The giant art list | Artspeak #2

Giving an extraordinarily loose definition of art here:_, some artists I like:

Absolutely Abby Keen

Abel Gower

Emperor Ai

Akazome Emon

Alan Booth

Alan Watts

Alfred East

Alice Hart & Ernest

Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

Anna Brassey

Antonio Gramsci [9]

Arthur Hart-Synnot & Masa Suzuki

Arthur Waley

Asai Ryoi

Basil Hall Chamberlain

Bernard Leach

Billie Holiday

Carmen Blacker

Cargill Gilston Knott

Charles Holmes

Charles Maries

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Charles William Bartlett

Christopher Dresser

Collingwood Ingram

Douglas Sladen

Edith Craig

Edith Garrud

Edmund Morel

Edward Atkinson Hornel

Edward William Godwin

Edwin Lester Linden Arnold

Ellen Terry

Elizabeth Keith

Elizabeth Tudor

Ernest Henry Wilson

Ernest Mason Satow

Ernest Thomas Bethell

Felice Beato

Frank Morley Fletcher

Frank Toovey Lake [18]

Frederick Ringer

Frederick William Sutton

Fujishima Takeji

George Bailey Sansom

Gnyuki Torimaru

Gonnoske Komai

Gordon Ambrose de Lisle Lee

Grace James 

Gunji Koizumi

Hamada Shoji

Harry Smith Parkes

Hayashi Gonsuke

Helen Caddick

Helen Waddell

Henry Dyer

Henry Faulds

Henry Spencer Palmer

Irene Clyde

Isabella Bird

Ise no Miyasudokoro

Ishibashi Kazunori

Iso Mutsu & Mutsu Hirokichi

Ivan Morris

Iwasa Matabei

James Murdoch

Jang Bogo

Jia Nanfeng

J. G. Ballard

John Batchelor [15]

John Black Reddie

John F Lowder

John Harington Gubbins

John Milne & Tone Horikawa Milne

John William Robertson Scott

Josiah Conder

Kamisaka Sekka

Kawai Kanjiro

Ken'ichi Yoshida

Kishichiro Okura

Empress Koken

Kokki Miyake

Empress Komyo

Kowada Shoryo

Kumasaku Tomita

Kunisawa Shinkuro

Li Bai

Masabumi Hosono

Masataka Taketsuru and Rita Taketsuru

Matilda Chaplin Ayrton

Marianne North 

Mary Margaret Busk

Michael Buckworth Bailey

Minoru Genda

Mixi Zia

Murasaki Shikibu

Natsume Soseki

Neil Gordon Munro

Noel Coward

Otome Sakamoto

Rachel Agatha Keen

Ranald Macdonald

Reginald Horace Blyth

Reginald Farrer

Renée Vivien

Richard Cocks

Ronald Victor Courtenay Bodley, MC

Rutherford Alcock

Ryuson Chuzo Matsuyama

Sadayakko Kawakami

Sakamoto Ryoma

Samuel Cocking

Sei Shonagon

Sessue Hayakawa

Shangguan Waner

Sherard Osborn

Shimomura Kanzan

Prince Shotoku

Suematsu Kencho

Princess Taiping

Takuya Kishi ( きし夛句弥 )

Tama Kurokawa

Tatsuno Kingo

Thomas Bake Glover

Thomas Wright Blakiston [16]

Timon Screech

Tomimoto Kenkichi

Tori Busshi

Tsuda Umeko

Tsuru Aoki

Ukida Ikkei

Uriemon Eaton

Utako Shimoda

Walter Crane

Wey Ling Nanzi

William Anderson

William Burges

William Edward Ayrton

William Empson

William George Aston

William Kinnimond Burton

William Robert Broughton

William Shakespeare

Wu Zetian

X [6]

Xi Shi

Yakumo Koizumi

Yanagi Soetsu

Yang Guifei

Yasodhara

Yei Theodora Ozaki

Yoshida Shoin

Yoshio Markino

Yuefu writers

Yuzuru Hiraga [7][8]

Empress Zhang

Zhou Fang

Bibliography

[1] https://tokyoartnavi.jp/en/column/40466/ 

[2] https://arboretum.harvard.edu/expeditions/expedition-to-japan/

[3] https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=BZ1BAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA228&dq=Gonnoske+Komai&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi6maKnleSNAxXNs1YBHYQkDvEQuwV6BAgEEAc#v=onepage&q=Gonnoske%20Komai&f=false

[4] https://cetapsrepository.letras.up.pt/items/52de4b32-6c36-490a-9fe8-e3bb206c773e

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sen_Yan%27s_Devotion

[6] https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201230/p2a/00m/0na/016000c

[7] https://warshipprojects.com/2018/04/24/the-yamato-class-genesis/#:~:text=The%20Imperial%20Japanese%20Navy's%20Yamato%20class'%20design%20history.&text=These%20British%20companies%20offered%20many%20designs%20up%20until%20at%20least%201920

[8] https://www.avalanchepress.com/Yamato.php

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaltern_(postcolonialism)

[10] 文化変容 | Cultural Acculturation | 500CE-1000CE | Essay #12 | CA Miniseries B

[10] Extract 

Cultural Appropriation

EX: Erasure of acknowledgement of Tang aesthetics as simply Wamono by the later centuries

Cultural Appreciation: the acknowledged or appropriate adoption of the practices, customs, or aesthetics of one social or ethnic group by members of another community or society

EX: The adoption of Buddhism in Japan in 552

Cultural Assimilation: the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a dominant group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group

EX: Kimono takes on the form of the Tang Chinese court dress

Pizza Effect: the phenomenon of elements of a nation's or people's culture being transformed or at least more fully embraced elsewhere, then re-imported to their culture of origin, or the way in which a community's self-understanding is influenced by foreign sources.

EX: Hiogi culture being exported to China and returned to Japan as part of Buddhist aesthetics in turn affecting popular motifs[1]

Transculturation: the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures

EX: Kasane-no-irome (襲の色目|coloured layering) which adhered to the Chinese calendar of 72 seasons became fashionable as indoor wear for women on their Junihitoe[4]

Cultural Heterogeneity: the differences in cultural identity related to class, ethnicity, language, traditions, religion, sense of place etc, that can make it more or less difficult for people to communicate, trust and co-operate with each-other 

EX: An increasing distancing away from China on Japans behalf as they went from being the 'dwarf' nation, to the 'harmony' nation of Wa, which is reflected in the increasing interest in local Japanese folklore and dress is affected by adopting Wamono literature of the Manyoshu (600-759) and Kokin Wakashu (887-920) anthologies being used to make reference to Japanese landscape scenes on textiles rather than the Chinese classics[2]

Cross-cultural competence: a persons ability to understand people from different cultures and engage with them effectively

EX: The competence of Junihitoe wearers could be seen in their ability to understand classical references to Chinese poetry and aesthetics

Cultural Diffusion: the spread of cultural items—such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies, languages—between individuals, whether within a single culture or from one culture to another e.g- the spread of Western business suits in the 20th century

EX: In this time period, technologies for creating new textile goods and decoration would emerge, one of which was embroidery which came from China into Japan by the 6th century.[5] This technique which was first used to decorate Emperors trinkets and Buddhist Mandalas, eventually becoming key to decorating Junihitoe and was spread by Korean embroiderers as well

Cultural pluralism: the practice of various ethnic groups collaborating and entering into a dialogue with one another without having to sacrifice their particular identities

EX: During this time, this became increasingly less interesting to the growing Japanese nobility who had begun to care more about their lands than shiny gifts and trinkets from abroad. An example may be the adoption of Kesa aesthetics and textiles, which became increasingly more lavish and gold as time wore on[6]

Polyculturalism: the ideological approach to the consequences of intercultural engagements within a geographical area which emphasises similarities between, and the enduring interconnectedness of, groups which self-identify as distinct, thus blurring the boundaries which may be perceived by members of those groups. Multiculturalism instead thought to emphasise difference and separateness, being divisive and harmful to social cohesion.

EX: Buddhism aesthetics in the formation of how space and desire played a role in beauty, such as embracing Mujou ( Impermenant Transition | ) qualities such as admiring falling cherry blossom and the appropriate placement of space in a composition or design, which transferred over to KTC by the Heian era[7][8][9]

Multiculturalism: the coexistence of people with many cultural identities in a common state, society, or community, also though in the prescriptive sense to refer to the political theory framework that individual cultures, groups or ethnic peoples be given their own space in the wider society which has led some to criticise policymakers use of multiculturalism as divisive (should only be considered post 1996 world due to the times tightening of immigration, the enforcing of borders and encouragement of national identity rather than encouraging individuals to think of themselves as global citizens)

EX: Korean immigrants in this era having to take on Japanese identities in the Japanese legal framework

Cultural diversity: the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural evolution. The term cultural diversity can also refer to having different cultures respect each other's differences.

EX: In contributing to KTC at this time, cultural diversity is represented by the increasing number of works including Buddhist figures from India and China who were represented in the new aesthetics influenced in turn by a mixture of Buddhist and Shinto aesthetics

Monolithic culture: a societal construct or organisation like religion which often has negative connotations in our society. For example, the percived rigidity and homogeneity of a monolithic culture that is not open to new ideas, these is their truest form are the few hunter-gatherer societies or uncontacted societies like those few found in the Amazon rainforest.

EX: Women often in this time had a better understanding of Wamono than some men in high positions, particularly in the art of writing or Onnade ( womens writing | 女手 ). The Nikki ( diary | 日記) of these nobles, for men the Tosa Nikki ( Tosa Diary | 土佐日記 | 935 ) and women authors the Kagerō Nikki ( Mayfly Diary | 蜻蛉日記 | 974) gave rise to the first uniquely Wamono genre as such Nikki Bungaku ( Diary Genre | 日記文学 )[3] This was a catalyst for KTC in the later Heian period, which through Onnade created Wamono and Wafuku points of reference originating in the Monolithic writings of 'Japanese' upper class court noblewomen

[11] Onna-E ( 女絵 | Womens pictures ) refers to the Nara, Heian and early Kamakura ( 710-1333CE ) practice of drawing women in elongated Hand scrolls, which today are regarded as feminine gender coded Art. Some of these narratives depict the lives of women, their extra diaries, or the literature they wrote. The Onna-E style derives from how mostly Heian women represented themselves and others as a performed self in these scrolls, drawing from their lives indoors at their and the imperial abodes. Whilst a limited number of women could read Kanji, they also used their knowledge of Chinese culture to create and inspire their own culture; the first truly Wamono aesthetics; and it was with these preconditions that Onna-E became established in the Japanese art scene alongside Yamato-E and Oshi-E. 

11 Isometric Projection Fukinuki Yatai

[11] https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/art-japan/nara-period/a/the-shsin-repository-and-its-treasure

[12] https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/item/rb00013523/explanation/otogi_08

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_colors_of_Japan

[14] Hikime and Kagihana

[15] https://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~matu-emk/bachel.html

[16] https://www.ulethbridge.ca/lib/digitized_collections/ourheritage/index_page_stuff/Following_Trails/Blakiston/Blakiston_Japan1.html

[17] https://grahamthomasauthor.wordpress.com/2022/02/17/lake-solving-the-mystery/

[18] https://japan-forward.com/the-british-in-bakumatsu-japan-the-tozenji-incident/

Artefacts, Problem Pictures, Signs and Women | Musings

There was an interesting genre in the late Victorian age and British painting known as 'problem pictures'. These were paintings which took a specific matter which used the artefact of painting to paint a riddle the audience had to decipher based on clues in the painting and the tone of the signs (semiotic signs) in the image.

I wrote about this for some of my undergrad, so it remains one of those rabbit holes I never seem to have time to fully complete. They are nowadays known as visual narratives and can be seen as one of the major recipients of the New Woman archetype in their subject matter, quite often.

This was most likely an offshoot of the Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood, whose whole thing was being obssessed with caputuring the idea of the medieval period in art before Raphael (1483-1520) made it poopy. This tracks, as the Tudor family used these kind of riddles and hidden messages in their works to give across the idea of promulgating Tudor mythology to the masses, rather like the role AI plays in social media for influencers today. Many knew it was fake, many knew not. The Tudors saw this gaudy display of wealth and power as a more valid form of portraiture which would solidify the throne of the kingdom of England, as the whole point of commissioning these paintings was to embody the mythos and appropriate station.[1]

The Ambassadors (1533, PD) Hans Holbein

The Rainbow Portrait (c.1600, PD) Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger

So a riddle or two to bolster the lore was par for the course in the minds of Tudor progeny, think for example the Memento Mori skull, or the Eyes and Ears on Elizabeth I's rainbow dress. Yes these were just paintings, but they were also much more than paintings. They were images that were artefacts and therefore signs for the people involved in their creation, commission and construction. It was tavern philosophy masquerading as highbrow art in which the messages implicit and explicit became as important in the appropriate reading and comprehension of the visual narrative before the person viewing it. The weird skull is both a reminder of 'funny squinty person, yes you too have an expiration date' and a reflection of the need for painting to exist as a part of statecraft. Hans Holbein after all was an established artist for the royal courts of England, which had their own problems at hand like wars with France and building empires.[2][3] For Elizabeth I have better researched this in my musing post on the earlier blog posts.

For the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, image creation was not just painting pretty pictures and beuatiful dead women, it was the idea that painting was a form of higher human endeavour, and that image creation in this way was an almost spiritual form of engaging from one human to another, via the artefact of the visual and image base, through the symbolic, philosophical, allusional and allegoric as the Tudors had done before them. This ran counter to the need for greater accuracy found in most Italian masters work and other Continental artists they may have admired or known, following the British school of thought that art was not meant to be an exact slavish copy of reality, but a window into another reality and projection of symbolism, sign, signifier (the image, e.g. the skull) and signified (the idea, e.g. momento mori).[4] A proposal issued by the likes of medieval philosophers such as Francis Bacon and Ockham of Surrey.[4]

Thus you can end up with ears on dresses, which meant something quite different as a signifed meaning to one person than another for Elizabeth. Elizabeth in this way controlled her visual and state narratives using the power of drama and gossip in the image she crafted to others in her signifiers (The Rainbow portrait for example).

Victorian problem pictures

In this vein, the Problem picture was borne once again as a genre, something inherently known to seasoned artists. Revivals of this began anew in 1850, reaching their height in 1895 and 1914. Modern versions have also appeared in the great algorithms of today. 

They stoked new debates about things many people had written to death, aided by the beating of the same poor horse to the mediocre, uninitiated and uneducated elites and mass social media technologies. For the PRB they went by the idea that

to have genuine ideas to express

to study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them

to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and learned by rote

most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.[1]

 

Arnolfini Portrait (1434, PD) Jan van Eyck

Virgin enthroned with child and two angels making music (1480, PD) Hans Hemling

Hunters in the Snow (1565, PD) Pieter Brueghel the Elder

schiavo detto atlante (c.1519, PD) Michelangelo

They rejected the slavish copying of reality of Raphael and Michelangelos, and instead took up the mantle of the Northern Mannerists and Low Countries artists like The Arnolfini Portrait. These can be seen in the details of Early Netherlandish painting, which was influenced by the taste changes in the patrons of art patrons, who trips to Italy dictated their taste in what was 'highbrow and lowbrow' art. Jan paints based on previous harmonious and human centered figures with human themes and signified themes. Italian renaissance at was instead a study of every mortuary corpse in the morgue. The lowlanders took up this attention to detail by making all of their paintings extremely detailed and full of large sweeping landscapes later taken up by people like Claude Lorraine. [1]

The problem painters wanted people to not be consumer but enjoyers of their work. They were treating their audience as important thinkers in good faith rather than mortals soul vessels only worthy of indulgences as Lorraine thought.

Women in Picture problems

Women in this way became more interesting subjects of their own stories and decision making processes. Something which consuming art historians would do well to understand. Images such as The Prodigal Daughter 1903 [1] sparked debates over the success of the fallen woman, ie women who do sex work and are successful in their endeavours and who use their favours to assist their families and loved ones. The press at the time of course it as a degrading lower class peasant girl trying to gain social clout. The questions though were the wrong ones to ask with the wrong people pointing the wrong fingers in mislead directions.

By 1910, these pictures were mainstays at the British royal academy.[1] Not too sure where I was going with this other than sticking together signifieds and pre-raphaelites, maybe an incursion into the disrupted medieval art tradition of signifiers and referents, but other than that lol. Dunno.

This has been a musing.

Bibliography

[1] https://eclecticlight.co/2016/02/19/the-story-in-paintings-problem-pictures/

[2] https://thehistorypress.co.uk/article/memento-mori-reminding-the-tudors-of-their-mortality/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signified_and_signifier

[5]

Art things of late | Artspeak #1

I came across a thing on the internet. 

http://profoundism.com/attributes.html

Also chroma (saturation in photography).

Which is not hue.  All of these are the same colour, but with different brightness levels of Chroma. So same 'hue', different 'chroma'.

 This is saturated (chroma/tic) hue

Interesting art things that have occurred of late.

Bookstore

Went in a bookstore this week.

Thats all.

lol having a blog rules.

Copyleft | Musings

Copyleft and Copyright is the common umbrella term to refer to whether a user or interacting user owns a piece of (usually) media/abstract concept. In the spirit of Copyleft, all of this is CC accredited material apart from this text.

Queen Anne (1685, PD) Jan van der Vaart, Willem Wissing, Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Public Domain

"The public domain is a range of creative works whose copyright has expired or was never established, as well as ideas and facts[note 1] which are ineligible for copyright. A public domain work is a work whose author has either relinquished to the public or no longer can claim control over, the distribution and usage of the work. As such, any person may manipulate, distribute, or otherwise use the work, without legal ramifications. A work in the public domain or released under a permissive license may be referred to as "copycenter"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_content

"In the early decades of computing, particularly from the 1950s through the 1970s, software development was largely collaborative. Programs were commonly shared in source code form among academics, researchers, and corporate developers. Most companies at the time made their revenue from hardware sales, and software—including source code—was distributed freely alongside it, often as public-domain software. By the late 1960s and 1970s, a distinct software industry began to emerge. Companies started selling software as a separate product, leading to the use of restrictive licenses and technical measures—such as distributing only binary executables—to limit user access and control. This shift was driven by growing competition and the U.S. government's antitrust scrutiny of bundled software, exemplified by the 1969 antitrust case United States v. IBM. A key turning point came in 1980 when U.S. copyright law was formally extended to cover computer software. This enabled companies like IBM to further enforce closed-source distribution models. In 1983, IBM introduced its "object code only" policy, ceasing the distribution of source code for its system software. [...] The historical precursor to FOSS was the hobbyist and academic public domain software ecosystem of the 1960s to 1980s. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux distributions and descendants of BSD are widely used, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones, and other devices. Free-software licenses and open-source licenses have been adopted by many software packages. Reasons for using FOSS include decreased software costs, increased security against malware, stability, privacy, opportunities for educational usage, and giving users more control over their own hardware. [...These were socially droven projects like] the GNU Project in 1983 [... where the] goal was to develop a complete Free software operating system and restore user freedom. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) was established in 1985 to support this mission. Stallman's GNU Manifesto and the Four Essential Freedoms outlined the movement's ethical stance, emphasizing user control over software. The release of the Linux kernel by Linus Torvalds in 1991, and its relicense under the GNU General Public License (GPL) in 1992, marked a major step toward a fully Free operating system. Other Free software projects like FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD also gained traction following the resolution of the USL v. BSDi lawsuit in 1993. In 1997, Eric Raymond’s essay *The Cathedral and the Bazaar* explored the development model of Free software, influencing Netscape’s decision in 1998 to release the source code for its browser suite. This code base became Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. To broaden business adoption, a group of developers including Raymond, Bruce Perens, Tim O’Reilly, and Linus Torvalds rebranded the Free software movement as “Open Source.” The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded in 1998 to promote this new term and emphasize collaborative development benefits over ideology. Despite initial resistance—such as Microsoft's 2001 claim that "Open-source is an intellectual property destroyer"—FOSS eventually gained widespread acceptance in the corporate world. Companies like Red Hat proved that commercial success and Free software principles could coexist. [...] The free software movement and the open-source software movement are online social movements behind widespread production, adoption and promotion of FOSS, with the former preferring to use the equivalent term free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS). FOSS is supported by a loosely associated movement of multiple organizations, foundations, communities and individuals who share basic philosophical perspectives and collaborate practically, but may diverge in detail questions. [...] By defying ownership regulations in the construction and use of information—a key area of contemporary growth—the Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) movement counters neoliberalism and privatization in general. By realizing the historical potential of an "economy of abundance" for the new digital world, FOSS may lay down a plan for political resistance or show the way towards a potential transformation of capitalism. According to Yochai Benkler, Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, free software is the most visible part of a new economy of commons-based peer production of information, knowledge, and culture. As examples, he cites a variety of FOSS projects, including both free software and open-source."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software

Copyleft

"Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, freedoms refers to the use of the work for any purpose, and the ability to modify, copy, share, and redistribute the work, with or without a fee. Licenses which implement copyleft can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works ranging from computer software, to documents, art, and scientific discoveries, and similar approaches have even been applied to certain patents.

The origin of the term comes from "Li-Chen Wang's Palo Alto Tiny BASIC for the Intel 8080 [first] appeared in Dr. Dobb's Journal in May 1976. The listing begins with the title, author's name, and date, but also has "@COPYLEFT ALL WRONGS RESERVED"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

"There have been several attempts to define open source and free software. Amongst the earliest was Free Software Foundation's Free Software Definition, which then defined as the three freedoms of Free Software (Freedom Zero was added later). Published versions of FSF's Free Software Definition existed as early as 1986, having been published in the first edition of the (now defunct) GNU's Bulletin. [...] The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) was [then] first published together with the first version of the Debian Social Contract in July 1997."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition

"Debian GNU/Linux (/ˈdɛbiən/),[7][8] or simply Debian, is a free and open source[b] Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kernel, and is the basis of many other Linux distributions. As of September 2023, Debian is the second-oldest Linux distribution still in active development: only Slackware is older."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian

"The concept of applying free software licenses to content was introduced by Michael Stutz, who in 1997 wrote the paper "Applying Copyleft to Non-Software Information" for the GNU Project. The term "open content" was coined by David A. Wiley in 1998 and evangelized via the Open Content Project, describing works licensed under the Open Content License (a non-free share-alike license, see 'Free content' below) and other works licensed under similar terms. The website of the Open Content Project once defined open content as 'freely available for modification, use and redistribution under a license similar to those used by the open-source / free software community'. However, such a definition would exclude the Open Content License because that license forbids charging for content; a right required by free and open-source software licenses. [...] Unlike free content and content under open-source licenses, there is no clear threshold that a work must reach to qualify as 'open content'. The 5Rs are put forward on the Open Content Project website as a framework for assessing the extent to which content is open:

Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)

Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)

Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)

Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)

Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend). 

This broader definition distinguishes open content from open-source software, since the latter must be available for commercial use by the public. However, it is similar to several definitions for open educational resources, which include resources under noncommercial and verbatim licenses. [...] In 2006, a Creative Commons' successor project, the Definition of Free Cultural Works, was introduced for free content. It was put forth by Erik Möller, Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Benjamin Mako Hill, Angela Beesley, and others. The Definition of Free Cultural Works is used by the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2009, the Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons licenses were marked as Approved for Free Cultural Works."

So in theory, copyleft operates under the assumption that offering open content freely and publicly as a social community resource will lead to an economy of abundance in a postscarcity economic model of the means of production. (seize the means! lmao)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity

"Technology has reduced the cost of publication and reduced the entry barrier sufficiently to allow for the production of widely disseminated materials by individuals or small groups. Projects to provide free literature and multimedia content have become increasingly prominent owing to the ease of dissemination of materials that are associated with the development of computer technology. [...] Free and open-source software, which is often referred to as open source software and free software, is a maturing technology with companies using them to provide services and technology to both end-users and technical consumers. The ease of dissemination increases modularity, which allows for smaller groups to contribute to projects as well as simplifying collaboration. Some claim that open source development models offer similar peer-recognition and collaborative benefit incentive as in more classical fields such as scientific research, with the social structures that result leading to decreased production costs. Given sufficient interest in a software component, by using peer-to-peer distribution methods, distribution costs may be reduced, easing the burden of infrastructure maintenance on developers. As distribution is simultaneously provided by consumers, these software distribution models are scalable; that is, the method is feasible regardless of the number of consumers. In some cases, free software vendors may use peer-to-peer technology as a method of dissemination. Project hosting and code distribution is not a problem for most free projects as a number of providers offer these source-code-hosting provider provider free of charge."

For instance, the Open Knowledge Foundation's Open Definition describes "open" as synonymous with the definition of free in the "Definition of Free Cultural Works" (as also in the Open Source Definition and Free Software Definition).[5] For such free/open content both movements recommend the same three Creative Commons licenses, the CC BY, CC BY-SA, and CC0. [...] Any country has its own law and legal system, sustained by its legislation, which consists of documents. In a democratic country, laws are published as open content, in principle free content; but in general, there are no explicit licenses attributed for the text of each law, so the license must be assumed as an implied license. Only a few countries have explicit licenses in their law-documents, as the UK's Open Government Licence (a CC BY compatible license). In the other countries, the implied license comes from its proper rules (general laws and rules about copyright in government works). The automatic protection provided by the Berne Convention does not apply to the texts of laws: Article 2.4 excludes the official texts from the automatic protection. It is also possible to "inherit" the license from context. The set of country's law-documents is made available through national repositories. Examples of law-document open repositories: LexML Brazil, Legislation.gov.uk, and N-Lex. In general, a law-document is offered in more than one (open) official version, but the main one is that published by a government gazette. So, law-documents can eventually inherit license expressed by the repository or by the gazette that contains it."

"In academic work, the majority of works are not free, although the percentage of works that are open access is growing. Open access refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions to access and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license restrictions).[24] Authors may see open access publishing as a way of expanding the audience that is able to access their work to allow for greater impact, or support it for ideological reasons.[25][26] Open access publishers such as PLOS and BioMed Central provide capacity for review and publishing of free works; such publications are currently more common in science than humanities. Various funding institutions and governing research bodies have mandated that academics must produce their works to be open-access, in order to qualify for funding, such as the US National Institutes of Health, Research Councils UK (effective 2016) and the European Union (effective 2020). [...[ For teaching purposes, some universities, including MIT, provide freely available course content, such as lecture notes, video resources and tutorials. This content is distributed via Internet to the general public. [...] Open content publication has been seen as a method of reducing costs associated with information retrieval in research, as universities typically pay to subscribe for access to content that is published through traditional means.[9][34] Subscriptions for non-free content journals may be expensive for universities to purchase, though the articles are written and peer-reviewed by academics themselves at no cost to the publisher. [...] Free and open content has been used to develop alternative routes towards higher education. Open content is a free way of obtaining higher education that is focused on collective knowledge and the sharing and reuse of learning and scholarly content. There are multiple projects and organizations that promote learning through open content, including OpenCourseWare and Khan Academy. Some universities, like MIT, Yale, and Tufts are making their courses freely available on the internet. There are also a number of organizations promoting the creation of openly licensed textbooks such as the University of Minnesota's Open Textbook Library, Connexions, OpenStax College, the Saylor Academy, Open Textbook Challenge, and Wikibooks."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_content

Copyright

"In most countries, the Berne Convention grants copyright holders control over their creations by default. Therefore, copyrighted content must be explicitly declared free by the authors, which is usually accomplished by referencing or including licensing statements from within the work. The right to reuse such a work is granted by the authors in a license known as a free license, a free distribution license, or an open license, depending on the rights assigned. These freedoms given to users in the reuse of works (that is, the right to freely use, study, modify or distribute these works, possibly also for commercial purposes) are often associated with obligations (to cite the original author, to maintain the original license of the reused content) or restrictions (excluding commercial use, banning certain media) chosen by the author. [...] Copyright is a legal concept, which gives the author or creator of a work legal control over the duplication and public performance of their work. In many jurisdictions, this is limited by a time period after which the works then enter the public domain. Copyright laws are a balance between the rights of creators of intellectual and artistic works and the rights of others to build upon those works. During the time period of copyright the author's work may only be copied, modified, or publicly performed with the consent of the author, unless the use is a fair use. Traditional copyright control limits the use of the work of the author to those who either pay royalties to the author for usage of the author's content or limit their use to fair use. Secondly, it limits the use of content whose author cannot be found.[10] Finally, it creates a perceived barrier between authors by limiting derivative works, such as mashups and collaborative content."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_content

"The concept of copyright developed after the printing press came into use in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was associated with a common law and rooted in the civil law system. The printing press made it much cheaper to produce works, but as there was initially no copyright law, anyone could buy or rent a press and print any text. Popular new works were immediately re-set and re-published by competitors, so printers needed a constant stream of new material. Fees paid to authors for new works were high and significantly supplemented the incomes of many academics. Printing brought profound social changes. The rise in literacy across Europe led to a dramatic increase in the demand for reading matter. Prices of reprints were low, so publications could be bought by poorer people, creating a mass audience. In German-language markets before the advent of copyright, technical materials, like popular fiction, were inexpensive and widely available; it has been suggested this contributed to Germany's industrial and economic success.

The concept of copyright first developed in England. In reaction to the printing of "scandalous books and pamphlets", the English Parliament passed the Licensing of the Press Act 1662, which required all intended publications to be registered with the government-approved Stationers' Company, giving the Stationers the right to regulate what material could be printed. The Statute of Anne, enacted in 1710 in England and Scotland, provided the first legislation to protect [publisher] copyrights [rights to copy the text] (but not authors' rights). The Copyright Act 1814 extended more rights for authors but did not protect British publications from being reprinted in the US. The Berne International Copyright Convention of 1886 finally provided protection for authors among the countries who signed the agreement, although the US did not join the Berne Convention until 1989. [...] Copyright laws allow products of creative human activities, such as literary and artistic production, to be preferentially exploited and thus incentivized. Different cultural attitudes, social organizations, economic models and legal frameworks are seen to account for why copyright emerged in Europe and not, for example, in Asia. In the Middle Ages in Europe, there was generally a lack of any concept of literary property due to the general relations of production, the specific organization of literary production and the role of culture in society. The latter refers to the tendency of oral societies, such as that of Europe in the medieval period, to view knowledge as the product and expression of the collective, rather than to see it as individual property. However, with copyright laws, intellectual production comes to be seen as a product of an individual, with attendant rights. The most significant point is that patent and copyright laws support the expansion of the range of creative human activities that can be commodified. This parallels the ways in which capitalism led to the commodification of many aspects of social life that earlier had no monetary or economic value per se. Copyright has developed into a concept that has a significant effect on nearly every modern industry, including not just literary work, but also forms of creative work such as sound recordings, films, photographs, software, and architecture."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

GNU template definition https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software FOSS

A quote from Karl Marx in 1848 | Musings

A quote from Karl Marx in 1848:

The country, however, which transforms whole nations into proletarians; which with its gigantic arms encompasses the whole globe; which has already once defrayed the cost of the European counter-revolution; and in which class antagonism has reached a high degree of development – England appears to be the rock on which the revolutionary waves split and disperse and which starves the coming society even in the womb. England dominates the world markets. A revolution of the economic conditions of any country of the European Continent or even of the whole Continent, is but a storm in a glass of water, unless England actively participates in it. The condition of trade and commerce of any nation depends upon its intercourse with other nations, depends upon its relations with the world markets. England controls the world markets, and the bourgeoisie controls England.

The [political] emancipation of Europe, either in the form of raising the oppressed nationalities to independence or of the final overthrow of feudal absolutism, is conditioned upon the victorious rising of the French working class. But any social revolutionary upheaval in Europe must necessarily miscarry, unless the English bourgeoisie or the industrial and commercial supremacy of Great Britain is shaken. Any aspiration for a lasting, though partial social transformation in France or any other part of the European Continent must remain an empty, pious wish. And old England will only be overthrown in a world war, which alone would give the Chartist Party, the organised English Labour Party, the possibility of a successful rising against its stupendous oppressor. The Chartists at the head of the English Government – only from this moment would the social revolution emerge from the realm of Utopia and enter the sphere of reality

This quote, from 1848, talks of a bygone empire and world power, but not a bygone global soft power.  'The country, however, which transforms whole nations into proletarians' is very much speaking on today neo-colonial structures and England's place amongst those frameworks is poignant. It is not one of France in Africa with it's imposition of the CFA Franc for example, or of AID agreements disguising the draining of African resources for example, but instead one of an ex-colonial overlord who exists in the Commonwealth soft power vacuum of ill begotten leftover prestige, industry and woe-inducing sacrifices to obtain some semblance of leftover pride and inclusion in diversity and freedoms still unknown for many today.

'which has already once defrayed the cost of the European counter-revolution' being the idea that the industrial revolution had replaced the European luddites as it were, bringing an end to European cottage industries and guild workshops.

'England appears to be the rock on which the revolutionary waves split and disperse and which starves the coming society even in the womb.' The revolution of the European proletariat perhaps here, had indeed dullened the capacity for old industries to operate as they once did. The coming society indeed being the proletariat it seems in this phrasing, as the Bourgeoisie are considered separate, and may talk of the global proletariat and Bourgeoisie.

There are multiple contenders at this time for the title of superpower, but it seems most reminiscent of 1500's Europe, when most of those contenders won their gains from proletariat labour. 

'A revolution of the economic conditions of any country of the European Continent or even of the whole Continent, is but a storm in a glass of water, unless England actively participates in it.' This sentence has a whiff of truth to it yet. When Brexit occurred, every German newspaper and critic seemed to have something to say, yet after 2020, the same stagnation inherent in the destruction tendencies those in charge held were what had sent the British economy into its downwards and upwards spirals. Yet the chnage this time was that there was no industrial revolution. Germany contributed well to the global export market, yet not in other expectable areas of comparison, and indeed the British economy can be said to have found other avenues due it's almost hegemonic soft power status and sacrifices. The key theme here being that unless England 'actively participates', new F-35's are only built for the competing superpower, not superpowers, and the incumbent defense spending goes on British-Japanese-Italian endeavours. This is the case given that 'England controls the world markets, and the bourgeoisie controls England' is nowadays the USA, or China. Yet the UK still holds sway over many unexpected outcomes, whilst instead now being a mostly impoverished proletariat nation.

Indeed, 'the final overthrow of feudal absolutism' came with the advent of the middle management roles the industrial revolution created by the 1950s, and went away with the outsourcing of today's superpowers if anything, who only saw fit to create the sweatshop creations of our modern bargain bins. As for the 'the victorious rising of the French working class' see the CFA Franc. 

And with the 'English bourgeoisie or the industrial and commercial supremacy of Great Britain' thoroughly shaken, this seems a ripe occurrence, given France's protest have left us with but a river of excrement in the wake of the Olympics. 

Another one 'old England will only be overthrown in a world war', was dubitably what saw this shaking take place, as the colonial structures had arguably begun to fray by the 1890s anyway with the beginning of Asian, African and other indigenous calls for Independence anyway. Ironically begun in the very education systems of 'old England' and even proletariat England, as a salty rock Tyke that is, which it is must be said is an important place Mr.Marx forsake when he renamed centuries old proletariat sentiments in favour of his own personality cult if we are to be closer to the reality.

Poignant though when I think about Japan's involvement in both of the world wars, as a spectator from the backend of social liberalist theory and Chartist Liberal realpolitick postindustrial and WWII lived experience as to the role 'England' still plays on the world stage as a soft power, a role it also took up in similar fashion under Elizabeth I as a supposedly weak and yet somehow mighty? country worthy of a moniker such as Perfidious Albion by the very same storm in a glass of water which birthed Marx's own world, yet ignored the world outside the glass of water to lead to the state of affairs the post 1900's Britain which had left splendid isolation found itself in.

Highschool nonsense | Musings

Some slightly altered notes from my cringy highschool time which were actually interesting and I will probably come back too later:

Abstraktni obraz cropped (2018, CC4.0) Tadeas Navratil, Takashipoma

I chose the theme of my piece to be on the relationships with which we hold between Mass-produced artworks or commercial works, commonly regarded as lower value than fine art pieces and how we set these values among the art world.

When I chose to do Superflat, I was looking for a modern style of artistic movement. Upon finding this movement, it struck a chord with me. Mainly due to it's portrayal of hard hitting issues such as Capitalism and Hyper-sexualisation in our modern society etcetera with a relatively simplistic aesthetic. So I began to focus on works that were incredibly 'deep' or philosophical one may say, in a style which some may say took away from the message. I wanted to deliberately do this in order to ask the question as to what the relationship was between what the collective viewer calls low end and 'fine art'.

So the aesthetic became comic book styled and the message the opposite to the percieved notions which come with creating art in this style. I wanted to ask the question of the reader as to why a piece done in for example oils is valued higher than a piece done on the same topic and with the same values of one carried out by comics, or with the case of Superflat 'Manga'.

So I began making a series as well as practising the technical stylings of traditional works held in museums, worth large amounts or held as some of the most famous pieces of art today. The series made was made in the same animation style as that used by the Superflat movement (Takashi Murakami, Aya Takano, Yoshitomo Nara, Chiho Aoshima) whilst accommodating in personal views on deeply philosphical points on modern day culture. These included the pieces; The God Complex, The Poverty Gap, The Model, To Be Above, The World We Have Made For Ourselves and involved the use of a character who was more the embodification of my ideas towards these situations in what was the right path to take on these topics [as a cringy highschool student taking mandatory classes].

The God Complex follows the current plight modern society faces with religions. In the piece the figure sits in the middle of 4 paths. 3 visible and the final one facing the viewer, that being symbolic of the viewpoint of the viewer in all this. The figure dismisses each of these paths to pursue a black butterfly, a reference to 'Bleach' (Tite Kubo 2001-2016) in which these butterflies represent the path to the afterlife. The smoke, blood and gloop emanating from each choice represents the aftereffects of going down these paths and their implications, which lie unseen and clearly unacknowledged by the figure. Not in that they do not know of their shortcomings, but dismisses them due to this, thus ignoring them entirely. I wished to ask the question here that we must have a god ruling over us, and that we are not simply content to be the masters of our own lives and futures. Instead to live out our lives in a zen like manner of peace, facing death on our terms. 

The Poverty Gap asked of our economic ruin. With the stock market crash of 2008, came the recession. The figure sits atop a cliff, here meant to represent capitalism (yes Das Kapital 1867-1894). The so called 'rock' or 'base' of our societal financial system. They are an active member and thus has to view into this problem as do all the other members of those involved. This includes the social classes and more recently female workers and feminists in our society. These are the larger individuals in between and atop the rock also. They are seen to be digging away at the rock, and yet pulling up a large wooden barrier either side. These are the bonds which we use to allow capitalism to work, yet we chip away in our daily lives at the very same system because we allow inconsistencies in social class, such as the 1% of people owning the majority of wealth across capitalism for example. We are hypocrites of the finest kind, upholding systems which were meant to help equal trade and fair pay for workers have instead allowed corporate financial takeovers. Then there is a large bird flying through the sky above carrying people in rags bundled together in its beak. These are the lowest class, the poor, as the lower down the illustration you go the higher the class being. This is due to their involuntary part in their choice to be poor. Nobody of course chooses to be poor, they are simply born into an unequal society across the world (thinking of Thomas Mores Utopia 1516 and Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, 1651 in the social contract theory sense, really Hobbes 'the state of nature', John Locke and Francis Bacon's philosophy of nature). They escape then the clouds below them which are representative of the government. Governments meant to be fair and for justice, have instead become corrupt and biased (thinking in a Blazing World, 1666 by Cavendish, Utopia sentiment). The average opinion of politicians in the 21st century is one of broken promises and austerity. They pump money into the economy and only that currency is granted to be legal. The reason as to the poor sitting above these clouds then are due to the money made here being on the 'black market'. In areas such as human trafficking, prostitution and other illegal activities where money is to be made from vulnerable minorities. The hammer stood on by the rich and held aloft by the middle classes is socialism, breaking up some ideals and motions held by capitalist supporters (was heavily inspired by the work of the social realists, later Atkinson Grimshaw and Turner in contrast to the enduring Whistlers). The reason though as to why it is called The Poverty Gap is due to the split in the rock, here meaning the differences among the social classes and the ideals which they inhibit, endorse and craft themselves into in our modern day society.

The Model is a play on words with fashion models and being the epitome of something, The picture was taken from an advert about runway models. The image was of the model being readied and it struck me as it showed numerous people making the final product being sent out to the consumers. Not a single person as glossy magazines make a reader think. It showed that these women and men are not perfect, flawless sculpted and toned bodies but instead people pushed to their limits with entire teams of designers, hairstylist and cosmetic specialists to help them. I thought it thoroughly showed the contradiction of modern day advertising in which we allow our bodies to become commodities (simulacrum in a commercial sense in going against Baconian philosophy in the role of studying science in an ode to god, instead in pursuing science for pure profit based metrics or seeing nature as something to be tamed and sold, and the Roman continuation of the body/man as sepearate to nature and a nature-tamer, rather than man as nature under gods in the Animistic/Shinto sense) to be sold on the premise of 'sex sells' (or asexuality and nymphomania almost). And that this was the model example of this, delivered by an advert nonetheless. 

To Be Above was about placing ourselves above others. Here the figure was situated above the 'below somebody' who had placed themselves on a soap box (the soap box figure is the American art world, the ground figure is everyone else who just wants to enjoy their 'Asian cartoons'). A common analogy for somebody believing their worth is above that of others. They scold a once again dismissive gfigure who is too busy looking at a rounded object on the floor (a reference to the shit in the sewers, in the way that Muqi's, 1210-1269, 6 persimmons has to answer to the hierarchical Global North's pandering that it's 'just some fruit', that no it isn't just some fruit, it's valid art with metaphysical and philosophical notions outside of an American ethnocentric context, in the same way that Manga is a cartoon and therefore, 'for kids' because 'all cartoons are for kids', ie, dismissing entire art traditions as invalid because they do not fit into a bigoted and in the bigger picture niche ethnocentric worldview. That is that the west imposes its views on other people, looking down on them, yet Muqi is not bothered as they are more interested in the natural ongoings around them to care about one cultures framing of what 'valid landscape art' is. Muqi does not care. Americans may care in some dominance fight sense, but East Asian peoples are too busy just getting on with life and laughing at silly notions that Americans push when they are proud of their own culture and histories). This is to symbolise that everyone thinks of things as being below or above them at times. The grate in reference to Marilyn Monroe and her famous white dress picture (thinking of Lichtenstein and Warhol, as well as Hollywood and Laura Mulvey's 1973 Male Gaze theory) as a note of cultural reference as to belittling others by sexually objectifying them, as we have in the mass media towards women, otherwise called the male gaze of the camera. It made the point though that to be above something, you must first make a hierarchy (an ode to art before and after the Elizabethan era portraiture of women and that of Continental European women who swore their allegiance to patriarchal modes). The box also notes that ground us if equal level, making both characters here to be equal in their rights and stance. 

The World We Have Made For Ourselves was an environmental photographical set I made which was to prompt the question of why we pollute the world we live in  and carry on doing so. The world the paper person is in is a city made of rubbish. This was notably made of one weeks worth of rubbish from one person. I wanted to ask of the moral implications we have with living in this manner. (The work of Hayao Miyazaki and the Animistic underpinnings of Shintoism).

For my final exam I wanted to place myself on equal footing with the viewer and ask myself to think outside the box, using a prompt list and six main objects so as to allow the viewer to think for themselves in giving them thought provoking material in the randomly assorted objects we find in everyday life. The main theme being that the character is aware of their being simply one person, and that in order to leave the predetermined room they have made for themself, they must look to outside sources, outside of their comfort zone, room and individual tastes so to speak. The fact that each item floats (Ink wash painting from the Tang Dynasty, Zen Buddhist paintings from the 14th century known as Suiboku first painted by Josetsu 1405-1496 or Sesson Shūkei (1504-1589, objects 'floating' across a 2-D space coming from Edo/Azuchi-Momoyama art culture, principally the floating world of Asai Ryoi, 1612-1691, in his Enso and screens such as the Hasegawa school, Rinpa school's Ogata Korin and the Kano School until 1683-1755 and Maruyama Okyo for example in contradistinction to Western ideals of landscape art as including human figures such as Pieter Breughel the Elder, Nicolas Poussin or Northern Mannerism) is to allow the viewer to link / connect items between each object on their own terms. To literally think outside of the box so to speak than taking the content at face value. Thus they must think outside the box (my final Undergraduate paper of Artefacts, Semiotics or the study of signs and Mediveal social media townhall pamphlets springs to mind). It may also be noteworthy that the diagonal drawing of the room is styled after Ukiyo-E (and Fukinuki-Yatai or Women's style Onna-E-maki), the style which inspires much of Eastern animation ad superflat as an art movement aesthetically. I did this during the exam by using a prompt sheet with no images to make the subsequent final piece. It was all based from memory.

https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/landscape-painting-in-the-netherlands

https://kaguyaschest.blogspot.com/search?q=onna-e

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqi

https://www.olivierrobert.net/post/landscapes-and-minimalism-the-influence-of-japanese-sansui-in-photography

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-japanese-concept-onkochishin-to-apply-for-a-better-future-750ad88da153

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