[-empyre-] laws, outlaws & golden pirates

[shu lea cheang]

Dear PP of neverland

>
>i think with the last two projects of mine i succeed to point out 
>some il/legal ambiguities, by using the same strategies and tactics 
>of the kings of the empire.  i would say that i pirated the pirates, 
>through their same means.

so, to refer back to simon's introduction,
"We propose that piracy offers a contrasting model that may allow us 
to reclaim creativity
and innovation from the chilling instrumental visions of governments 
and corporations. In what often appears a black and white world 
pirates come in shades."

It really just occurred to me how this cycle of pirating functions in 
the corporate/artisitic operation. We are pirating the pirates or 
they are pirating the pirates? and who are we
to propose.


>back to you with this question: shall we still call us pirates? how 
>can we solve the semiological, political, esthetic and branding 
>struggle around the terminology of the pirates. isn't often 
>misinterpreted or even recently alienated by trendy fashion? can the 
>Pirate Party win elections in the long terms?
>

We are petite thief, petite pirate, maybe, compared to the Grand 
pirates of the empire?
almost feel embarassing to call ourselves pirates.


>where does the desire stay today? on what should we work on, what 
>people needs?
>P2P sounds to me a better idea to work on broadly, proposing 
>something desirable by anyone like change, 
>sharing, friendship, trust and abundance, against the pirates of our 
>wealth.
>we may loose glamour, but we may get efficacy.

By means of association we function?

here, yeah, let's focus on artistic strategies a bit.
In some of my works dealing with piracy, i am confrontational 
outright, i.e. BURN, http://kop.kein.org/burn,
surely it's a direct reflection to the millions of pirate CDs, DVDs, 
burnt in bonfire
under US anti-piracy law enforcement supervision, mostly in Asian 
countries in the 90s.
As an art project, BURN involves the public in uploading song files 
and to download and burn
the CD of chosen songs. The piece carries 1372 words of disclaimer 
from FACT's lawyer.

In Cirio and  Ludovico's  face to facebook, it moves on to a 'face' 
slap on the 'face' stealing
corporation (gee, you think these bots gonna find all my face 
references here???).
I was interested when i heard about the objections from 'face' owners 
against this work
when released in Transmediale2011 and Paolo and Alessandro were deemed
faceless in facebook. The empire has mobilized the social network 
geneation into
un/conditional ' I agree'.

So, yes, what would be the strategy? To engage public , more in the 
spirit of P2P Gift Credit Card?  sign on, use it or lose it? But 
maybe this is a total different genre of work, threading barter 
system and alternative economy? or do we simply engage public in 
'collective hullucination' still? By way of suggestion, do we gain 
power??

over
sl