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Duration: 2011-01 - 2011-

Contact: Barry Newstead, Zack Exley

The Oral Citations Project is a strategic research project funded by a Wikimedia Foundation grant to help overcome a lack of published material in emerging languages on Wikipedia. It was undertaken by Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board member Achal Prabhala as a short-term fellowship.

Background Edit

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.

To many within the Wikimedia movement, this idea is the guiding ambition that drives us.

The problem with the sum of human knowledge, however, is that it is far greater than the sum of printed knowledge.

The idea behind this project, People are Knowledge, is a simple one. Wikipedia privileges printed knowledge (books, journals, magazines, newspapers and more) as authentic sources of citable material. This is understandably so, for a lot of time and care goes into producing this kind of printed material, and restricting citation sources makes the enterprise workable. But books - and printed words generally - are closely correlated to rich economies: Europe, North America, and a small section of Asia.

In India and South Africa, for instance (to take just two countries in the rest of the world), the number of books produced per year is nowhere close to, say, the number of books produced in the UK. What this means for indigenous language Wikipedias from India and South Africa is that there is very little citable, printed material to rely on in those languages; in turn, it means that it is very difficult for any of those languages to grow on Wikipedia. (There is a related problem: writing this local knowledge on English Wikipedia is a task similarly hampered by a lack of good printed sources).

It is undoubtedly true that the sum of human knowledge is greater than the sum of printed knowledge even in Europe, a continent with a tradition of printing books that stretches back 550 years. However, the sum of human knowledge is far greater than the sum of printed knowledge in societies like India and South Africa. There are significant media markets for Indian languages within and outside the country and yet there is little scholarly publishing in any language other than English. Most South African languages, with the exception of English and Afrikaans, have had a primarily oral existence, and a relatively recent - and nascent - publishing tradition.

Consider the total production of books in all languages from the UK, South Africa and India in 2005:

UK: 161,000 books / 60 million people

South Africa: 6100 books / 48 million people

India: 97,000 books / 1100 million people

If we were to measure books produced in 2005 per person per country, the comparison is more stark:

UK: 1 book per 372 people

South Africa: 1 book per 7869 people

India: 1 book per 11,371 people

(Sources: For the UK---figures aggregated from Nielsen BookScan and The Publishers' Association UK; For South Africa---from the Dept. of Arts & Culture report on Factors Affecting the Cost of Books in South Africa; For India---estimates made by the Federation of Indian Publishers. Population figures from various sources via Wikipedia.)

As a result of this disparity, everyday, common knowledge - things that are known, observed and performed by millions of people - cannot enter Wikipedia as units of fact because they haven't been written down in a reliably published source.This means that not only do small-language Wikipedias in countries like India and South Africa lose out on opportunities for growth, so also does the Wikimedia movement as a whole lose out on the potential expansion of scope in every language.

The project was planned with three Wikipedia languages in mind; Malayalam, Hindi and Sepedi (which is formally listed under the language category Northern Sotho/Sesotho sa Leboa).

These languages were chosen partly because of the interest of individual Wikipedians collaborating on the project, and partly to work through different situations with regards to each language. Hindi (with ~250 million speakers), Malayalam (~40 million speakers) and Sepedi/Northern Sotho (~5 million speakers), represented an opportunity to study three different language contexts on Wikipedia: one, an official language of India with enormous global media markets, two, a regional language with a strong diaspora and robust media market, and three, a regional language with a very small media market.

Collaborators were finalised: Shiju Alex, Mayur, Mohau Monaledi and Achal Prabhala, with additional help from Vijayakumar Blathur. We had decided early on to film sections of the project research, with Priya Sen directing the film and handling India-related camera work, and Zen Marie handling the film in South Africa.

In January 2011, research/travel schedules were drawn up, and in February 2011, project work began with a meeting in Delhi.

On February 12, 2011, Shiju Alex, User Mayur, Ravikant and Achal Prabhala met at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi. We used the meeting to hold the first ever Hindi Wikipedia meetup, which went off very successfully. We were able to discuss the project for several hours, as well as hold an in-depth interview with Ravikant, who has been working on and thinking about the Hindi language as part of his academic career for some time.

From April 20 to April 25, Mayur and Achal Prabhala worked together on creating potential oral citations for articles in Hindi around two games played in North India; Sur and Gullidanda(/Gillidanda). Mayur assembled sources he wanted to interview, both physically and on the phone. We also met and interviewed Urvashi Butalia, a pioneering feminist publisher and writer, whose book The Other Side of Silence constitutes a landmark in oral history in the Indian subcontinent. We were also able to spend a useful day at the CSDS library, discussing their collection of Hindi scholarly material, especially in comparison to their English collection - the objective being to see how Hindi scholarly publishing stacks up against English at a major academic institution in the heart of Hindi-speaking India.

One really interesting point that came up during the discussion with Urvashi Butalia, which you can see at 38:35 in the film, is her experience from feminist publishing, which is that often, women who held knowledge that was important didn't themselves think it was all that important. This provided an interesting angle to what we experienced ourselves, the lack of confidence - or uncertainty - among some people as to whether the orally transmitted knowledge they held was noteworthy.

Between February 26 and March 20, Achal Prabhala spent time in Johannesburg, primarily discussing the project with Mohau Monaledi. In the course of work, we were lucky to spend a day with Isabel Hofmeyr from the University of the Witwatersrand, whose book We Spend Our Years As A Tale That Is Told, published in 1994, continues to be a key text in understanding how an oral culture travels over time. At the University of the Witwatersrand, we spent time with Margaret Northey, Senior Librarian at the Cullen Library, where the university's 'Africana' holdings are kept.

Later in the month, we spent time with Nhlanhla Mabaso, from the senior management at the University of the Witwatersrand as well as the Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board, and Charlene Foster, from the Wikimedia South Africa chapter, to gain further perspective on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement in South Africa. Jon Soske, a scholar of Indo-African history with a special interest in online archives through his work with the South African History Online project, provided several useful ways of understanding open access interviews as a radical form of scholarship.

Isabel Hofmeyr made a very interesting point which you can see at 42:16 in the film. The manner in which oral culture was being recorded in print in South Africa in the 19th century - and thereby cleansed and changed as well - was analogous to an exactly similar movement in Europe. As the Wikipedia article on Little Red Riding Hood notes, prior to the Brothers Grimm version of the story - the version we know today, which was first recorded in print in the 19th century - the story of Red Riding Hood was considerably more bloody and bawdy. In that sense, the idea of oral culture as being something exclusively valuable to societies such as India and South Africa, with smaller publishing volume, is disproved: it would seem that there is a rich, global tradition of oral culture that is worth thinking about, not all of which has survived the advent of print culture.

This is also a key aspect of our project. While the lack of published material in the south is one symptom of the problem with citing knowledge to print, the solution - alternative means of citation, whatever they may be - would be poorer if also restricted solely to the south. Audio archives are a well-established tradition for capturing elements of our world not adequately documented in print. Outside of the institutional space too, there may be an oral culture worth nothing. Obviously, not everything noteworthy in the world (even in the Anglo-European world) is always available in published form.

In March 2011, we visited a group of people convened by Mohau Monaledi in Ga-Sebotlane in Limpopo, a small village deep in the rural heartland, and about a six-hour drive from Johannesburg. The purpose of the trip was to conduct audio interviews around potential articles that Mohau Monaledi was interested in assembling, on Morula, a country liquor made from fruit of the same name, and on two games played in the province, Kgati and Tshere-tshere.

The interviews were wide-ranging, and we were grateful for the excellent translation of Ashley Motlatjo Mabeba, a student of the University of the Witwatersrand School of Art, from Sepedi to English and vice versa. One of the more interesting things that happened at Ga-Sebotlane was that we were able to conduct enough audio interviews to record differences in perspective. For instance, when talking about one of the games (Tshere-tshere), one correspondent, Elizabeth Morokhu said very clearly that young people were not playing this game any more. (You can see her comments in the film at 40:38). Subsequently, another correspondent, Sandra Moremi, clarified that young people were indeed still playing the game, with slightly amended rules. (You can see these comments in the film at 41:03). This was very encouraging - as it was clear that the audio interviews we had assembled in Ga-Sebotlane spanned a range of opinions, thus promising a more comprehensive article that could accumulate real differences of opinion, much like the print sources would for a good article.

A note on the nomenclature employed: the language you will hear in most of the interviews conducted in Limpopo and Johannesburg is Sepedi. Sepedi is one of the languages that makes up a group of related languages that are classified under the group Northern Sotho, which is one of the official languages of South Africa. Within the languages of the Northern Sotho language group, the name of the group is Sesotho sa leboa. Wikipedia helpfully classifies Sesotho sa Leboa as an autoglottonym which is an awesome word that none of us previously knew the meaning of. In the course of this project, the terms Sepedi, Northern Sotho and Sesotho sa Leboa will be used, and they should all be treated as roughly interchangeable with each other.

Through May and June 2011, we spent time in Bangalore. We met with Nishant Shah at the Centre for Internet and Society. CIS has been a long time supporter of the Wikimedia movement and Wikipedian activity; the CIS office is where the fortnightly meetups in Bangalore are held, and it is also the legal address of the Wikimedia India chapter. (CIS also provided additional funding to this project, in order to be able to complete the film that came out of it). Nishant spoke from the perspective of cultural studies, and from recent experience compiling and editing CPOV: A Wikipedia Reader.

We had a very interesting interview with Geetha Narayanan, founder/director of the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. Geetha's simple and forceful point - "Coming from a culture where so little is written down, do we then say we know nothing?" - can be seen at 02:00 in the film.

Shiju Alex and Achal Prabhala also spent time together recording audio interviews in Kerala, from Bangalore, using basic Internet telephony.

Nishant's central point, which you can see at 09:51 in the film, is that Wikipedia doesn't necessarily take advantage of what he calls "internet objects", by which he means things that circulate within established systems of trust on the internet. This opens up the possibility that sources in general - across Wikipedia, and across Wikimedia projects - could perhaps be re-investigated, and a central question that might motivate this exercise would be:

What elements of the world's knowledge are we missing out on, given the status quo?

In May 2011, Shiju Alex and Achal Prabhala travelled to Kannur in North Kerala to meet with Vijayakumar Blathur and others of his acquaintance who were interested in the oral citations project. Our time in Kannur proved to invaluable.

The first set of interviews we recorded (in Malayalam) were around a potential article on a Theyyam called Neeliyar Bhagavathi. This is an interesting temple ritual, for while the form itself is quite well-known and documented, in actuality it consists of hundreds of individual Theyyams, each of which has its own name, costume, performance and history. The particular Theyyam that we were interested in - Neeliyar Bhagavathi - is performed in a small ritual location in a forest near Kannur, and we were lucky to be present when one was about to be performed. In the course of the audio interviews, we met and interviewed an onlooker of the performance from the village, the priest at the site of the performance, and a scholar of folklore from the area.

Again, an interesting range of perspectives crept in. The priest suggested an elaborate story that is the basis for the location where the Theyyam is performed, while the folklore scholar suggested that in fact the myths around the location were just that - myth - and not connected to the Theyyam itself, whose words do not signify anything about the location at all. You can view these differences of opinion in the film at 34:20 and at 36:02.

We visited a schoolteacher who is passionate about traditional games, and runs an annual tournament of folk games. He arranged a group of students to show us how they play Dappa Kali, a game whose objective is to rearrange a set of broken tiles while escaping a ball that is being thrown around. (You can see Dappa Kali in action at 06:31 in the film). The ball used in the game, interestingly, is made entirely out of the leaves of coconut trees.

We also travelled to the central library of Kannur University which is located outside their campus, in the centre of town. The librarian in charge showed us the collection of Malayalam books (about 20% of the university's collection as a whole), echoing a pattern similarly observed in Delhi and Johannesburg, where scholarly books in native languages (be it Malayalam, Hindi or Sepedi) form a tiny fraction of a library's collection as a whole, the majority of the works being in English.

The film was primarily directed and edited by Priya Sen with additional assistance from Zen Marie. A final version of the film was completed in July, 2011.

(The English subtitle track for the film on Commons covers the full film, i.e. it extends to all speech, whether in English or not. This subtitle track is a distinct .srt file, and can therefore be edited and translated.)

(The English subtitle track for the film on Vimeo is partial, i.e. it extends only to non-English speech. The subtitles here are also burned in to the film, and therefore not editable.)

If you would like to download or use a DVD or higher resolution file, or want anything else that isn't listed here, please write to this address explaining what you need.

Please help: if you organised a screening of the film or a discussion of the project that isn't included here, just add it in.

A film screening and discussion around the oral citations project was held at the 35th Bangalore Meetup in July, 2011.

People are Knowledge was screened and discussed @ Wikimania 2011 in Haifa at 12 pm, Aug 5 (Friday) @ the Cinematheque. Here's the schedule. Watch the video of the presentation and Q&A in Haifa, courtesy Wikimedia Israel, here.

A film screening and discussion of authorities of knowledge @ SECT:REWIRED - a critical theory workshop sponsored by the University of California Humanities Research Institute - August 8, Monday, East-West Centre, University of Hawai'i, Manoa.

A discussion around the oral citations project was held at the 12th Mumbai Meetup on August 20, 2011.

The video on Oral Citations was shown and a discussion was held at the 16th WikiPuneri meetup (Pune, Maharashtra, India), especially bringing out the relevance of such citation methods to recording of rural heritage. A point emerged that Wikipedia would need to partially compromise on the principle of No Original research in innovative ways with due consensus. AshLin 07:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

People are Knowledge was screened on Wednesday, 21 September at Social Media Week, Berlin. The event was hosted by MTV Networks and more information is available here.

Discussion regarding Oral Citations in Malayalam Wikipedia

Articles created

Articles created

Discussion regarding Oral Citations in Hindi Wikipedia

Articles created

Articles created (based on the Hindi/Malayalam/Sepedi articles)

Image and audio files captured under this exercise are archived on commons under the category Oral Citations.

The images uploaded to commons are screenshots of video footage, and are not always of the highest quality.

The audio files recorded are all interviews, and they are of three kinds.

The first category consists of interviews with people whose intellectual input we thought was valuable to the project.

The second category consists of interviews that were filmed on location, at site, and often accompanied by a demonstration of the subject itself - the bulk of these interviews are represented throughout the film. These are audio interviews that will eventually be used as citations.

The third category also consists of interviews which will be used as citations, but were conducted by the individual Wikipedians involved (Shiju Alex, Mayur, Mohau Monaledi) from their desks at home. The point of the third category of interviews is this: not everyone can afford to take time off and travel to far-flung locations to record audio interviews with people on-site, merely to use as a citation in a potential Wikipedia article. We were clear that it was important to be able to construct a credible audio interview with a reliable source over the phone, taking advantage of the widespread use of mobile phones in India and South Africa, and the relative ease by which a conversation can be recorded, either on a mobile phone, or through software if using Internet telephony.

All audio files used as oral citations come with complete transcripts, both in the language recorded as well as translations in English for easy interoperability between language projects on Wikipedia (except for the interviews conducted in South Africa, as we had simultaneous translation in the audio between Sepedi and English, so the transcripts are only in English).

A full list of audio files used as citations, along with their transcripts is included below:

Sepedi

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Tsere_tsere_Interview1.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Tsere_tsere_Interview2.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Tsere_tsere_Interview3.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Kgati_Interview1.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Kgati_Interview2.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Kgati_Interview3.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Mogkope_Interview1.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Mogkope_Interview2.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Mokgope_Interview3.ogg

Hindi

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Gillidanda_Interview1.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Sur_Interview1.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Sur_Interview2.ogg

Malayalam

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Dabba-Kali_Interview1.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Neeliyar-Bhagavathi_%28Theyyam%29_Interview1.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Neeliyar-Bhagavathi_%28Theyyam%29_Interview2.ogg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeopleAreKnowledge_Neeliyar-Bhagavathi_%28Theyyam%29_Interview3.ogg

In the news Edit

"People are Knowledge", the film that arose from the project has been viewed thousands of times on Vimeo and Commons, and there have been innumerable conversations on social media, thanks in large part to an article that appeared in the New York Times (below). Some of those social media conversations are archived here.

The oral citations project received vast attention from all corners of the globe. Here are some highlights of articles and discussions generated:

(Please help: if we missed something that ought to be here, just add it in.)

Not just the written word - Bangalore Mirror, July 24, 2011

Citing challenges for Wikipedia contributors - The Hindu, August 6, 2011

When Knowledge Isn't Written, Does It Still Count? - New York Times, August 7, 2011

Oral citations to be part of Wikipedia entries - The Economic Times/ The Times of India, August 25, 2011 (caution: misleading title)

Signpost: Unsourced in India

CIS, India (a co-sponsor of the project): People are Knowledge

Slaw, Canada: Oral Citations, a Wikimedia project

Wall Street Journal, India

Gerard's blog: Wikimedia and original research

Dror's blog: First Wikimania report

Wikimedia Czech Republic: Zavede Wikipedie ústní citace?

ICT4D: Learning cycling and the persistent illusion that all knowledge can be accessed online

Black Studies Blog: When black poetry isn't written and published, does it still count?

Cawa, France: The flow of eliteracy

Wikilovesbieb, Netherlands: Mensen zijn kennis: Wikipedia experimenteert met orale bronnen

The Listener, New Zealand: Wikipedia and the Cool Problem

Bintulu, Indonesia: People are Knowledge

Publishing Perspectives Blog: When Google runs out of data to exploit, what's next?

Metafilter: Wikipedia Oral Citations

Peasant Muse: Wikipedia, Twitter and Mobility

IT Espresso, France: Wikipedia perd des contributeurs, mais se bat pour rebondir

Simply Coffee Blog: People are Knowledge

The Knowledge Lens (Northwestern U): Where is your knowledge?

Cottage Labs: Can knowledge extend beyond the written?

Proto-Knowledge: Changing the epistemology of Wikipedia

BackReaction: Was there a man on the moon? Are you sure?

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Duration: 2011-01 - 2011- Contact: Barry Newstead, Zack Exley The Oral Citations Project is a strategic research project funded by a Wikimedia Foundation grant to help overcome a lack of published material in emerging languages on Wikipedia. It was undertaken by Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board member Achal Prabhala as a short-term fellowship.

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Full disclosure: I have an odd obsession with Wikipedia. Despite its many issues, I find it to be an apex human concept and the execution of it from a design standpoint is second to none; it's probably my favorite website. I understand the gripes (celebrities are mad they have their weight or where they went to college wrong sometimes? Just kidding) but I feel like it's a net win as far as these things go.

Now, this movie puts a generally a positive spin on all matters Wikipedia and its founder Jimmy Wales, who has an interesting backstory I suppose, insomuch as his stumbling into the "founding" of Wikipedia is one of those wholly American stories, good or bad-your call. It tries hard to remain neutral itself, as that is a main theme behind the questions this doc poses (Is Wikipedia good for culture or is it killing culture?). And as a pure information grab, this documentary also succeeds in presenting the history and all of the intricacies involved in its growth to the database it is today. If you don't have a pre-existing fascination with any of this, then Truth in Numbers will largely be a bore. But if you do, it's a solid entry in the crowded documentary field.

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Truth in Numbers? Everything, According to Wikipedia (2010) - IMDb

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Directed by Scott Glosserman, Nic Hill. With Richard Branson, Vint Cerf, Ed Chi, Noam Chomsky. After viewing this provocative documentary, you will never look at Wikipedia the same way. Filmmakers Scott Glosserman and Nic Hill engagingly explore the history and cultural implications of one of the most traveled and referenced sites on the Internet.

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Według badań naukowców z Instytutu Epidemiologii i Opieki Zdrowotnej University College London, prawie 40% użytkowników mediów społecznościowych wykazuje objawy zaawansowanej depresji. Ogromna część populacji jest rozczarowana tym, że ich życia nie wyglądają tak samo jak te prezentowane przez influencerów z Instagrama, TikToka i pozostałych platform. Dlatego też dziś szczególnie istotne jest, aby uświadomić młodemu pokoleniu, że karmione jest jedynie iluzją luksusowego i&nbspidealnego życia, a ich idole często różnią się od nich jedynie bezczelnością i patologicznym zakłamaniem.

Tego zadania podjął się kilka miesięcy temu Nick Balton, który wyprodukował dla HBO film dokumentalny pod tytułem Podróbki Sławy - jest on od niedawna dostępny na platformie. Na początku filmu przywołane są surowe dane. Zgodnie z oficjalnymi statystykami, ponad 40 milionów użytkowników na Instagramie ma ponad milion obserwatorów. Kolejny 100 milionów użytkowników zgromadziło widownię rzędu ponad 100 tysięcy obserwatorów. Oznaczałoby to, że łącznie nawet 140 milionów osób na planecie może uchodzić za osoby "sławne". Nie trzeba być mistrzem arytmetyki, aby zorientować się, że jest to zwyczajnie niemożliwe - liczby te muszą być więc sfałszowane.

Chcąc zbadać proces powstawania internetowej "gwiazdy", producenci dokumentu zorganizowali casting, na którym chcieli wyłonić trzy osoby, które otoczą swoją opieką i następnie wypromują je na najbardziej rozchwytywanych influencerów w mieście. Do projektu zgłosiło się aż 4 tysiące ochotników, z czego zdecydowana większość określała się jako osoby parające się modelingiem i aktorstwem. Ostatecznie wybór padł na troje niepozornych mieszkańców Los Angeles - aspirującą aktorkę Dominique, nieco ekscentrycznego Chrisa i sfrustrowanego obowiązkami w pracy Wyliego.

Na początek zafundowano im nowe fryzury - zupełnie jak w pierwszych odcinkach nowego sezonu Top Model. Już w odmienionym wydaniu uczestnicy eksperymentu zostali zaprowadzeni przed słynną różową ścianę sklepu Paula Smitha, która od miesięcy oblegana jest przez łaknących perfekcyjnego selfie turystów. W międzyczasie producenci programu kupili im followersów na specjalnie przeznaczonej do tego stronie - wszystko w sposób jak najbardziej legalny. 7500 nowych followersów - botów - dla Dominique za cenę 119 dolarów. Tyle samo dla Wyliego i Chrisa. Boty zostały wyjaśnione jako algorytm, który udaje prawdziwą osobę w sieci. Dzięki ich pomocy wiele osób może udawać bardziej sławnych, niż są w rzeczywistości. Mało tego, za odpowiednią dopłatą boty mogą zacząć lajkować i komentować nasze wpisy.

Kiedyś boty na Instagramie stanowiły około 7-9% użytkowników. Dziś nawet największe sławy na świecie mają po 50-60% botów obserwujących ich profile. Farmy botów zarabiają małe fortuny. Nawet na niewielkiej produkcji botów zarobić można 3 miliony dolarów miesięcznie. Większe spółki inkasują nawet 10 razy więcej -&nbsptłumaczy szef FME Enterprises Osiris Bashir.

Uczestnicy eksperymentu wzięli następnie udział w sfałszowanej sesji zdjęciowej z atrapami wydumanych przysmaków. Fotografie zostały oznaczone przy publikacji w miejscach dostępnych tylko dla finansowych elit, mimo że wykonano je na zabrudzonym podwórku. Co ciekawe, wielu influencerów ma według twórców dokumentu udawać w sieci swoje przygody, np. prywatną sesję z trenerem na siłowni, aby później otrzymać za darmo opiekę profesjonalnego trenera, kontrakty reklamowe itp. Do przygotowania zdjęcia z widokiem z samolotu bohaterom programu wystarczył ekran telewizora i deska toaletowa za kilkadziesiąt złotych...

Na tym przekłamania się jednak nie skończyły. Organizatorzy wynajęli dla Dominique prywatną willę, aby mogła zapozować na jej tle i poudawać przed potencjalnymi reklamodawcami i widzami, że faktycznie żyje na takim poziomie. Chris został natomiast zaproszony do obleganej przez różnej maści gwiazdki na "pokład" atrapy prywatnego odrzutowca. Koszt takiej przyjemności? 50 dolarów za 60 minut pstrykania fotek w wydmuszce luksusowego życia.

Po trzech miesiącach inwestycja w "no-name'ów" zaczęła przynosić efekty. Dominique odbierała pierwsze darmowe produkty od firm chcących się promować na jej profilu (którego widownia, przypomnijmy, składała się w ponad 90% z botów). Chris za to otrzymał propozycję darmowej sesji z trenerem, pod warunkiem, że zrelacjonuje ją na Instagramie. Wiley natomiast przestraszył się tym, co zaczęło dziać się na jego profilu i zmienił jego ustawienia na "prywatny", tym samym rezygnując z dalszej walki o wyimaginowaną sławę.

Z projektu wyłamał się również Chris, któremu od początku nie leżała wizja wykupywania obserwatorów. Chłopak stwierdził, że wolałby mieć 100 prawdziwych fanów, niż 100 tysięcy fejkowych kont.

Na polu bitwy została więc jedynie Dominique. Gdy zbliżała się do 100 tys. obserwatorów, jej adres zaczęły zalewać darmowy produkty od firm, chcących wypromować się na jej profilu. W pewnym momencie dziewczyna nie musiała już ubiegać się o oferty od sponsorów, zamiast tego firmy same ją odnajdywały i obdarowywały. Agenci Dominique odnotowali też, że jej zwiększona "aktywność" na Instagramie zaowocowała większą liczbą castingów, na które była przyjmowana. Zaproszono ją nawet na darmową influencerską wycieczkę VIP do Las Vegas, w ramach której miała promować pewną markę odzieżową. Sama zauważyła jednak, że ubrania, które miała polecać, są koszmarnej jakości, a reszta dziewczyn z wycieczki jest nieprzyjemna i zadziera nosa.

Smutna rzeczywistość pracy influencerki chyba nie zniechęciła jej jednak do końca. Dominique nadal oznacza na swoim profilu współprace z&nbspmarkami i&nbspcieszy się grupą ponad 340 tysięcy obserwujących.

Ogólnie rzecz biorąc, Podróbki Sławy to seans obowiązkowy dla każdego, kto choć raz próbował porównywać otaczające go realia do ułudy promowanej w sieci przez influencerów. Szczególnie przyda się on młodzieży szkolnej, na którą fikcja kreowana w social mediach wpływa w sposób najdotkliwszy.

Jak obstawiacie, które polskie "sławy z Insta" mają na swoich profilach największy procent widowni z algorytmu?

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OSZUSTWA INFLUENCERÓW UJAWNIONE! Wykupione lajki, atrapy odrzutowców i wakacje, których nie było...

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Według badań naukowców z Instytutu Epidemiologii i Opieki Zdrowotnej University College London, prawie 40% użytkowników mediów społecznościowych wykazuje objawy zaawansowanej depresji. Ogromna część populacji jest rozczarowana tym, że ich życia nie wyglądają tak samo jak te prezentowane przez influencerów z Instagrama, TikToka i pozostałych platform.

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The blog of James Bridle: art, literature, and the network, since 2006.

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KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY - CABLES ( PART OF THE INTERVIEW )

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KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY - CABLES ( PART OF THE INTERVIEW )

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Imperialism has moved up to infrastructure level | James Bridle

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A film about Carl Sagan, Annie Druyan and a love letter they sent to the stars | Aeon Videos

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A film about Carl Sagan, Annie Druyan and a love letter they sent to the stars

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New Ways of Seeing is a four-part radio show written and presented by James Bridle, and produced by Steve Urquhart and Reduced Listening for BBC Radio 4.
It was broadcast over four weeks from the 17th of April 2019, on Wednesdays at 9am and 9.30pm.

New Ways of Seeing considers the impact of digital technologies on the way we see, understand, and interact with the world. Building on John Berger's seminal Ways of Seeing from 1972, the show explores network infrastructures, digital images, systemic bias, education and the environment, in conversation with a number of contemporary art practitioners.

→ The Times Radio Pick of the Week, 14th April 2019

→ The Guardian introduction to the series

You can listen to the show on BBC Sounds, via the links below, or on Soundcloud:
James Bridle looks for the hidden, physical infrastructure of the internet. Does it matter that it's been swept out of sight? Artists Ingrid Burrington, Trevor Paglen, Olia Lialina, Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev explain why they're compelled to show us what's really going on, beneath the surface.
Featured in this episode:

→ Episode One Transcript
James Bridle investigates the true meaning of images today. In an era of face-swap and video generation technologies, fake news and conspiracy theory, how has digitisation altered the nature, reliability and power of images? Artists Hito Steyerl, Constant Dullaart and Adam Harvey explore how digital images have become so much more than mere pictures.
Featured in this episode:

→ Episode Two Transcript
James Bridle reveals how outdated attitudes and prejudices seem to have been "hardwired" into today's technology. How can we all work towards reshaping the machines we use every day? Artists Morehshin Allahyari, Stephanie Dinkins and Zach Blas explain how they're reimagining our digital tools, to better represent us all.
Featured in this episode:

→ Episode Three Transcript
James Bridle asks: what would it mean for a forest to own itself? For a glacier to take photographs? Or, for wind turbines to generate funding for scientific research? Artists taking radical steps to address issues like climate change and corporate control explain how they're rethinking and rebuilding some of the digital tools we use every day.
Featured in this episode:

→ Episode Four Transcript

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New Ways of Seeing is a four-part radio show written and presented by James Bridle, and produced by Steve Urquhart and Reduced Listening for BBC Radio 4. It was broadcast over four weeks from the 17th of April 2019, on Wednesdays at 9am and 9.30pm.

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James Bridle on New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future

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Michael Dunn: What Makes a Good Knowledge Question?

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Michael Dunn's Guide to Theory of Knowledge: Real Life Situations and Knowledge Questions

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Mathematics and computer science are the most imaginative art forms ever. And this thing about changing perspectives should sound a little bit familiar to you, because we do it every day. And then it’s called empathy. When I view the world from your perspective, I have empathy with you. If I really, truly understand what the world looks like from your perspective, I am empathetic. That requires imagination. And that is how we obtain understanding.

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

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Roger Antonsen: Math is the hidden secret to understanding the world

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Unlock the mysteries and inner workings of the world through one of the most imaginative art forms ever -- mathematics -- with Roger Antonsen, as he explains how a slight change in perspective can reveal patterns, numbers and formulas as the gateways to empathy and understanding.

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Propaganda has a bad name. It is what repressive regimes use to glorify their leaders, motivate their citizens and demonise their enemies. It is about lies and distortion, manipulation and misrepresentation.

But it is also, according to the British Library, about alerting people to the risks of disease, about making sure children learn how to cross the road safely and about building a perfectly legitimate sense of common purpose among the citizens of a democracy.

The library's new exhibition, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, takes a broad definition of its subject.

Ian Cooke, the exhibition's co-curator, defines it as any communication designed to change the way we think or to alter our behaviour.

So the exhibition encompasses public information films like the 1970s Green Cross Code road campaigns, featuring footballer Kevin Keegan and actor David Prowse (Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy), and the campaign alerting Britons to the dangers of Aids, voiced by John Hurt, and those "coughs and sneezes spread diseases" posters which have been around for decades.

'A tool'

And it includes banknotes, postage stamps, a display of model Eiffel Towers and Nelson's Columns and a huge photographic blow-up of Mount Rushmore, illustrating the ways states use iconography and subliminal propaganda to brand themselves and promote a sense of belonging and common purpose among the citizenry.

From 1930s Britain there is a spectacular poster of a family aboard a liner off Gibraltar by Charles Pears, promoting the Empire Marketing Board.

"You can think of propaganda as really just a tool, something that's quite neutral, and used by all states," says Mr Cooke.

"One argument is that in democracies you need propaganda more because you have to govern by consent, so you need to bring public opinion with you... so the comparison with more ideologically-driven, authoritarian, or totalitarian states doesn't always have to apply."

But inevitably, much of the content is less benign.

There is what is said to be the world's most reproduced painting, Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, declared a model of Cultural Revolution art in 1967.

It was painted when Mao was 74, but shows him as a young man striding atop a cloud-shrouded mountain to win a miner's strike in 1922. A similar painting from 1949 shows the young Joseph Stalin reading a Georgian epic poem. Mountains feature in that one too.

In the same vein there is a spectacular life-size portrait of Napoleon, in laurel wreath and coronation robes, painted to hang in the council chamber at Montpellier shortly before the emperor's fall. It was returned a year later to the artist, the bill unpaid.

And there is a repellent anti-Semitic poster from Nazi-occupied France, with the legend "Derriere tout: le Juif".

Nuclear advice

Propaganda has a habit of dating badly. One of the most entertaining but also chilling exhibits is a 1950s film called "Duck and Cover", featuring an animated character called Bert the Turtle and a jaunty little song, which sets out to tell American schoolchildren what to do in the event of a nuclear attack - crawl under the schoolroom desk and cover their heads with their hands, apparently.

The art of propaganda is not telling lies but rather seeing the truth you require and giving it mixed up with some truths the audience wants to hear
Richard Crossman, Politician

Propaganda is often at its least subtle at times of conflict.

Some of the most direct and compelling exhibits come from the two world wars, including James Montgomery Flagg's 1917 recruiting poster, "I Want You for US Army", in which Uncle Sam, with white top hat and penetrating stare, points directly at the viewer; and a British fund-raising poster from 1915 showing a hapless German soldier felled by an enormous British coin, "Lend Your Five Shillings to Your Country... and Crush the Germans."

But even in wartime propagandists are capable of a lighter touch. Two of the most surprising exhibits are a pair of fashionable women's headscarves from World War II, one showing a map of London bomb-sites with the slogan "London can take it again", recycling the US broadcaster Ed Murrow's famous phrase from the Blitz of 1940 to sustain morale and rally support for the war in the face of a renewed bombing campaign.

The best propaganda, the exhibition implies, is that which distorts least.

It opens with a selection of quotations.

"The art of propaganda is not telling lies but rather seeing the truth you require and giving it mixed up with some truths the audience wants to hear," according to Labour politician Richard Crossman.

"The propagandist is a man who canalizes an already existing stream. In a land where there is no water, he digs in vain," according to author Aldous Huxley.

And in one display case is a typewritten memo from newspaper baron Lord Northcliffe, a leading British propagandist of World War I, whose rules for successful propaganda include "What can be done by open means must not be done by occult means", "Lies are the least effective form of propaganda" and "Propaganda that looks like propaganda is third-rate propaganda".

The exhibition, which runs until 17 September, ends with an installation showing the torrent of twitter messages inspired by events like the London 2012 Olympics and Barack Obama's inauguration.

'Fake grassroots'

Classic propaganda involves Them telling Us what to think or how to behave. So can it survive in a world of social media, which is supposedly all about us telling each other spontaneously what we think? Apparently it can.

Eliane Glaser wrote Get Real, a book about communications in the modern world. She says governments and politicians use the informality of social media to deliver a carefully-planned message.

"They emphasise the role of direct engagement with consumers taking part in the marketing process, and they talk of two-way communications with consumers, which sounds very egalitarian," she says.

"But what it really means is that consumers are now circulating entertaining viral adverts on Facebook and companies are using 'Astroturf' or fake grassroots techniques to create the appearance of a broad base of support for their product or message, and I think these Astroturf techniques are becoming endemic both in politics and marketing."

So when you were tweeting enthusiastically during the televised opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, it seems that you were in reality complicit in a piece of propaganda designed to make us all feel good about ourselves and our country.

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Propaganda has a bad name. It is what repressive regimes use to glorify their leaders, motivate their citizens and demonise their enemies. It is about lies and distortion, manipulation and misrepresentation.

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What is the relation between art and propaganda?

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What is the relation between art and propaganda?

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"Propaganda is a much maligned and often misunderstood word," said Joseph Goebbels in 1933. "The layman uses it to mean something inferior or even despicable. The word propaganda always has a bitter aftertaste."

As minister of propaganda in Adolf Hitler's government, Goebbels did more than most to make that aftertaste as bitter as arsenic. Yet in this instance he was right: people are often suspicious of propaganda, which is designed to coerce us into following someone else's agenda.

When it comes to visual art, common sense suggests that propaganda is at odds with greatness. Take the famous recruitment poster issued by the British government at the start of the First World War, featuring Lord Kitchener's stern, moustachioed face staring out above the slogan 'Your Country Needs YOU'. It is a memorable and effective piece of graphic design - but hardly quality art.

Can art commissioned by the state ever be any good? "Art is something subversive," Pablo Picasso once said. "If art is ever given the keys to the city, it will be because it's been so watered down, rendered so impotent, that it's not worth fighting for."
On message
Walking through the British Library's exhibition Propaganda: Power and Persuasion the other week, I encountered scores of examples of watered-down official art. Like the poster of Kitchener, most of it was strong at conveying a message or pushing a political ideology, but weak when considered in artistic terms. Norman Rockwell's misty-eyed and saccharine wartime posters; histrionic and bombastic images of Benito Mussolini; a chilling portrait of Hitler encouraging the cult of the Führer: all these examples have a mindless quality in which art is subordinate to brainwashing. As I left the exhibition, I found myself thinking: can propaganda ever produce great art?

On reflection, the answer - surprisingly - is yes. Many of us associate propaganda with the totalitarian regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao. "It came of age in the 20th century," writes David Welch in the catalogue accompanying the British Library exhibition, "when the development of mass media (and later multimedia communications) offered a fertile ground for its dissemination, and the century's global conflicts provided the impetus needed for its growth."

Yet propaganda has been around for millennia - and much ancient art that we value today is a form of propaganda. The Parthenon Marbles extol the virtues of the Athenians at the expense of their enemies. Promoting the political values of a Greek city-state, these sculptures are the definition of art, in Picasso's words, "given the keys to the city" - and yet few people would describe them as 'impotent'.
Masking the truth
It's a similar story with another world-famous work of art from antiquity: the solid-gold mask of Tutankhamun, which has become an emblem of the exoticism, opulence and quality of ancient Egyptian art. The mask is dazzling in a double sense: it is spectacular, but also blinding. This is because, in historical terms, Tutankhamun was a non-entity - a weakling boy-king who didn't make it out of his teens.

In other words, King Tut conquered eternity not because of his own exploits, but because the master craftsmen of the golden age of Egyptian art were capable of creating potent images of kingship that have never been surpassed. Tutankhamun's death mask is a piece of visual rhetoric - a form, if you like, of propaganda.

My favourite piece of art-propaganda from the ancient world, though, is Trajan's Column in Rome. Dedicated in AD 113, it was built to commemorate two successful campaigns that the Emperor Trajan waged against the Dacians, a barbarian tribe from modern-day Romania. Constructed from 29 different blocks of marble weighing up to 77 tonnes each, it contains 2,500 figures, which were once brightly painted. A panoply of activity and detail (Trajan himself makes an appearance 59 times), the frieze is a potent expression of Roman efficiency and military ruthlessness. It is also a masterpiece of narrative art.

Fast-forward to the 20th century - the heyday of propaganda as we understand it, according to David Welch - and we find examples of first-rate art that was co-opted by propagandists. During the Cold War, for instance, modern art became a weapon deployed by the American government. In 1946, the US State Department spent almost $50,000 buying 79 paintings by Ben Shahn, Georgia O'Keeffe and others for an international touring exhibition called Advancing American Art, which ended up in Prague at a time when Czechoslovakia was behind the Iron Curtain. The idea was to refute Soviet claims that America was culturally vacuous. There are even reports that the CIA helped to fund the Abstract Expressionist movement for similar reasons.

Art is rarely the unadulterated expression of an individual genius such as Picasso: usually it is ensnared within the agendas and demands of others, such as patrons who are also political rulers. In my heart I know that good art is a vehicle for self-expression. But my head tells me that art and propaganda do not have to make uneasy bedfellows. When it comes to art, propaganda gets a very bad press, but perhaps, as Goebbels opined - it is unfair to characterise it as inferior Maybe the art of propaganda could do with a spin-doctor of its own.
Alastair Sooke is art critic of The Daily Telegraph.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

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"Propaganda is a much maligned and often misunderstood word," said Joseph Goebbels in 1933. "The layman uses it to mean something inferior or even despicable. The word propaganda always has a bitter aftertaste." As minister of propaganda in Adolf Hitler's government, Goebbels did more than most to make that aftertaste as bitter as arsenic.

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Use art to turn the world inside out | JR

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French street artist JR uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. At TED2011, he makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out.

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Promise of Tech and the Brain | Adam Gazzaley | TEDxSonomaCounty

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Details from three of the frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence by Masaccio (1424-28)

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1424-28)
The Distribution of Alms and the Death of Ananias
The Baptism of the Neophytes

CONSOLIDATING THE ARTWORK ACTIVITY
Eminent neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio (2003: 39-45) makes a distinction between the "primary emotions," such as fear, anger, disgust and happiness, and the "social emotions," such as sympathy, embarrassment and shame. He also identifies "background emotions," which include: edginess, tranquility and enthusiasm.
Damasio, Antonio (2003) Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain. Harcourt. Orlando, FL.

Students should make a table with three column headers: "Primary," "Social" and "Background." They should:

Place Damasio's examples in the correct column.

Draw a line across the table then attempt to place the emotions listed on the whiteboard from the artwork activity in the appropriate column.

Draw a second line and write in the appropriate column any other important emotions that are missing.

Are background emotions similar to moods? Are background emotions the same as personality predispositions?
Pdf of artwork and guiding questions

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Evoked emotions in art - TOK RESOURCE.ORG

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Details from three of the frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence by Masaccio (1424-28) Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1424-28) The Distribution of Alms and the Death of AnaniasThe Baptism of the Neophytes Eminent neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio (2003: 39-45) makes a distinction between the "primary emotions," such as fear, anger, disgust and happiness, and the "social emotions," such as sympathy, embarrassment and shame.

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ART is dialogue about difficult subjects

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ART is dialogue about difficult subjects

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An art exhibition bringing together Hindu artists - who had to flee Indian-administered Kashmir - with their Muslim counterparts has struck an emotional chord with locals, reports Sameer Yasir.
Avtar Krishan Raina, a Kashmiri Hindu or Pandit, has returned to the home he fled for the first time since he left in 1990 in order to participate in a unique exhibition that has brought artists and sculptors from his community together with Muslim artists.

Mr Raina is one of an estimated 200,000 people in his community who were forced to leave the state in the early 1990s under threat from Muslim militants who had initiated a violent insurgency against Indian rule in the region.

One day, he says, he came home to find that separatist militants had stuck a poster outside his home. It demanded that he poison his dog, which barked whenever they were around.

He realised they could all be killed during that "terrifying month" when a majority of the Hindus left.

Kashmiri Hindus: Driven out and insignificant

The Kashmiri property rows that date back to British India

"I took nothing with me and fled," said Mr Raina, who now works as a painter in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. "I could never come back and had no interest in doing so either."

But when he arrived at the exhibition, he was greeted by an old friend - Mohammad Ashraf.

The former top bureaucrat had brought along a painting. He said it was the only thing he had saved from his home when Kashmir was ravaged by floods in 2014.

"Remember, it was you who painted it in 1985," Mr Ashraf told Mr Raina. "I fled the house with nothing but this painting."

Mr Raina held the painting in his hands as tears rolled down his cheeks.

It is exactly this kind of reconciliation that the organisers of this exhibition have been hoping for.

"Art is dialogue and conversation about difficult subjects," said Mujtaba Rizvi, a Kashmiri Muslim art promoter, who decided to host this exhibition along with contemporary artist Veer Munshi.

"A lot of barriers and misconception were removed. The art can become a medium of social intervention."

Housed in the ruins of a century-old building that was once a famed silk factory in the state capital Srinagar, the seven-day exhibition runs until Sunday.

"Only art has the power to build bridges between communities," said Ratan Parimoo, a Kashmiri Hindu and art historian.

The temporary gallery is filled with art that reflects the depth of conflict suffered by the region.

In one piece, a naked man bound by barbed wire sports a defiant smile - a sacred thread strung across his torso is the only indication that he is a Kashmiri Hindu.

"This is the story of the common man in Kashmir - whether they are Muslim or Hindu," said artist Chushool Mahaldar, whose painting is a self-portrait titled Struggling Smile.

One installation by Mr Munshi features spinning objects. "It portrays how difficult it is to come out of conflict once you are in it," said Mr Munshi, also a displaced Hindu.

In the centre of the exhibition space lies an installation which, according to the artists, shows how Kashmir has been turned upside down in recent times.

"It is important to look at the other side of the boat, which is always under water," said Mr Munshi.

At the entrance to the exhibition is a 30ft (9.1-metre) long painting by Mamoon Ahmad, a Kashmiri Muslim artist. The ink drawing depicts a forest in which you see bones and trees - a reference to life amid death.

The piece was inspired by the Urdu word ruveda, which means to "walk gently".

This, he added, tells the story of conflict in Kashmir - "by walking on its side, we are walking to bridge the gap between Hindus and Muslims".

Despite the current political uncertainty - the fall of the coalition state government between India's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP and the regional PDP - hundreds of curious residents thronged the venue.

The stolen childhoods of Kashmir in pencil and crayon

Viewpoint: Why the Kashmir government fall is a tragedy

"It is heart wrenching, but a difference experience," said Saiba Khan, an art student at a local college.

Ms Khan said she had never seen a Kashmiri Pandit in her life, let alone an artist from the community.

"It is as if their work, paintings and installations make this show complete."

Photos by Sameer Yasir

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Kashmiri art brings Hindus and Muslims together

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An art exhibition bringing together Hindu artists - who had to flee Indian-administered Kashmir - with their Muslim counterparts has struck an emotional chord with locals, reports Sameer Yasir.

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https://medium.com/amandapc/ethics-in-art-analyzing-helena-by-marco-evaristti-7e51564d880c

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http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mm6UJSXWlPE/Ri08lz09EhI/AAAAAAAAAJU/0QIgBJqqvoM/s1600/HELENA_1.jpg

Real Life Situation: This piece of art features ten white Moulinex Optiblend 2000 mixers, each filled with water and containing a live goldfish. These were placed on a table and were plugged in the outlet - hence, anyone viewing the work had the possibility of activating the blender and killing the fish. Therefore, the visitors were the "judges of life or death". [1] It was used as an experiment to raise the question of "the power humans have over animals" [1] and the role of Ethics in Art. Judge Preben Bagger, for example, stated that the fish were killed instantly and humanely, insinuating that liquidizing the goldfish is not a crime.

Although the passage states that "Evaristti did not in any way encourage the visitors to kill the fish, but left the decision to them", eyewitnesses stated that "numerous media representatives who were present (...) virtually encouraged the visitors to press the button in order to initiate a scandal" which they ultimately achieved. According to a CNN pole, 72% (which were 30,592 votes) thought Helena was definitely not art. [1]

I would personally not press the button. I believe that all living beings have the right to life, in the same way that you and I do, and so simply killing the goldfish for no good reason is cruel. I do believe it is Art, though, as it is placed inside the context of questioning human beings and the power they have over animals, which aspires to spark a discussion and controversial conversation among visitors. I recognized that crafting this Art work required creativity, however, I do not think that a great level of technical skill is required to create this work.

Word count: 290

In what ways does Ethics play a role in Art?

Knowledge questions:

[1] http://artelectronicmedia.com/artwork/helena-by-marco-evaristti

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Ethics in Art: Analyzing "Helena" by Marco Evaristti

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Real Life Situation: This piece of art features ten white Moulinex Optiblend 2000 mixers, each filled with water and containing a live goldfish. These were placed on a table and were plugged in the...

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3 Minute Wonder: Marcel Duchamp – Fountain

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500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

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500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

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500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

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Did Humans Make These Ancient Cave Paintings? | National Geographic

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The YBAs, The London-based Young British Artists (article) | Khan Academy

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Read and learn for free about the following article: Art in the 21st Century

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Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

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It is a question that has dogged the contemporary art world since Duchamp put a urinal in a gallery: but is it art?

When the lights were switched on at a Dan Flavin retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London, critics were entranced. "Beautiful," Laura Cumming wrote in the Observer in 2006. "You wonder how it is possible that so much pleasure could emit from such a dismal source: the cold fluorescent tubes of strip lighting."

But the European commission has taken a less poetic view. Brussels has ruled that the work of the American artist, who died in 1996 after half a century of creating pioneering sculpture, should be classified for tax purposes as simple light fixtures. His work, they said, has "the characteristics of lighting fittings ... and is therefore to be classified ... as wall lighting fittings".

The ruling overturns an earlier UK customs tribunal verdict, and was denounced by one lawyer specialising in arts cases as "extraordinary".

This is no mere academic view. It means Flavin works imported by any museum or gallery from outside the EU are liable to full VAT, which rises to 20% on 1 January. As sculpture the pieces would be subject to only 5% VAT.

The ruling also affects the work of Bill Viola, another American, who became the first living artist to have a major exhibition at the National Gallery in London, and whose video pieces, filmed in extreme slow motion, moved many viewers to tears.

Not the commission, which found: "It is not the installation that constitutes a 'work of art' but the result of the operations (the light effect) carried out by it."

St Paul's cathedral could be among the first victims of the ruling. It has commissioned two altar pieces from Viola, due to be unveiled next year, which could become dramatically more expensive.

The legal battle over whether the often banal ingredients of modern art, particularly light, sound and video pieces, are themselves to be regarded as art has raged for years. The present bout began in 2006, when the Haunch of Venison gallery in London, which represented both artists, imported components for six video pieces by Viola and a light sculpture by Flavin.

The UK challenged their classification as art and tried to slap a £36,000 VAT bill on the gallery. That bill was torn up two years later when the Haunch of Venison won on appeal to the VAT and duties tribunal, which ruled that the pieces were indeed art. That verdict has in turn now been overturned by the commission.

Both artists are now represented by Blain Southern, a new gallery set up this year by the original founders of Haunch of Venison. A spokesman for the gallery said the partners are now taking advice from trade bodies including the Society of London Art Dealers.

However Pierre Valentin, the lawyer who challenged the original customs ruling on behalf of the Haunch of Venison, was astounded. "To suggest, for example, that a work by Dan Flavin is a work of art only when it is switched on, is comical," he told the Art Newspaper.

"One is entitled to ask if the commission has made a judicious use of its powers when overruling these judicial decisions. The reasons given in the regulation in support of the classification are absurd, and the regulation conflicts with the jurisprudence of the European court of justice."

The "call that art, I could knock that up in my shed in five minutes" argument has probably raged since the first caveman sketched a red clay bison on a rock wall. But there is one particularly famous precedent for the commission's decision, in a row over the work of the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. In 1926 the American collector and photographer Edward Steichen bought a bronze version of his tall slender Bird In Space, and attempted to import it to the US. Since it had neither head, feet nor feathers, US customs refused to accept it as a zero-rated work of art, and instead classified it as "a manufacture of metal ... held dutiable at 40%".

Steichen paid the $600 dues, but he and the sculptor then went to court - with his legal fees usefully paid by the millionaire collector Peggy Guggenheim - and succeeded, the EC might like to note, in having the decision overturned. In 1928 the judge eventually ruled that "while some difficulty might be encountered in associating it with a bird, it is nevertheless pleasing to look at and highly ornamental". Steichen got his money back.

The belief that all modern art is rubbish has frequently been even more dramatically demonstrated, less through bureaucracy than devastating human error.

In 2007 a London art storage company was ordered to pay £350,000 compensation to a Swiss collector after an Anish Kapoor sculpture somehow ended up in a skip.

In 2000 the packaging in which a drawing by Lucian Freud, valued at £100,000, was sent to Sotheby's auction house was put through a shredder. Unfortunately the drawing was still inside it.

In 2004 the Tate was mortified when a cleaner innocently threw out an overflowing rubbish bag. It was part of an installation by Gustav Metzger, aptly entitled Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art.

Whether florescent tubes are ultimately ruled rubbish, hardware or the skeletons of magical art remains to be seen.

Meanwhile the ruling should be a great satisfaction to "Barney", one of the few dissenting voices over the Hayward's Dan Flavin exhibition, who posted on artistsandmakers.com: "It was like walking around the lighting department of B&Q."
Topics

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Call that art? No, Dan Flavin's work is just simple light fittings, say EU experts

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It is a question that has dogged the contemporary art world since Duchamp put a urinal in a gallery: but is it art? When the lights were switched on at a Dan Flavin retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London, critics were entranced. "Beautiful," Laura Cumming wrote in the Observer in 2006.

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Fotografías de la web del artista.
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"Take Five"

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Adong Judith: How I use art to bridge misunderstanding

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Director and playwright Adong Judith creates provocative art that sparks dialogue on issues from LGBTQ rights to war crimes. In this quick but powerful talk, the TED Fellow details her work -- including the play "Silent Voices," which brought victims of the Northern Ugandan war against Joseph Kony's rebel group together with political, religious and cultural leaders for transformative talks.

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Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty

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TED collaborates with animator Andrew Park to illustrate Denis Dutton's provocative theory on beauty -- that art, music and other beautiful things, far from being simply "in the eye of the beholder," are a core part of human nature with deep evolutionary origins.

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Kayla Briët: Why do I make art? To build time capsules for my heritage

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Kayla Briët creates art that explores identity and self-discovery -- and the fear that her culture may someday be forgotten. She shares how she found her creative voice and reclaimed the stories of her Dutch-Indonesian, Chinese and Native American heritage by infusing them into film and music time capsules.

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View My Bed by Tracey Emin on artnet. Browse more artworks Tracey Emin from Saatchi Gallery.

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BULL'S HEAD

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Bull's Head is a found object artwork by Pablo Picasso, created in 1942 from seat and handlebars of a bicycle. It is described as Picasso's most famous discovery, a simple yet "astonishingly complete" metamorphosis.

In 1944, cataloged as Bicycle Seat, the sculpture was displayed at the Salon d'Automne in Paris together with another 78 works. Visitors were shocked by Picasso's new works and a demonstration took place, during which Bicycle Seat was one of the pieces removed from the wall.

Bull's Head is described by art critic Eric Gibson as unique amongst Picasso's sculptures for its 'transparency' - the constituent found objects are not disguised. He says the sculpture is "a moment of wit and whimsy ...both childlike and highly sophisticated in its simplicity, it stands as an assertion of the transforming power of the human imagination at a time when human values were under siege."

The sculpture is in the permanent collection of the Picasso Museum in Paris.

Picasso described the artwork in 1943 to visiting photographer George Brassai, saying:

Guess how I made the bull's head? One day, in a pile of objects all jumbled up together, I found an old bicycle seat right next to a rusty set of handlebars. In a flash, they joined together in my head. The idea of the Bull's Head came to me before I had a chance to think. All I did was weld them together... [but] if you were only to see the bull's head and not the bicycle seat and handlebars that form it, the sculpture would lose some of its impact.

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Bull's Head is a found object artwork by Pablo Picasso, created in 1942 from seat and handlebars of a bicycle. It is described as Picasso's most famous discovery, a simple yet "astonishingly complete" metamorphosis. In 1944, cataloged as Bicycle Seat, the sculpture was displayed at the Salon d'Automne in Paris together with another 78 works.