The Art Gallery of Knoxville

Dr. Steven Kurtz is a Professor of Art at SUNY Buffalo and a founding member, with his late wife, Hope, of the internationally acclaimed art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Over the past decade cultural institutions worldwide have hosted CAE’s participatory theater projects that help the general public understand biotechnology and the many issues surrounding it.

In May 2004 the Kurtzes were preparing to present Free Range Grain, a project examining GM agriculture, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), when Hope Kurtz died of heart failure. Police who responded to Kurtz's 911 call deemed the couple's art suspicious, and called the FBI.

For four years Dr. Kurtz fought a court battle, during which he was investigated for bioterrorism and indicted for mail and wire fraud. In 2008, all charges against him were dismissed. Dr. Kurtz's lecture at the University of Tennessee will recount this battle as well as issues of artistic and academic freedom.

Presented by Students for the Study of Law and Culture at the University of Tennessee College of Law

As live performance and law production, Spectrial, The Pirate Bay trial, documents the new boundaries of art and cultural production.

This document, created as a manifesto, was made available on February 25th as a product and extension of Spectrial.

“Though seeded in prehistory, Kopimi is rooted in the future, and holds together a constantly vibrating avalanche of knowledge that forms the foundation for a discussion indifferent to the rippling changes of time and space,” reads the prelude of the manifesto.

Marcin de Kaminski of the Kopimi Project - which expands way beyond TPB: “We are a close group of people, formed as a cluster - or a swarm if you prefer - which has been doing web related projects since the early 2000.”

“Many people have tried to describe what kind of people we are and why we are doing all the things we do. No one has come even close. We thought it was time for an official biography of some sort, and to try to show people that we have done lots of things besides our filesharing projects.”

The manifesto can be seen as a guide on how to live life as a true Kopimist, summarized in a list of 100 principles or guidelines. The Kopimi team came up with the idea on February 22. Only two days later - the Swedish version was published followed by the English translation a day later.

http://trial.thepiratebay.org/

“Adventures in Illegal Art: Creative Media Resistance and Negativland” with Mark Hosler a founding member of Negativland, at the Knoxville Museum of Art, Wednesday November 12, 5pm.

Presented by Students for the Study of Law and Culture at the University of Tennessee in collaboration with COPYSHOP.

Pioneers of “culture jamming” (a term they coined way back in 1984), the group Negativland have lead and defined movements against traditional copyright for decades. They became a critical, high profile example in the copyfight movement when U2 (the group with Bono) sued the band to prevent a Negativland release titled U2.

In 2003, members of Negativland were asked by Lawrence Lessig to help write a new kind of copyright license for Creative Commons. This collaboration resulted in the “Sampling License” - a license that allows people to create collage art and “mash-ups” (as well as other art forms based on re-used materials) from licensed works.

Public Collectors and SET

An Exhibition at COPYSHOP / The Art Gallery of Knoxville

by Marc Fischer / Erik Carver and Marisa Jahn

July - August, 2008

"In the grand tradition of generals and surrealists, we have been playing games. People learn things better through the open-ended, empathetic participation in knowledge-making that games allow. Just dispensing information to people-- though at times enlightening-- can also encourage apathy or forgetfulness. Lately, we have been using games to critically examine the dynamics and assumptions of larger social givens.Our new game SET was inspired by toy collectors, tourists, and museum curators. Throughout the game, players "play" by intervening and reorganizing existing groups of objects, thus questioning categories by constructing and redrawing them. In foregrounding the player's relation to the categories, SET explores the value of one's authorship in the production of knowledge. While games often risk normalizing power relationships by setting social roles and rules in stone, we have tried here to do just the opposite."

People learn things better through the open-ended, empathetic participation in knowledge-making that games allow. Just dispensing information to people-- though at times enlightening-- can also encourage apathy or forgetfulness. A project developed by Erik Carver and Marisa Jahn, SET is a game that critically examines the dynamics and assumptions of larger social givens. It's a game inspired by toy collectors, tourists, and museum curators. Throughout the game, players "play" by intervening and reorganizing existing groups of objects, thus questioning categories by constructing and redrawing them. In foregrounding the player's relation to the categories, SET explores the value of one's authorship in the production of knowledge. While games often risk normalizing power relationships by setting social roles and rules in stone, SET tries to do just the opposite.

Erik Carver

Erik Carver is an architect and artist. He is a founder of the Institute for Advanced Architecture (advancedarchitecture.org)-- an organization dedicated to advancing architecture through research, exchange, and exhibition-- as well as the Common Room exhibition space (common-room.net) and the interdisciplinary art group Seru. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Erik has worked for the firms of Diller+Scofidio, Laura Kurgan, and Lyn Rice before starting his own practice. These designs have included a student center renovation, an art museum, apartment renovations, a vacation home, exhibitions, a performance space/bar, an expo pavilion, schools, offices and an interpretation center.

His work has appeared in Volume magazine, Art in America, and Nature, and he has shown work and lectured at venues including Exit Art, the Ise Foundation, and Columbia's Neiman Gallery, and the Storefront for Art and Architecture (NYC), The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), CAVS (MIT), Basekamp (Philadelphia), the Contemporary Art Center (North Adams, MA), and Pond (San Francisco).

Public Collectors and SET

An Exhibition at COPYSHOP / The Art Gallery of Knoxville

by Marc Fischer / Erik Carver and Marisa Jahn

July - August, 2008

"In the grand tradition of generals and surrealists, we have been playing games. People learn things better through the open-ended, empathetic participation in knowledge-making that games allow. Just dispensing information to people-- though at times enlightening-- can also encourage apathy or forgetfulness. Lately, we have been using games to critically examine the dynamics and assumptions of larger social givens.Our new game SET was inspired by toy collectors, tourists, and museum curators. Throughout the game, players "play" by intervening and reorganizing existing groups of objects, thus questioning categories by constructing and redrawing them. In foregrounding the player's relation to the categories, SET explores the value of one's authorship in the production of knowledge. While games often risk normalizing power relationships by setting social roles and rules in stone, we have tried here to do just the opposite."

People learn things better through the open-ended, empathetic participation in knowledge-making that games allow. Just dispensing information to people-- though at times enlightening-- can also encourage apathy or forgetfulness. A project developed by Erik Carver and Marisa Jahn, SET is a game that critically examines the dynamics and assumptions of larger social givens. It's a game inspired by toy collectors, tourists, and museum curators. Throughout the game, players "play" by intervening and reorganizing existing groups of objects, thus questioning categories by constructing and redrawing them. In foregrounding the player's relation to the categories, SET explores the value of one's authorship in the production of knowledge. While games often risk normalizing power relationships by setting social roles and rules in stone, SET tries to do just the opposite.

Marisa Jahn

Of Ecuadorian and Chinese descent, Marisa Jahn is an artist whose work explores, constructs, and intervenes natural and social systems. In 2000, Jahn has co-founded Pond: art, activism, and ideas (www.mucketymuck.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing experimental art. Jahn has presented and exhibited work in museums, galleries, and spaces at venues such as The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), ISEA/Zero One 06/08 (San Jose, CA), MoKS (Estonia), the Moore Space (Miami), the Museum of Contemporary Art (North Miami), in galleries and public places in Tokyo, Honduras, Estonia, Turkey, North America, and Taiwan. Jahn's work has been reviewed in Art in America, Frieze, Punk Planet, Clamor, San Francisco Chronicle, the Fader, Artweek, Metropolis, the Discovery Channel, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). She has received awards and grants such as the Robert and Colleen Haas Scholarship, MIT Department of Architecture Fellowship (2005-8), CEC Artslink, and is an artist in residence at the MIT Media Lab (2007-9) and at the Headlands Center for the Arts (2008). She received her BA from UC Berkeley and an MS from MIT's Visual Arts Program. She lives between Boston and New York, where she functions as the Immediator of art-activist campaigns for The Church of Stop Shopping/Reverend Billy. www.marisajahn.com, www.mucketymuck.org

Public Collectors and SET

An Exhibition at COPYSHOP / The Art Gallery of Knoxville

by Marc Fischer / Erik Carver and Marisa Jahn

July - August, 2008

"In the grand tradition of generals and surrealists, we have been playing games. People learn things better through the open-ended, empathetic participation in knowledge-making that games allow. Just dispensing information to people-- though at times enlightening-- can also encourage apathy or forgetfulness. Lately, we have been using games to critically examine the dynamics and assumptions of larger social givens.Our new game SET was inspired by toy collectors, tourists, and museum curators. Throughout the game, players "play" by intervening and reorganizing existing groups of objects, thus questioning categories by constructing and redrawing them. In foregrounding the player's relation to the categories, SET explores the value of one's authorship in the production of knowledge. While games often risk normalizing power relationships by setting social roles and rules in stone, we have tried here to do just the opposite."

People learn things better through the open-ended, empathetic participation in knowledge-making that games allow. Just dispensing information to people-- though at times enlightening-- can also encourage apathy or forgetfulness. A project developed by Erik Carver and Marisa Jahn, SET is a game that critically examines the dynamics and assumptions of larger social givens. It's a game inspired by toy collectors, tourists, and museum curators. Throughout the game, players "play" by intervening and reorganizing existing groups of objects, thus questioning categories by constructing and redrawing them. In foregrounding the player's relation to the categories, SET explores the value of one's authorship in the production of knowledge. While games often risk normalizing power relationships by setting social roles and rules in stone, SET tries to do just the opposite.

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All of the publications included are believed to be out of print, hard to find, and in some cases exceedingly rare or expensive to purchase on the secondary market. These materials are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s).

If you have complete PDFs of publications to submit for inclusion, contact Public Collectors at: [email protected]. If you do not have access to a scanner and are willing to loan a book, Public Collectors can scan the book for you, so long as it is not oversize and will fit on the scanner bed.

.

All of the publications included are believed to be out of print, hard to find, and in some cases exceedingly rare or expensive to purchase on the secondary market. These materials are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s).

If you have complete PDFs of publications to submit for inclusion, contact Public Collectors at: [email protected]. If you do not have access to a scanner and are willing to loan a book, Public Collectors can scan the book for you, so long as it is not oversize and will fit on the scanner bed.

.

All of the publications included are believed to be out of print, hard to find, and in some cases exceedingly rare or expensive to purchase on the secondary market. These materials are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s).

If you have complete PDFs of publications to submit for inclusion, contact Public Collectors at: [email protected]. If you do not have access to a scanner and are willing to loan a book, Public Collectors can scan the book for you, so long as it is not oversize and will fit on the scanner bed.

.

All of the publications included are believed to be out of print, hard to find, and in some cases exceedingly rare or expensive to purchase on the secondary market. These materials are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s).

If you have complete PDFs of publications to submit for inclusion, contact Public Collectors at: [email protected]. If you do not have access to a scanner and are willing to loan a book, Public Collectors can scan the book for you, so long as it is not oversize and will fit on the scanner bed.