A Terabyte of Piracy Ain't Art

[SenseOfTumour]

I just hope it sells as a piece of art.

For $5 million.

To the boss of Ubisoft.

(can it in fact be sold? Surely the sale of that item would be illegal? or are there protections in place for 'art'?)

Art is an incredibly difficult thing to define, at least if you want a definition people will agree on. Even in paintings, there doesn't seem to be any scale connecting value of painting and quality of the work, for instance.

I do however like that it's open to interpretation, there's been three or four ideas of what the artist meant, even in this short thread.

No, I don't pretend to understand art, or why Rembrandt is better than that guy doin portraits in the middle of town for £5, either.

 

[Blind Sight]

Honestly, this is still more impressive then the 'Piss Christ' or the bottle of water from a glacier that someone drank.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

I smell hypocrisy in this post.

Escapist clearly doesn't like piracy and warns/close threads with anything remotely promoting HOWEVER a link in the OP goes directly to a page where you can access pirate software.

Technically that promotes piracy.

Tut at you Greg, tut indeed.

Palou included a list of all of the files the drive contains [http://www.art404.com/5million1terrabyte.pdf]

Linking to pirate software. Bad Escapist post.

This was one of those posts that could bite you in the arse. Now when people get a warning for mentioning pirate software i'm going to link to this post and remind them their own posters advertise it themselves.

And yes, before anyone questions my logic a link that goes directly to pirate software IS advertising it. Remember folks, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

That's not really hypocrisy. Hypocrisy would be if they WERE lauding the guy for stealing all that shit. However, Greg shouldn't have put that link in there. I dunno...

"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde

Whether or not you think it's art, this kid is certainly making a statement about how obvious the gap between price and value is in today's culture. I think that if you're arguing that something isn't art then you've already lost. I am solidly on the side of it being art. To use such a simple idea to make such a complex statement is worth some congratulations in my opinion.

I'm guessing the guy would say to you "Yeah, that's exactly the 'statement' I wanted to make! Finally someone GETS it!" Then he'd turn around and say the same to the five other people behind him who made five completely different abstract observations from that one hard disk.

YOUR ability to make intelligent, philosophical thought connections does not make HIS work art. HE'S not making a statement (or atleast he's not doing it very well). YOU'RE making an inference based on what you're seeing.

 

[Turigamot]

I think this is art. It's pretty good social commentary too, though I disagree with some folk's interpretation of it in this thread.

The way I see it is:

Look here. This is a hard drive. On this hard drive I have $5 million worth of data, taking up a terabyte. $5 million, all non-physical. All this data, capable of being replicated, ad-infinitum, for virtually no expense, and it is worth $5 million. Why in the fuck is this shit still worth $5 million when there is no material cost involved? The price of a mansion, in a container that fits inside the drawer of your desk. Shit's fucked up.

 

[Moromillas]

It's not? That's... actually pretty amazing. Yes I believe it is art.

 

[inkblood]

but is it really worth 5 million if nobody uses it. the terabyte would be worth whatever it is worth, but the content would technically be worth nothing if nobodies using it. How much would an album be if nobody will hear it. it is in the same way of if a tree falls down and nobody hears it. Does anyone care.

 

[Baldr]

I wouldn't be surprised if I read an article in the next couple days about this guy being arrested. This is criminal copyright infringement(commercial advantage and value of works over $1000) and infringement for the sake of art is not under fair use the last time I checked.

 

[Treblaine]

A Terabyte of Piracy Ain't Art

Displaying the evidence of a crime is all it takes to get into an art gallery these days.

The debate about what can be considered art and what cannot gets reinvigorated every few years. Jackson Pollack's famous paint splotches [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock] are perhaps the best known example of a polarizing piece of art with moderns on one side and traditionalists on the other. I usually fall back to saying, "If it's art to someone, then it's art to me," but this latest piece displayed at the Art 404 gallery in Miami stretches credibility to the breaking point. Manuel Palou is a twenty year old artist who illegally downloaded what he calculated to be $5 million worth of media and loaded it all onto a terabyte hard drive. According to Palou and the Art 404 Gallery, putting the shiny black drive on a pedestal and calling it "5 million dollars, 1 Terabyte" is enough to make it art.

[gallery=472]

Palou included a list of all of the files the drive contains [http://www.art404.com/5million1terrabyte.pdf] and - not surprisingly - there are a lot of games on there like the entire Nintendo 64 library and other ROMs in addition to font packages and expensive software like AutoCAD. For the most part, Palou included only large packages and bundles to fill up the 1,000 gigs of space, but he was nice enough to include the URL where these files could be illegally downloaded. Want to steal a collection of PC games released from 1979-2001 taking up 130GB and valued at $150,000? Well, you can go to the URL provided, you know if you were a jerk.

Like I said, I usually don't have a strong opinion on what is art and what is not, but spending time stealing content - even if many of the games and other content might be out of print - and putting it on display just doesn't impress me. To say nothing of literally putting piracy on a pedestal, Palou was just lazy and went for the big catch-all collections instead of curating what ended up on the drive.

I mean, if he had hand-picked each piece of content to be meaningful or culturally important, at least that would have been something. But with a high speed internet connection, this "5 million dollars, 1 Terabyte" might have taken Palou an afternoon to download.

And that's just not art at all.

Source: Wired UK [http://www.art404.com/5million.html]

Permalink

It it art.

What it fails to be, is evocative.

Remember, art displays are more than the pedestal itself, it is the entire context leading up to it. But it fails to terribly at being evocative.

 

[synobal]

Actually I think it makes an interesting statement about the digital medium. Here is what most companies would say is worth five million dollars on a single hard drive. Something that takes up so little space and is so innocuous that it seems almost ridiculous. Why is something so easy to copy and reproduce worth five million to this day?

How ever posting links to the torrents isn't all that classy if you ask me.

I think this is art. It's pretty good social commentary too, though I disagree with some folk's interpretation of it in this thread.

The way I see it is:

Look here. This is a hard drive. On this hard drive I have $5 million worth of data, taking up a terabyte. $5 million, all non-physical. All this data, capable of being replicated, ad-infinitum, for virtually no expense, and it is worth $5 million. Why in the fuck is this shit still worth $5 million when there is no material cost involved? The price of a mansion, in a container that fits inside the drawer of your desk. Shit's fucked up.

You make an interesting point, which is why I think this succeeds as art. It's not the traditional form of art but it is something that makes people think. At least it makes those who don't go OMG Piracy and grab their pitch forks.

 

[Moromillas]

but is it really worth 5 million if nobody uses it. the terabyte would be worth whatever it is worth, but the content would technically be worth nothing if nobodies using it. How much would an album be if nobody will hear it. it is in the same way of if a tree falls down and nobody hears it. Does anyone care.

What if: The tree happened to land on a bear no no, just work with me here for a second. ok, killing it in the process, producing both, what should be a thud and a mighty roar (from the bear). Would someone hear it then you think? (Note: The bear is a member of an endangered species)

 

[Something Amyss]

Wait. I just realized something. My buddy has over a terabyte of porn...is that art?

Depends. Does he display it in museums, or masturbate to it?

Because you can't masturbate to art. >.>

 

[Liquid Paradox]

Well... it seems to me that a lot of people are missing the point of this entirely. It's not about the content of the Terra-byte, it's about how the content was acquired, and how much of it there is. It's not about seeing something, it's about knowing what's there. Which is Five Million Dollars worth of illegal software which was easily obtained. One part anti-piracy message, one part cultural satire on the value people place on entirely intangible things. Things so inherently fake that they are easily copied at literally any persons leisure.

Think about it: that Terra-byte is worth Five million dollars, and it's a fake. And hey, how would you like to be the illegitimate owner of Five Million Dollars worth of illicit material? Well, simply follow the provided links, and it's yours, as Greg Tito himself claims, in an afternoon.

Art is about being pretty sometimes... and sometimes it's about making you think. This piece has succeeded. Well, for me, anyway.

 

[jonyboy13]

Ugh.
I Really hate all this modern bs.

 

[DoctorFrankenStein]

It is art in the sense that it makes a commentary on an aspect of society and can provoke some discussion about it. However, stuff like this still doesn't sit well with me.
I've got a Studio Arts degree myself and six years of college under my belt, but some guy sells a hard drive worth of stolen stuff to a gallery for a bunch of money and gets in the paper? Is it necessary to be full of pretentious ideas but no actual artistic skill to get attention as an artist?
I've seen beautiful things for sale on Etsy alone. People who probably work menial jobs all day just to afford materials, and deserve to have their talent recognized far more then this guy. I think society as a whole doesn't appreciate artists, so the ones who get attention tend to be those who hate society right back, and only create things that are ugly or controversial.

For the record I don't consider myself the next Picasso, but I can draw well enough to illustrate the books that I write- http://deathbydawn.com/
Everything else I do ends up on my Etsy.

 

[Le_Lisra]

It is though.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

I'm so sick of people judging stuff as not being art just because they don't like it.

 

[Quakester]

Call it art if you want to (which I don't) but they had best not make one cent off of it. In most states I know of, it's illegal to profit from a crime.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Error 404: Art Not Found.

Also why was this guy not arrested?

Because copyright infringement is a civil matter and not a criminal offense. It's like breach of contract in that you can get sued for it but not arrested.

More on Topic: Of course this is art. It's kind of a paradox that something that costs $5 million dollars can have so little value. He "stole" 5 million dollars without taking a dime from anyone.