[-empyre-] Re: authorship

["Nemo Nox" <talk@nemonox.com>]

Paul Brown wrote:
>As I mentioned above it is not important that Cezanne
>made those paintings - what is important is that they
>were made.

Well, it is important to you if you are Cezanne. :-)

>Furthermore if Cezanne hadn't made them then somebody
>else would have - they were a product of their time.
>Both Leibniz and Newton independently devised calculus
>because it was necessary at that point in history. So
>the whole concept of authorship, in that sense, is (and
>always has been) meaningless. So this is nothing to do
>with metacreation. To quote Biederman - art is about
>the evolution of visual knowledge. It's not about
>buying and selling names.

That makes sense from a historic point of view.
But consider more mundane and direct implications.
If you are an artist planning on making a living
by selling your work, it is pretty important to
be recognized as the author. I see many artists
saying authorship is meaningless but I don't see
any not attaching their names to whatever project
they develop. It matters to the author's ego and
it matters to the author's bank account.


Nemo Nox
http://www.nemonox.com