Changing Climates in Arts Publishing

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In a world where newspapers and journals are being replaced by online versions, and traditional copyright is being challenged, many new scenarios present themselves. Artists and publishers are being asked to make choices and address questions that are environmental, technical, aesthetic, legal and financial all at the same time. * carbon emissions from print/online content * should all content be free * effect of re-mix and Creative Commons on creators' rights * search engine uses of arts content * catalogues and zine publishing * art biography as online data bases emerge. Powerful climate change imagery, new work by emerging and established Australian artists, flows through the pages. Plus bonus review section: 17 recent books & catalogues. Based on the Changing Climates in Arts Publishing forums organised by Artlink in Adelaide and Sydney in 2009 More on the forums including programs and vodcast. Discussions of a lively team of experts, writers, artists, copyright lawyers, arts publishers, activists: Zina Kaye, Elliott Bledsoe, Linda Jaivin, Daniel Thomas, Tess Allas, Joanna Mendelssohn, Sean Cubitt, Tamara Winikoff, Andrew Frost, Donald Brook, Lisa Havilah, Djon Mundine, Zoe Rodriguez, Bill Morrow.

Topic list: censorship, conservation, copyright, dissent, electronic culture, environment & ecology, law & censorship, new technology, publishing, survival, youth culture.

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Articles in vol 29 no 4, 2009

Editorial

Editorial by Stephanie Britton and Janet Maughan

talking it through: publishing in a carbon neutral future — More »

Artistic intention, branding and value

Feature by Zina Kaye

Artist Zina Kaye of www.laudanum.net writes about the importance of branding for artists and how artists play with copyright and fair use. She examines the artwork of Deborah Kelly, Soda_Jerk and Shepard Fairey to show variants on artist's intentions and outcomes. — More »

Artists want catalogues

Feature by Lisa Havilah

Campbelltown Arts Centre Director Lisa Havilah writes about the crucial importance of catalogues to artists. Famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei had his first international survey exhibition at Campbelltown in partnership with Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation. The incentive for Ai Weiwei was that a 2,000 print run book on his art would be published. — More »

Collaborative Practice

Feature by Amanda Matulick

Amanda Matulick is the managing editor of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT)'s publication Filter magazine, which is hardcopy as well as online at http://filter.anat.org.au. Filter uses open source Creative Commons licensing for its contributors. This means free sharing of information and ideas or as she puts it: "creation for creation's sake". — More »

Communicating and the law

Feature by Bill Morrow

Bill Morrow, artist and legal expert in copyright law, sets out the current state of play. He says that some form of copyright is here to stay but it is in flux with regard to digital rights and the upcoming introduction of laws providing greater privacy protection. — More »

Copyright materials in university teaching

Feature by Margaret Hosking

Art History Librarian at the Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide Margaret Hosking explains the way fees and access are currently worked out for copyright materials in teaching at universities in Australia. — More »

Copyright: Copyleft

Feature by Artlink and Zoe Rodriguez

Copyright lawyer Zoe Rodriguez discusses the implications of digitising works of literature and the contentious Google Book Settlement of 2009. — More »

Creative commons: fair to share?

Feature by Elliott Bledsoe

Research Assistant at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries Elliott Bledsoe throws light on (rants about) the wide-ranging implications of Creative Commons - the way of the future for copyright? — More »

Don't look it might bite: censoring the visual arts

Feature by Tamara Winikoff

Executive Director of the National Association for the Visual Art (NAVA) Tamara Winikoff looks at the recent situation in Australia regarding censorship, art, politics and the law. — More »

Environmental costs of going digital

Feature by Sean Cubitt

Director of the Media and Communications Program at the University of Melbourne Professor Sean Cubitt asks: what is the weight of the internet, is it green, clean and immaterial with no environmental costs? The answer is a scary and resounding no. — More »

Finding the right balance: print + online

Feature by Keith Gallasch

Managing editor of RealTime Keith Gallasch describes what the web means to print journalism and how RealTime manages its website and its hardcopy in a careful adaptation to a changing and unpredictable publishing ecology. — More »

Freedom of expression and the mode of detachment

Feature by Donald Brook

Art theorist, philosopher and Emeritus Professor at Flinders University Donald Brook advocates 'detached contemplation' as the most desirable, appropriate and potentially rewarding response to art. — More »

From here to everywhere: the evolution of blogging

Feature by Andrew Frost

'The Art Life' blogmeister Andrew Frost spills the beans on the genesis of that infamous and lively blog in 2004 and its ongoing evolution in the context of new technologies and their uptake by publishing and by readers. — More »

Lean, mean and living dangerously

Feature by Joanna Mendelssohn

Associate Professor of Fine Art at the College of Fine Arts, Uni of NSW, Joanna Mendelssohn analyses a slice of the current state of art publishing in Australia from reviews in newspapers to the DAAO (Dictionary of Australian Artists Online - now rechristened Design and Art of Australasia Online). — More »

Libraries, creators and Google

Feature by John Shipp

The University of Sydney Librarian John Shipp describes the changing world of university libraries and the way they handle information in a digital age. He has nightmares about the Google settlement and his mantra is that 'creators should retain their rights.' — More »

Lives of the 'settled' artists

Feature by Tess Allas

Tess Allas is the Researcher of Storylines, an ARC funded project officially titled This Side of the Frontier: Indigenous Artists in Settled Australia. It focuses on biographies of Aboriginal artists from all over Australia except for the remote regions. Storylines can be found online at www.daao.org.au - the DAAO (Dictionary of Australian Artists Online - now rechristened Design and Art of Australasia Online). — More »

Measuring the footprint: dead trees vs live text

Feature by Tim Wallace

Freelance writer, author of True Green @ Work and editor Tim Wallace discusses the conflict between new technologies making everything available for free and writers and content creators needing to be paid. He quotes from on a book by Kevin Kelly called New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World: 'The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.' — More »

Mix and mash, take it, change it

Feature by Danni Zuvela

Writer and curator Danni Zuvela celebrates remix or mashup culture and traces its history back through the Dadaists, Futurists, Max Ernst, Esther Shub, Arthur Lipsett, Joseph Cornell, Bruce Conner and Stan VanDerBeek. In a remix culture people valorise appropriation and talk about being copyfighters who believe the idea of text as property is a joke. — More »

Netting the big and the little fish: monographs and biographies

Feature by Daniel Thomas

Emeritus Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia and highly respected investigative curator and writer Daniel Thomas pulls out the stops in a far-ranging appraisal of art book publishing in Australia. He writes: "Once the artist is well dead, even if the book is 'only' a monograph, disregard the family and friends; we need to know everything." — More »

The Ramingining Megaphone

Feature by Djon Mundine

Distinguished pioneer Indigenous Curator, activist and writer, Curator of Contemporary Art at Campbelltown Arts Centre Djon Mundine tells a very funny and intriguing story about how modern communication technology came to Ramingining and how it intersected with 'community consultation' by government departments. — More »

Writing in the age of graphomania

Feature by Linda Jaivin

Novelist and sinologist Linda Jaivin rejects the excess writing and publishing that the internet affords every person with a keyboard and compares it to Milan Kundera's definition of graphomania(an obsession with writing books). She would rather have fewer readers than more scanners believing that a 'long form' like a novel or book-length non-fiction needs slow writing and carefully crafted prose. — More »

Zine publishing and the long tail

Feature by Ianto Ware

Adelaide-based Zinemeister Dr Ianto Ware discusses how prophecies of digital dominance are colosally wrong with regard to zine publishing a genre which remains exclusively hardcopy. He finds zines to be quintessential examples of Editor of Wired Magazine Chris Anderson's Long Tail in which tiny niches multiply and thrive. — More »

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