Copyrights

Kurd Alsleben

Professor of Artistic Telematics/Computing at the Hochschule fuer
bildende Kunst, Hamburg

The goal of data art is to make art in networks an exchange, a form of
traffic. There is a dilemma as regards copyrights, however, since:

in this kind of art...

there is no author,

there is no work of art,

there is no reproduction,

there is no public.


Introduction

I am involved in interdisciplinary computing at the Hochschule fuer
bildende Kunst in Hamburg. Our environment is the "Virtual Media Center
Hamburg" (virtuHHM), loosely linked to the data art community. "We" are:
the Chaos Computer Club, European MuseumsNetwork, Freie
Telekommunikationszentrum, Interdisziplinaere Computerei, KuekoCokue,
Music Media Lab, Ponton European Media Art Lab, and Connect - Virtuelle
Europaeische Kunsthochschule.

The term "Data Art" is well-known to the CCC. Computer network traffic
was first approached from the artistic perspective in early 1980.
Communicative artistic data traffic began on the heels of the first few
telematic events of the time. A few names may refresh the memory of
those events: Rober Adrian, ARTEX (A); Roy Ascott (GB); Bill Bartlett (C);
Bruce Breland, DAX (USA); Wau Holland, CCC (D), Matthias Lehnhardt (D);
Carl Loeffler, ACEN (USA); other influential works include Peter Glaser's
"Yugoslavian Diary", Achims Lipp's "European MuseumsNetwork", Detlev
Fischer's "Sponge", and Poolprocessing by Heiko Idensen and Matthias Krohn.
Ponton's "Piazza Virtuale" is an attempt to combine mass media with
dialogue ideas.


Content

An author is a broadcaster. In an exchange, on the other hand, everyone
is a receiver, everyone wants to hear from everyone else. There is an
intermediate area between these two forms: participatory art, happenings,
action art, electronic-interactive art. These do not involve exchange,
but rather provide the artist with more room in which to create. Not to be
confused with exchange is the possibility for co-production, in joint
projectsn involving co-authors.

Data traffic and exchange are processes. A work of art can also be a
process (e.g. a film). The difference between works of art and traffic is
that a work of art involves a viewing or receiveing public as a separate
entity; in and exchange, there is no "public" as such.

A communicative exchange cannot be repeated; it can only be continued -
in contrast to a theater production, for example, which is continuously
repeated. Exchanges of recorded matter such as files or video tapes
can be reproduced; so can pictures and reports, which are works in their
own right. In spite of this, the art form described here, which we like
to call telematic ars sermonis', is intended for dissemination.

Artistic, multi-sensor communication, as we intend and experience it,
does not take place publicly, but rather in official space. The fact
that its official makes it an intermediate sphere, somewhere between
intimate dialogue and the public forum into which it is intended for
projected. The form of this intention is not yet clear.

Exchange has been a recognized art form throughout history. Ars sermonis
was the form of artisitc exchange used by the ancients; in the Baroque
and Roccoco periods, the Salon was the forum for exchange, where the
spoken word was again the medium. The electronic medium is interactive,
involving all the senses (human being/being human in the network).

Appendix

Alsleben: Aesthetische Redundanz, Quickborn, 1962.

Ders.: Diskettentypografie. Hypertext, Griffelkunst, HH, 1988.

De Courten: Erste Erfahrungenmit der Kiste. HbK HH, 1993.

Dufke: Ulysses. Hypertext. Hbk HH, 1991.

Eske (Hrsg.): KuekoCokue. HbK HH, 1989ff.

Eske/Nissen: Soliparts mit chorischen Anteilen. Uni Lueneburg, 1993.

Fischer: Schwamm. Hypertext. HbK HH, 1989.

Ders.: HyperCard Correspondence. DTP, Coventry, 1991.

Justen: Formulieren in Hypertext. HbK HH, 1992.

Lehnhardt/Amman: Die Hacker sind unter uns. Muenich, 1985.

Lehnhardt: Rckkopplung durch Produktion, FUni Hagen, 1975.

Ders.: Kuenstlerische Telematik. Software HbK HH, 1992.

Lettkemann: Tastendes Forumulieren beim Korrespondieren mediens.
Hypertext. HbK HH, 1992.
