Journal article 141 views 8 downloads
A Photograph for the Next Century
Queen Mary Law Journal, Volume: 5, Issue: 1, Pages: 67 - 69
Swansea University Author:
Ogulcan Ekiz
-
PDF | Version of Record
© 2024 The Author(s). Released under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Download (502.99KB)
DOI (Published version): 10.17636/101101009
Abstract
In this physically-incomplete-but-conceptually-finished project, I tease the longevity of the copyright term. The work is supposed to be a physical card in the size of a business card, in a transparent wrapper – like the football player cards from my childhood. The golden figure could be scratched t...
| Published in: | Queen Mary Law Journal |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1470-3335 1470-3335 |
| Published: |
Queen Mary University of London - School of Law
2024
|
| Online Access: |
Check full text
|
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67994 |
| Abstract: |
In this physically-incomplete-but-conceptually-finished project, I tease the longevity of the copyright term. The work is supposed to be a physical card in the size of a business card, in a transparent wrapper – like the football player cards from my childhood. The golden figure could be scratched to reveal the human figure underneath. I thought of printing 100 copies of this work, and maybe I would do so one day. But the conceptual message is ready to be shared in this issue.Much has been said on the copyright term by scholars, lawmakers, and artists. A Photograph for the Next Century is not an attempt to address those that have already been said. It is to point out an unintended consequence of copyright term that I find amusing. There is a photograph somewhere I don’t know, possibly in my mother’s house, that I haven’t seen in ages, that I don’t remember what it shows, and that I don’t know when I took it. That’s the first photograph I have ever taken. As it exists in a shelf, likely among other images, not have been looked at in years, it is still bound by the copyright law, possibly for another hundred years. Perhaps this says more about registration rather than duration, but that’s to be decided in another discussion.A memory lasts for as long as there is someone who remembers. The underlying image in this work is not the first photograph I have taken. It is a found photograph, taken by someone whose identity I don’t know, portraying someone equally stranger to me. I don’t know if there remains a memory about the person it depicts. Now that it has been two years since I have made this work, I do not exactly remember what the person looked like either. This photograph may have ceased its quality of being a means of remembrance. But it remains to be a property. An orphan work, to be accurate, but nonetheless integral to the copyright system even if there is no one left that remembers it. |
|---|---|
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Issue: |
1 |
| Start Page: |
67 |
| End Page: |
69 |