Given that I work in networking, my primary responsibility is writing for the web, and I am arguably excessively active on social media (see my introductory blog post), I consider myself to be adequately ‘network literate’. My knowledge of creative commons, prior to this weeks’ reading, was fairly basic. We had utilised creative commons during last semester’s Editing Media Texts course, but hadn’t really delved in to what creative commons really is. My initial understanding was that it contained media (text, images, video, sound… you know what media is) that was free to download and legal to use on other platforms. Stock footage, so to speak. This image I created last semester, for example, contains images from creative commons that I then photoshopped to create my own collage.
The original images do not belong to me, but does my appropriation of these images then make the work my own?
This thought took me back to a discussion that took place in my year 12 Studio Art class (2010- feels like yesterday). Controversy plagued that years’ Wynne Prize. A painting by Archibald prize winner Sam Leach took out the Wynne landscape title that year- his winning painting heavily referencing Dutch artist Adam Pynacker’s 1660 work depicting an Italian countryside. Scandal ensued, prompting art critics (and plenty of other opinionated people) to question the difference between appropriation and blatant plagiarism.
While we, as a class, never reached a concrete answer, Sam Leach’s first prize was never revoked despite the clear similarities between the two artworks. Judging by the Australian art world, appropriation is still considered original.
So is my work from last semester an “original Gemma Watts artwork”?
