(Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds)
(NOTE: Some very good responses since this was posted - below as well as on the related posts, especially the very first one. Check E.E. Nixon's and Struan's in particular.)
After my post yesterday there was a comment on both that and the earlier post which I wanted to respond to (note that it is listed under the first post).
I'm not going to respond to every point, but I wanted to highlight a few:"REB" writes:
In the first instance, Burdeny's work is not plagerism, by definition and as others have stated.
If Leong would have his way no one could produce an image in the same style as his. In photography, with digital camera and photoshopping, that will be an impossible conclusion.
The copying of an idea and execution of an idea, if limited to the originator and if applied across the spectrum of mankind and the evolution of ideas would lead to one of each idea and nothing else. The use of an idea and/or execution of an idea is neither copy written or trademarked.
Ideas that can demonstrate technical specifications mat be patented, however, I am sure that an image of some element of the World is not in that category.
The other element of this blog, is the individuals who are so quick to be critical, but even here they are plagerizing Leong and his idea that Burdeny did him wrong. His idea by those standards are his alone and should be expressed by others.
God forbid, in our society, if ideas become the sole property of the first who expresses the idea.
Tim's comment of Burdeny's lazy approach shows that he doesn't know Burdeny's work ethic.
Tom G. says “The images are photographed with an 8”x10” view camera and printed as chromogenic color prints, Each image offers a finely grained density of visual information, rendered in the broad range of tonality only made possible by the 8”x10” inch transparency..."
This description has always been evident in ALL of Burdeny's work.
By Tom G. standard, the use of any format would be owned by the initial user. Bluntly stated... Get a Life.
In the first instance, Burdeny's work is not plagerism, by definition and as others have stated.
I've left it up to people to decide whether or not Burdeny's work is plagiarism. The Oxford English Dictionary's ("The definitive record of the English language"...) definition in yesterday's post is as clear and straightforward as any other I have come across. A work, portion of a work, idea or concept can be plagiarized.
The copying of an idea and execution of an idea, if limited to the originator and if applied across the spectrum of mankind and the evolution of ideas would lead to one of each idea and nothing else. The use of an idea and/or execution of an idea is neither copy written or trademarked.
This seems to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of plagiarism. I don't believe the first point to be true at all. And as for copyright and trademark - plagiarism is essentially a moral and ethical issue not a legal issue. As a concept, plagiarism has been around for a long time - since at least the 17th Century and probably longer. It hasn't yet seemed to have had the sort of stifling effect on creativity that REB fears.
Tim's comment of Burdeny's lazy approach shows that he doesn't know Burdeny's work ethic.
I'm not concerned with anybody's work ethic - rather that plagiarism displays a certain intellectual and creative laziness. Many plagiarists seem to work extremely hard. Imagine the amount of work - the time and effort - that goes into writing a full length book. Several years of writing and editing, finding a publisher and so on only to have the whole thing shredded at the end of the day because it was found they plagiarized someone else's words or novel. What an expensive risk to take (see final OED quote).
Tom G. says “The images are photographed with an 8”x10” view camera and printed as chromogenic color prints, Each image offers a finely grained density of visual information, rendered in the broad range of tonality only made possible by the 8”x10” inch transparency..."
I don't believe Tom.G was commenting on the use of camera format as a form of plagiarism (interesting concept...), but rather on the extremely close correlation between the wording of the two artists statements.
As most readers probably know, since it's inception the OED has sought out and included examples of historical and contemporary usage of the words it defines. I'll leave you with two from it's entry for plagiarism:
1753 (Dr.) JOHNSON Adventurer No. 95.
"Nothing..can be more unjust than to charge an author with plagiarism merely because he..makes his personages act as others in like circumstances have done". 9
1820 W. HAZLITT Lect. Dramatic Lit. 257 "If an author is once detected in borrowing, he will be suspected of plagiarism ever after".
5 comments:
Burdeny's real crime isn't plagiarism, but careerist bandwagon-jumping. My impression is that this is not his first offence. His iceberg photos, though lovely, appeared after Disko Bay had already been raked over by other art photographers, notably Lyn Davis. One of them is a direct, um, tribute, to Sally Gall.
For me at least, the major issue isn't really the difference between inspiration and copying, but the way that the desire to have a career in art moulds the sort of art you choose to make. The fault here lies as much with galleries and buyers who value labels and genres over individual taste, as it does with individual photographers who choose to follow the incentives such a system inevitably provides.
I've read your blogs here on this subject and a couple of others.
I don't quite know where I stand on this particular case but there are a few elements about photographic plagiarism that I think are quite important.
By choosing subjects that lend themselves well to being photographed (eg. unusual rock formations, cities with famous and/or interesting architecture, tourist destinations) the chances of producing an image very similar to one already in existence is increased.
The challenge for many is to show a heavily photographed subject in a new light and to do this one must be aware of previously produced photographs. If Burdeny had done some research surely he would have con across Leong's work at some point?
Also, by going out into the world and photographing what is there you're out there with thousands of others, this is nothing like being in a studio environment where one has full control over the image.
If a studio image with very specific and directed elements was copied I think it would be a simpler argument, the only (very weak I feel) defense would be ignorance to the existence of the original.
I love the OED, think its a monumental human achievement, etc., etc., but it is a backward looking beast, by definition and intent. Part of the difficulty here, around this plagiarism discussion seems to arise from the *current* and, in a sense, future meanings of the word.
The Burdeny work seems to have raised a whole range of issues that float and swirl like dust and affect in all sorts of ways, not just the denotation of 'plagiarism' but its connotation as well. For example:
* the mind numbing volume of images in the world
* the authenticity of the viewing experience
* the limited capability of evaluating images based on their representation via JPEG through a browser
* limited and limiting access to locations deemed historically, aesthetically, or photographically significant
* who did what first and to whom
* awareness of other work and/or general trends: does the Internet guarantee full knowledge or compartmentalize & homogenize creativity / originality
* is creativity synonymous with originality?
* values applying to amateurs in contrast to those applied to professionals
* what is a professional in this context?
* market prices and the role of the Art World in rationing supply for the purpose of elevating price both current and future valued.
* controversy for the purpose of generating buzz and PR.
I'll stop but there are at least a few more items that might be added to the list.
Here are a few things that I at least think are (personal or objective) *facts* about the situation:
* I have never seen any images of any of the parties to this dispute 'in the flesh' -- how many of the people commenting have?
* I have seen excessively small JPEG versions via a browser.
* Can I make a definitive judgment based on my limited experience?
* Am I in position to judge for myself whether it really matters, i.e., whether I think any of this work is actually any good?
* In what way? E.g., as reportage? As art?
* The images I've seen of the two photographers are similar.
* The images I've seen are not the same.
* Burdeny's statement contains similar text to Leong's
* Burdeny has given inadequate explanations of his work in the context of the controversy.
* Burdeny seems to be quite an inarticulate fellow and I wonder if that is significant in a larger sense/context.
* Questionable morality doesn't seem to have occurred to Burdeny but it's hard to assess his stance given his inarticulateness.
* Of the parties to this dispute, the gallerists and lawyers are doing most of the talking and are probably going to make out best from this controversy.
Burdeny's sin isn't that he plagiarized. In photography, it's damned near impossible to do that effectively. He enslaved himself to a kind of servile idolatry. He could have done something similar, with different (more creative, playful, philosophical, humorous, imaginative, etc) intentions, and had something.
For example, he could have framed his work conceptually along the lines of a Neo-Rephotographic Survey, or spoken to the ideas expressed by e.e. nixon, injected a political spin, the notion of the cliche'd, showed us where the photographer stood, blah, blah, anything. But he didn't, and that makes it unforgivably boring.
I have to agree with Struan that plagiarism isn't the appropriate term for what this discussion is about. For a somewhat different angle on this whole issue in regard to photography, look at Photosynth, an astounding piece of technology developed my Microsoft. Essentially what it does is take a bunch of photos and creates a three-dimensional model of the photographed object. For example, by scraping the many pictures of Notre Dame from Flickr it can algorithmically create a remarkably high quality 3D image of the cathedral and stitch together the photographs to create a texture map for the whole building. The point here is that a debate solely on the basis of similar photographs has long been outpaced by reality. There are literally thousands, and many more in some cases, of almost the exact same photograph in the world.
Of course when one presents a photo as art, the critical bar is raised significantly, but how do you draw a line? How much farther to the left or right would Burdeny need to stand on the bank of the Seine before it wasn't plagiarism? Would we say that either had plagarized a black and white photo from the same vantage taken in the 20s? Honestly I don't find either picture overly compelling. They are well composed, show technical ability, but they remain fairly straight-forward landscape images of one of the more recognizable venues in the Western world. Plagiarism is, and should be, about intent, but it's also about some ability to specify origins. In writing this subject is made much easier. Since an exact reproduction of a sentence or paragraph is somewhat unlikely to begin with, and since any element of prose on a literary level is especially interrelated to the elements around, it will generally appear in the same context. In other words written plagiarism generally address the questions of origina and intent simultaneously. The visual word has always had a more ambiguous standard. In high fashion the exact same dress is released - almost never with direct attribution to the original - every few decades, and it is praised as a classic design.
The Burendy and Leong images reach this clash simply because they were taken in almost the same period and medium. However, the seasons in the shots still differ, and the saturation of the photos is clearly not the same. Any conflict over plagiarism is ultimately nothing more than a commercial dispute between two working artists in a very small and competitive field, which is the only reason they ever even discovered the similarity. I find it unlikely that Leong wants to take the position that he has the sole rights to that vantage point, which has literally been experienced by millions. The idea that it is plagiarism because they both presented their photos in the context of a landscape series is equally ridiculous. These photos, in my opinion, amount mainly to a technical exercise, and both in the context of this year and this century do not express a new or creative view. If these artists find it worthwhile to fight a legal battle over this image, it seems to me they would be better served putting that time into furthering their art.
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