. Every day, thousands of users leave their tracks here: abstract forms, digital building sites and house-car-plane clichés form a collective surrealistic dream scenario. In a world without rules, inventive users programme swarms of screaming Sponge Bobs which other users pursue. Anti-gravitational bubbles or whole fields of alarm sirens impede concentrated work. The Sandbox is a kind of black market emporium of digital objects and their programs.
The formal chaos and absurd situations generate a particular atmosphere of digital roughness and originality that can only be found here.” Sandbox Berlin translates this field of experimentation into public space in Real Life. In a three-day workshop, production of custom objects in a spontaneous and collaborative process will be tested in Real Life. Everyone is invited to join us on a deserted area, formerly part of the Berlin Wall, in the Mitte district, to build whatever they want. Tools, wood and other materials will be provided by Sandbox Berlin, so that flexible groups can quickly design and materialize objects.” Everyone can take part in the project, simply registering by e-mail. Spontaneous participation and visits to the workshops are welcome, completely in the spirit of Second Life.

www.datenform.de/
www.aec.at/en/festival2007/
www.domenicoquaranta.net/blog/2007/09/second-city.html

Interview with Rosina Gómez-Baeza by Domenico Quaranta

It was difficult to be more promising. The LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Centre, opened in March 2007 in Gijon (Asturias), with its rich and gorgeous opening program seems to announce a serious engagement at the intersection of art, design and new technologies. In this short interview, Rosina Gómez-Baeza Tinturé, Director of the Center and former Director of Arco Art Fair, talks about her ambitions. The interview was conducted via email some weeks ago, while writing an article for Flash Art. In the meantime, LABoral appointed a Chief Curator (Austrian artist and engineer Erich Berger, the former Art Director and Curator of The Interface & Society Project of Oslo) and opened a new show, It’s Simply Beautiful.

DQ. LABoral opened in March with two big exhibitions, curated by international curators such as Christiane Paul (Whitney Museum), Jemima Rellie (Tate Gallery), Carl Goodman (Museum of the Moving Image). Why didn’t you involve Spanish curators? Are you going to do it in the future? And why don’t you have a stable curator?
RG. The LABoral mission is underpinned by diversity and a desire to be a true reflection of a global vision of the emerging trends in the art world and the creative industries. I want to generate a dynamic setting, capable of stimulating interaction between creators, technicians and scientists from different parts of the world. This engagement with the outside world (outside Spain, outside Asturias) had to be made explicit from the inception of our exhibition programming. Thus my choice of our very talented curatorial team. The name of our Chief Curator will be made public at the end of June.

DQ. What’s your relation with the territory? Do you want to be a window on the international scene of New Media Art or to help developing a local New Media Art scene (or both)?
RG. Both, naturally. I was actually born here, close to the Universidad Laboral complex which houses our Centre and most of the Universidad de Asturias technical schools plus a technological hub. There is political unanimity in considering the ICT sector as strategic sector for development of the origin. Asturias is also a region particularly focused on encouraging relations between groups of persons from different origins,promoting the exchange of ideas and technologies and the development of art practices based on shared experiences. These particularities of the region are highly conducive to creative vitality and innovation. As a resource centre we will of course also focus on facilitating the necessary resources for local artists.

DQ. The New Media Art world and the Contemporary Art world often act as two parallel lines that never cross. Coming from Arco – the only art fair that opened to New Media Art, by the way – are you trying to make LABoral kind of a bridge between those two worlds?
RG. Why not? This project will provide a platform for an intense and profound dialogue between different forms of artistic expression, providing room for the various disciplines, which must exist in harmony as essential parts of the innovative path through art and creation at the beginning of the 21st century.

DQ. LABoral is an art center, not a museum. Nevertheless, do you have in mind to start a collection of art works?
RG. Setting up a centre dedicated to production, education, exhibition and diffusion of art and technology and the creative industries, is a response to a need expressed by many creators, technicians and producers. The fact that there are no centres for research and experimentation in Spain means that LABoral has a practically unlimited potential. We hope to be able to enrich the current debates. That will be our priority but of course we would like to “anchor” our findings and be able to trace the first technological advances: light, camera, cinema, video, computer, and their use by the artist and industry. A collection that would reflect the work of both pioneers and emerging artists is of course at the back of my head.

DQ. What about your future projects?
RG. During the first phase of the programming at LABoral, we will outline a critical route through our historical-artistic legacy while underscoring the contributions of new technologies. We hope to reflect the truly overwhelming visual culture of the moment. “Emergentes” will
open in November. Curated by José-Carlos Mariátegui and coproduced with Fundación Telefónica, it addresses new forms of art in Latin America, mostly from the multidisciplinary research field. Research is indeed one of LABoral’s pivotal concerns, backing up
exhibition concepts but also paving the way for new exhibitions. I cannot understand the two separately. We are starting our workshops this coming month of July with a very interesting program focusing on videogames from a practical angle, tackling phenomena such as Second
Life, 8bit music, modding. In August we have put together our second series of workshops with Hangar, exploring new tools for creators from various perspectives: image, sound and hardware.

DQ. Can you tell me something about the show curated by Peter Doroshenko and Jèrôme Sans that will open at LABoral in July?
RG. It’s Simply Beautiful rethinks the concept of beauty in today’s world. It will have a very different feel to Feedback or LABcyberspaces, as it includes only five artists taking over approximately 3.000 square metres. I believe strongly in producing new work, and not just limiting the role of the institution to borrowing preexisting pieces going from one institution to another. Peter and Jérôme selected four artists from France (Fabien Verschaere), the UK (Mark Titchner), the US (Dzine) and Thailand (Surasi Kusolwong), but also visited local studios and chose to include Carlos Coronas, a very interesting artist born and based in
Asturias.

DQ. What’s your view on the future of New Media Art? There will be a sustainable market for it?
RG. Today´s art reflects the sea changes taking place in society. I think there is an enormous feeling of optimism in the art world in general and an intense and profound dialogue between different forms of art which certainly encourages and generates a dynamic setting, capable of attracting larger, younger audiences interested in those emerging trends which reflect today´s visual culture. These new art practices appeal to the new audiences, respond to their demands.

www.laboralcentrodearte.org
www.domenicoquaranta.net