FW: NEWSgrist: Semiotic Disobedience

Nov. 30, 2007

Type: discussion

Check it out.

—— Forwarded Message
From: NEWSgrist - where spin is art <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:06:40 -0800 (PST)
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: NEWSgrist: Semiotic Disobedience

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Semiotic Disobedience
<http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2007/11/semiotic-disobe.html>
<http://www.sinsign.com/weblog/archives/semiotic_disobedience/>

A few days ago, Sonia Katyal, a lawyer at Fordham, emailed me the abstract
and link to her paper "Semiotic Disobedience" asking me to feel free to
distribute at will… so here it is [link and abstract below]. I started
reading it this morning. Sonia's assertion that " propertization offers a
subsidy to particular types of expression over others" is particularly
interesting to me, due to my scandalous activity of appropriating images
from mass media and screwing them around to make paintings.
>=20
> Semiotic Disobedience
> SONIA KATYAL <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=3D11=
5375>
> Fordham University School of Law
> Washington University Law Review, Vol. 84, No. 2, 2006 <javascript:void(0=
);>
> Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1015500 <javascript:void(0);=
>
>=20
> Abstract: [download paper
> <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3D1015500>
> <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3D1015500> ]
> Nearly twenty years ago, a prominent media studies professor, John Fiske
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fiske_%28media_studies%29> , coined th=
e
> term "semiotic democracy" to describe a world where audiences freely and
> widely engage in the use of cultural symbols in response to the forces of
> media. Although Fiske originally referenced the audience's power in viewi=
ng
> and interpreting television narratives, today, his vision of semiotic
> democracy has become perhaps the single most important ideal cited by sch=
olars
> who imagine a utopian relationship between law, technology, and democrati=
c
> culture.=20
>=20
> In this Article, I seek to introduce another framework to supplement Fisk=
e's
> important metaphor: the phenomenon of "semiotic disobedience." Three
> contemporary cultural moments in the world - one corporate, one academic,=
and
> one artistic - call for a new understanding of the limitations and
> possibilities of semiotic democracy and underline the need for a suppleme=
ntary
> framework.=20
>=20
> As public spaces have become converted into vehicles for corporate advert=
ising
> - ads painted onto sidewalks and into buildings, schools, and other publi=
c
> spaces - product placement has soared to new heights of power and subtlet=
y.
> And throughout, the law has generously offered near-sovereign protection =
to
> such symbolism through the ever-expanding vehicle of intellectual propert=
y
> protection. Equations between real property and intellectual property are
> ubiquitous. Underlying these themes is a powerful linkage between intelle=
ctual
> and tangible property: as one expands, so does the other.
>=20
> Yet at the same time, there is another facet that is often left out of th=
e
> picture, involving the increasing response of artists who have chosen to
> expand their activities past the boundaries of cultural dissent and into =
the
> boundaries of asserted illegality. For every movement toward enclosure th=
at
> the law facilitates, there is an opposite, underappreciated movement towa=
rd
> liberation from control - a moment where social activism exposes the need=
for
> alternative political economies of information. And yet the difference be=
tween
> these marketplaces of speech - one protected, one prohibited - both captu=
res
> and transcends the foundational differences between democracy and disobed=
ience
> itself.=20
>=20
> Just as previous discussions of civil disobedience focused on the need to
> challenge existing laws by using certain types of public and private prop=
erty
> for expressive freedoms, today's generation seeks to alter existing
> intellectual property by interrupting, appropriating, and then replacing =
the
> passage of information from creator to consumer. This Article suggests th=
at
> the phenomenon of semiotic disobedience offers a radically different vant=
age
> point than Fiske's original vision, one that underlines the importance of
> distributive justice in intellectual property. Thus, instead of interroga=
ting
> the limits of First Amendment freedoms, as many scholars have already don=
e, I
> argue that a study of semiotic disobedience reveals an even greater need =
to
> study both the core boundaries between types of properties - intellectual=
,
> real, personal - and how propertization offers a subsidy to particular ty=
pes
> of expression over others.
>=20
> This paper won an honorable mention in the annual AALS Scholarly Papers
> competition, and was profiled in the New York Times Magazine.

more on this paper via sinSign[dot]com, lowbrow semiotics:
>=20
> Beheading Advertising
> <http://www.sinsign.com/weblog/archives/2006/10/beheading_advertising.htm=
l>
>=20
> In an article to be published this fall [2006] in the Washington Universi=
ty
> Law Review, Sonia Katyal
> <http://law.fordham.edu/ihtml/reg-2bioPP.ihtml?id=3D544&bid=3D766> , a Fo=
rdham
> University law professor, coins the already-popular term "semiotic
> disobedience" (a Google search today yielded 400 mentions
> <http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&q=3D%22semiotic+disobedience%22&=
;btnG
> =3DGoogle+Search> ), which can be considered (as stated on Katyal's paper) =
a
> modernization of John Fiske's "Semiotic Democracy."
>=20
> The central argument is not new but is presented in a way that enlightens=
and
> greatly contributes with the conversation surrounding intellectual proper=
ty in
> the public space, collective intelligence, and the role of artists as the
> quintessential "attention economists" (extensively discussed by Richard A=
.
> Lanham in The Economics of Attention
> <http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/468828.html> ). Talking about
> finding innovation at the intersection of disciplines=E2=80=A6
>=20
> In Katyal's words, "the objective of semiotic disobedience is to correct =
the
> marketplace of speech by occupying and transforming the semiotic 'codes'
> within advertising." She goes on to explain the different degrees of
> disobedience, which range from vandalism to reclaiming public space.
>=20
> In this context, I find the work of an unknown artist that operates in th=
e
> Union Sq subway station (New York City) extremely interesting [read on…
> <http://www.sinsign.com/weblog/archives/2006/10/beheading_advertising.htm=
l> ]

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November 30, 2007 at 11:43 AM in iCommons
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