[-empyre-] laws, outlaws & golden pirates

[Paolo Cirio]

dear Shu Lea,

speaking about branding strategy, something that i often noticed with the media and general audience is the interest in the sympathetic figure of Robin Hood. actually some projects of mine like Amazon Noir, Google Will Eat Itself (with A.Ludovico and Ubermorgen.com) and even P2P Gift Credit Card worked as stolen wealth/content/instruments from the empire and redistributed to the "People", quite similar to the Robin Hood's activity. however somehow i don't feel to deserve such of name, and Robin Hood is so centered on one person, that is not really how the collaborative network theory works, so i always avoid that definition. 
but, yes definitely, the figure of Robin Hood works very well for the media and the general audience, which should be the ultimate target.

i agree, there are not only black and white, neither only Peter Pan, Robin Hood and Pirates, it's probably more likely about the ultimate message that we can deliver though the recombination of those characters. however i think that we agree that we should strategically avoid to fall in the definitions that mass media design to annihilate meaning and fit uncomfortable labels. that's why i wouldn't like the character of the Hacker, its meaning is too spoiled as general criminal. and i think Anonymous are falling in that trap, as most of the physical demonstrations in the streets are often just about Black Block destroying windows. from this point of view, black and white are dangerous oversimplifications and we have to cope with them, and eventually exploit them efficiently.

well i know the difficulties in being in the media and grabbing attention of audience with some content and messages beyond the spectacular actions. so i'm just speculating, in fact i still think that Hackers and Pirates are charming characters that are needed to drive social critiques.

answering your question: yes we should engage people by any mean necessary. we are going to face populism, conservative politics, ignorance and the dark era of unaffordable education. at the same time we need new languages and tools to cope with the complexity. for social change, rather than pirates we will need to be and think like press and advertising agencies, secret agents and engineers. i don't think that hallucinations are healthy, but desire, knowledge and imagination are great.

let's start again from the beginning, how do you think that your work drives innovation? how can we reclaim creativity through piracy? isn't that we are just artists not free to express ourself because of copyright?

p.

ps:
i didn't know that FACT has a lawyer who writes for artists. good to know ;)
did you know that you can have an insurance that may cover for eventual legal troubles? they are the same insurance firms that cover dodgy businesses and for "Global errors and omissions", but some activists started to use them for covering legal expenses.


On 6 Jul 2011, at 12:33, shu lea cheang wrote:
> 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
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