this also relates to aura and the istinction between analog and digital phenomenologies, and what's tagged where; it's possible to make a digital editor as an artwork and tagged as such (for example an editor of inter- ferences and substitutions); it's also possible to consider a digital art- work as basically functional since any pixel can be substituted for any other (and at what point does the artwork lose its originary distinction?) - the fungibility of cultural works has to do with setting; it's also possible to quote them (Sherrie Levine or re-enactment stuff like Mark Tribe today) as discourse - issues also arise in relation to forgeries or copies - take a fake Vermeer - what makes this less valuable to the viewer - what makes an unsigned copy if WinX less valuable etc. - Macs are flawed and brilliant here, bridging analog hardware and digital signatures, as if you can't have one (their) without the other (theirs) -
On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Rob Myers wrote: > > http://robmyers.org/weblog/2010/11/you-cant-spell-fungible-without-fun.html > > There are artworks that are very similar technically but utterly > distinct culturally and historically. Take the examples of a Kasimir > Malevich painting of a black square from revolutionary Russia and an Ad > Reinhardt painting of a black square from 1960s America. Technically > speaking you can't get much more basic than a black square, but > culturally speaking there's no way you can swap one of those black > squares for any other. > > In contrast, software consists of easily substituted black boxes of > functionality whose formal qualities are insignificant (Vi and Emacs > aside ;-) ). > > Stallman's Four Freedoms are freedoms of *use*; the freedom to operate > software as a tool, as a means to an end. Stallman has written, briefly, > about how he views the freedom to use non-software works. That freedom > decreases the less the work is a means and the more it is an end, from > educational resources through to works of opinion and expression. > > So fungibility for code and culture may simply be a product of the > degree to which something is a means rather than an end. > > In contrast to Stallman's freedom of use, the EFF use the concept of > freedom of speech to argue for people's ability to work with software. > When we talk about free culture in general then if it has any meaning it > is primarily as a synonym for freedom of speech. > > In order to speak freely, you must be free to refer to and quote the > words (or sounds or images or...) of others. And because of the > non-fungibility of cultural works, no other words (or sounds or images > or...) can be substituted. > > A text editor works on a novel or a program listing equally well, and in > some jurisdictions software is regarded as a literary work for the > purpose of copyright. Different criteria of freedom may apply to the > fixed forms of software and art, but the restrictions are just the same. > For free software, part of the solution to this was alternative > copyright licensing. > > So fungibility is related to use but free culture is concerned with > speech. It is not the case that free culture supposes or can in any way > cause cultural fungibility. And the non-fungibility of cultural works is > precisely why free culture requires the same solutions as free software > does at the level of copyright. > > [originally posted to the cc-community list, but blogged and posted here > as it's fun, if not fungible] > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > == email archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ webpage http://www.alansondheim.org music archive: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/ == _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
