the piracy project[edit]
Eva Weinmayr's Piracy Project invites submissions of pirated books. The books are collected in public places (e.g galleries, art book fairs) where visitors are available to read them.
http://evaweinmayr.com/work/the-piracy-project-2/
Of particular interest are the editorial decisions made in the pirating of the books. Copying of a book invites an inevitable comparison between the "source" and the "copy". It is not as straightforward as assuming a hierarchy based on chronology - such as in the case of a leaked manuscript - the "origin" may have been published after the "copy". Instead, a list of words describing the possible motivations are devised to examine the possible motivation for pirating:
Borrowing
Poaching
Plagiarising
Pirating
Stealing
Gleaning
Referencing
Leaking
Copying
Imitating
Adapting
Faking
Paraphrasing
Quoting
Reproducing
Using
Counterfeiting
Repeating
Translating
Cloning
We added a few to the list based on our analyses:
Silencing
Editing
Omitting
Reducing
Appending
Redirecting
Recontextualising
Focusing
(Faithfully) Reproducing
Caring
Reformatting
Bootlegging
Reframing
Retracing
This reminds me of the list of words I devised for my FTB project - however my list was of names of types of "marks of use" made in books from a section of a public collection in a library. Using verbs instead of nouns is a subtle shift away from concrete definitions of modifications between the published book and its counterpart towards a actions that may have produced these modifications.
two books from the project - an analysis[edit]
Artemis & I examined two pirated books, speculating on the strategies behind their duplication and making notes and questions related to each one:
Book 1: Teignmouth Electron - Tacita Dean
Strategies: Translating, Caring, Reproducing, Bootlegging, Reformatting, Re-Editing, Adapting, Expanding, (re)focusing, fan working, homageing, engaging, fostering, crafting, adding value
Notes & Questions: A caring reproduction from an independent editorial project, showing special value on the content. Seems that there is collaboration with the artist, but don't have permission from the previous publisher.
Has an isbn number. It seems not like a pirate version but as an official published version.
Making a choice between what should and shouldn't be translated - e.g. Space Oddity appears in both English and Spanish.
The text is privileged over the images, and reproduction comes into play with the different printing methods. Photography as a visual medium that relies on reproduction.
It's an adaption in that it drastically changes the format (and slightly changes the content) to meet a need (to connect with a larger audience of Spanish speakers), and can be seen as vastly different from the source.
Is the translator the author? What happens with copyright in this case?
Book 2: Shampoo by Robert Towne and Warren Beatty, silenced by K. Lassinaro
Strategies: Silencing, Reducing, Redirecting, Reframing, Recontextualising,(re)Focusing, (Translating (from an aural/oral/visual source to a literate destination), Re-mediating, censoring, critiquing, deleting violating
Notes & Questions: What is the source? Is it a film, or the manuscript? Is the manuscript published? We found it easily in the web. Is a manuscript a publication? Does this constitute fair use? The pirate edition makes space for the imagination of the reader to fill the gaps. The focus seems to be the "container bag" instead of the "content". The "source" was focusing in a visual experience, while the pirate version does the opposite. The dialogues don't matter / Critique on the content