Ivan Pope
Since the beginning
Works in Brighton United States of America

BIO
In the place where analogue and digital overlap, that's why you will find me in the kitchen at parties.
Everything is at my site, http://blog.ivanpope.com
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DISCUSSION

FW: <nettime> Wal Mart wants to police the internet and arrest Re-Code.com


--
Ivan Pope
ivan@ivanpope.com

http://www.ivanpope.com
http://www.tochki-inc.com

"Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death"
Hunter S. Thompson

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> From: "Nathan Hactivist" <nathan@hactivist.com>
> Reply-To: "Nathan Hactivist" <nathan@hactivist.com>
> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:31:24 -0400
> To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
> Subject: <nettime> Wal Mart wants to police the internet and arrest
> Re-Code.com
>
> WE NEED YOUR HELP
> forward this around
> get us address for your local new stations to send videos to
> print out the posters at re-code.com and stick them up around your town
>
> Keep Political Dissent Legal!
>
> Re-Code.com is a website that allows user to upload product UPC ID numbers
> and pricing information into a database. That database is freely visible and
> is used with Re-Code's custom barcode generator to generate barcode image
> files in real time. Re-Code.com went public on March 20th. The Re-Code.com
> website is a complete mockery of the Pricelin.com website which promotes the
> concept of "Name your own price." Re-Code.com only attempts to take this
> advertisement to its logical conclusion. The goal of the project is to
> create a new space for political satire using products that already exist in
> stores. The audience for this form of art/activism becomes the cashiers and
> shoppers at targeted stores. Re-Code.com takes a humorous approach to these
> activities as hilited in their forst commercial downloadable at
> www.re-code.com/videos.html. One suggested tactic the commercial makes is to
> re-code brand name items with generic items barcodes. This is an attempt to
> illustrate the dramatic difference in cost between similiar products based
> only on brand. Re-Code.com believes that our customers deserve the right to
> make their voices heard and protest their own contributions to the support
> of the bloated adsvertising space that inflated prices of name brand goods.
> We encourage our customers to truly name their own prices.
>
> On April 7th, Re-Code.com was forwarded a letter from the attorneys for Wal
> Mart Stores, INC. The letter was addressed to the company Domains by Proxy
> http://www.domainsbyproxy.com who's tagline is "your identity is nobody's
> business but ours." Apparently that commitment only held up for 3 days. On
> April 10th, Re-Code. was informed that their service agreement had been
> terminated by Domains by Proxy. Re-Code.com has not officially responded to
> the letter yet. The letter is visible at http://www.re-code.com, as is
> several posters that Re-Code encourages visitors to download, print, and
> distribute.
>
> Is political satire illegal? Does Wal Mart have the right to police the net?
> Are barcodes intellectual property? These are only a few of the questions
> that may be raised over the next few days as the battle begins between
> artist and transnational corporation.
>
> On April 10th, a story about these happenings will debut on salon.com
> The story is live now and is called "Steal this Barcode"
> the entire article is included below.
>
> Re-Code.com contact info: press@re-code.com
>
> SUPPORT US BY ADDING THE BELOW TEXT TO YOUR SIGNATURE
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Re-Code!?
> Re-Code! Shopping - Clip Barcodes, Not Coupons!
> http://www.re-code.com
>
>
> Steal this barcode
> Re-Code.com offers a do-it-yourself product repricing service. Wal-Mart is
> not amused.
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> By Katharine Mieszkowski
>
> April 10, 2003 | Is it social commentary, or shoplifting?
>
> The Web site Re-Code.com parodies the design and chipper lingo of
> Priceline.com's "name your own price" shopping site. It invites shoppers to
> "recode your own price," by making their own barcodes using the site's
> barcode generator. The theory: There's just a 10-digit number standing
> between you and a better deal on anything that you want in a store, and this
> site will help you crack the code.
>
> The site's creators call it satire. Wal-Mart's legal counsel calls it an
> incitement to theft and fraud.
>
> Re-Code.com lets shoppers share barcode numbers from products they've
> purchased or search for codes entered by other visitors to make their own.
> So far, the site claims that it has collected about 150 codes. Barcode
> swapping, say the site's creators, is a way of subverting a chain's own
> inventory management system to really name your own price: "Apply the
> cheaper item's barcode to the more expensive item," the site instructs, then
> go to the checkout where: "Cashiers usually don't notice but machines never
> do."
>
> Re-Code.com is a project of the Carbon Defense League, an artist and
> activist collective affiliated with the "tactical media network"
> Hactivist.com.
>
> "Nathan Hactivist," the nom de guerre of one of the collective's operatives,
> who is based in upstate New York, says "We think of ourselves as a friend of
> Priceline.com, making good on their promises of naming your own price. We're
> carrying out their goal to its logical extreme." He sees the site as a
> commentary on the absurdity of a company, like Priceline, marketing itself
> as "giving the power to the consumer," and as a tool for making a political
> statement about the perceived differences between brand-name and generic
> products, organic-labeled and non-organic foods.
>
> But just days after opening for non-business on the Web, Re-Code.com has run
> afoul, not of Priceline's legal council, but of Wal-Mart's, the retailing
> megalith and the U.S.'s largest private employer. Despite the legal
> disclaimers at the bottom of Re-Code's home page pledging that the site is
> not intended to be used for illegal ends, Wal-Mart wants it shut down.
>
> On April 2, Janet F. Satterthwaite, a Washington trademark attorney
> representing Wal-Mart Stores Inc., sent a letter to Domains by Proxy, a
> service that the Carbon Defense League used to register the Re-Code.com
> domain name anonymously, demanding that the site be shut down within 48
> hours. It accuses Re-Code.com of "encouraging and facilitating theft and
> fraud against Wal-Mart," noting that "Wal-Mart barcodes are specifically
> made available on this Web site."
>
> Domains by Proxy responded on April 10 by "canceling our privacy service for
> that domain," says Justin Scholz, the company's spam and abuse
> administrator. But the site is still up, since Domains by Proxy does not
> control its hosting or domain name registration, just the anonymity of that
> registration. Wal-Mart's lawyer refused to comment on the matter, but the
> collective behind Re-Code has gone on the offensive.
>
> They posted the text of the letter on their home page, and added a more
> elaborate disclaimer, which visitors must pass through to visit the site:
> "If you understand that Re-Code.com is a site of satire then you may enter.
> We are not liable for any misuse of the contents of this site."
>
> Below the disclaimer appears a handy list of "tactical shopping options
> using Re-Code.com" with Wal-Mart products. It suggests barcode swaps as a
> way of commenting on the war in Iraq: "Option 3: If we are to believe the
> mainstream news, casualties are very few in the current war. Why not suggest
> that our military begin strategic Nerf strikes by replacing Winchester Light
> Target Load Ammunition (UPC ID 2089200442) with Nerf Ballistic Balls (UPC ID
> 7628161348). Ain't no war like a Nerf war."
>
> "We thought we'd target Wal-Mart specifically, since they chose to target
> us," says Nathan Hactivist. He says the Carbon Defense League has sought
> legal advice from lawyers affiliated with RTMark, a kind of counter-culture
> artists' front organization that helped etoy.com fight the dot-com eToys.com
> in a protracted trademark battle (which etoy.com eventually won). And right
> now, they don't believe that Wal-Mart has a case: Are 10-digit barcode
> numbers intellectual property? And where's the proof that anyone has stolen
> anything from Wal-Mart stores with the help of the site?
>
> "In my mind, this is similar to 'The Anarchist's Cookbook,'" Nathan
> Hactivist says. "If the argument is that we're facilitating theft, then they
> should be going after the people who invented the barcode, which is the
> thing that's making it easier to steal. All we're doing is creating a
> database of the barcodes that already exist on the products that we
> purchase."
>
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> About the writer
> Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon Technology.
>
> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
> # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
>

DISCUSSION

Re: further question on the "rublinda" correspondance


----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Szpakowski" <szpako@yahoo.com>

> I can't see that the
> substance [of Ivan's work, Fragile] is different - Ivan is using images of
> people who have been detained by the US government
> without any recourse to any sort of law, subjected to
> humiliating and degrading treatment and what one could
> call either pressure or torture.

I'm interested in how images work, how we use them and how we can use them.
I don't quite understand how images that we assume to be of dead and
injured people, and that we assume to be of people killed very recently
(though Joseph may well have pulled images from some historic massacre for
all we really know, or even be using images of his friends and family play
acting dead) are the same in substance as images of shrouded and manacled
people that we can easily recognise as being of a specific time, place and
action (though of course these could also be my friends acting out the
scene, how would we know?).
In what way is the substance the same?
1. Images of people used without their knowledge or permission.
2. Said images used by western 'artists' in the furtherance of their own
agendas.
3. These images are all of people who are not from the western world.
These are undeniable, but don't get us very far.
4. It is abusive to use images of powerless people in this way.
5. It furthers the agenda of the dominating west to use these images in this
way.
6. It's bad art or at least bad practice to use images in this way.
These are moot. They may be starting points for criticism, but they are more
to do with politics or ethical standpoints than to do with art.
There are probably more ways in which use of these images make the substance
of the pieces the same, but I can't go that far.
In essense I'm trying to point out that it doesn't make good art criticism
to bring ethical or political points to bear, even though it may make us
feel better.

> Actually, despite Ivan's protestations, one of the
> ways that the piece works for me is that it reminds of
> the *fragility* of those human beings, those lives, in
> the face of the might if the US state, and therefore
> it does read to me to some extent like a "protest
> piece"

Well, it is called Fragile for a bunch of reasons. I try to make work that
has a bunch of layers, and hopefully some that I haven't gone into. I was
aware of the fragility of the people in the image, in fact that was almost
certainly what started the piece and what sparked its title. As for being a
protest piece, I would like to think all my work is protest work. In fact,
one thing that I spend a lot of time pondering is where the sensible line is
between overt protest and art. I mean, I would hate to make a direct
political point in the same way as I would hate to make a simply pretty
image. But I try to subsume the protest in the work, to make it fight for
air. And what am I protesting about? The fact that we have to live, that we
live in an unfair world, that we are hypocritical about it, that there is no
sense to it, that we all have to die yet we fight death. I believe that the
personal is political but I also believe in a load of existentialist stuff,
because it eases my thinking.

> I'm not being remotely disingenuous here when I say
> I'm genuinely interested in what people think; after
> the initial spat I think it's been a valuable
> discussion and I entirely endorse Eryk's point that we
> should think about and discuss critically the work we
> see more.

I enjoy the robust discourse and I try to be civil at all times while being
robust in my argument :-)
Cheers,
Ivan

DISCUSSION

Re: further question on the "rublinda" correspondance


> mmm - I believe that it is probably part of my own make up that I respect
> people even they are dead. Especially the oppressed ones...for they have
> fallen into the quagmire of (bourgeois) art product-making.
>
> Easy pickings for those who wish to use their x-identities for a flag or
> (suppozed) meaningful action.
>
> I'm beginning to think that many on this list do not agree with my
> misgivings of using the dead for art. Fair enough...
>
> But if we do not question our own actions when making art, whether it be
for
> a cause or not, who is?
> > Yes, I used images of real people as part of a piece of art.

> > I have worked with Lockerbie crash documentation and use a lot of images
> of
> > serial killers and killers of other types.
>>There are dead people all around, I can't avoid them.
> > I never made a lampshade out of a dead person's skin, but I ask this
> > question: If I make a lampshade out of the skin of a person who died in
> > nursing home, is that different to making a lampshade out of the skin of
a
> > person who was tortured and killed by a third party?

Marc,
Don't get all angsty. I also respect the dead. I always question my actions.
Did I say anything to the contrary?
Cheers,
Ivan

DISCUSSION

Re: further question on the "rublinda" correspondance


> I'm interested to know what people make then, of this
> piece by Ivan Pope.
> I'll lay my cards on the table -I think it's good, but
> it seems to me a lot of the "linda/flowers" discussion
> applies here. Does it? Is it different? How? What do
> folk think?
> http://www.ivanpope.com/fragile/index.html

Well, I sort of missed the RubLinda discussion and have only just looked at
the piece following this post. Generally I tend to avoid discussions on
ethics in art, cos I'm an existentialist anarchist at heart. I have no
problems with the Rub Linda piece personally, quite liked it.
I guess the supposed connection is to do with my use of images of people.
My piece is an attempt to make some connections between the structural
falliability of the networks and the structural falliability of our law
based democracy.
I don't like to make things obvious or easy or to really know what I'm on
about, so there may be more or less to it than that.
I certainly didn't want to make a point about 'those poor people locked up
in Guantanamo Bay'.
Yes, I used images of real people as part of a piece of art.
I stole the original image and repurposed it.
I thought the piece might draw some parallels between the process of
'disappearing' people as practised by various governments around the world.
As Joseph said 'Couldn't really get it, seems to be broken up.'
The parts of the image reside on various crappy free servers around the
world. I have no idea where they are. Sometimes they just break.
I like to make work that is so laconic, so half arsed that it just falls off
the table.
But, it is always serious.
I have worked with Lockerbie crash documentation and use a lot of images of
serial killers and killers of other types. Check my site. Did I do something
wrong? There are dead people all around, I can't avoid them.
I never made a lampshade out of a dead person's skin, but I ask this
question: If I make a lampshade out of the skin of a person who died in
nursing home, is that different to making a lampshade out of the skin of a
person who was tortured and killed by a third party?
'Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
These are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that does fade,
but does suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Hark, now I hear them, ding, dong, bell.'

Cheers,
Ivan

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Re: Dia article in NYTimes Mag


>
> re: independent film, a good comparison but the system in place there
> works much differently than the open source software model. an
> independent director can get free labor, but those folks get to build
> resumes and connections into the film industry. a net/web/new media
> artist can't offer anything like that.
>
Dont see why not, at least in the near future. Ivan