appropriation art

Controcultura – Estrattivismo: andata e ritorno

Texts

Domenico Quaranta, “Controcultura – Estrattivismo: andata e ritorno”, in Daniela Cotimbo, Francesco D’Abbraccio e Andrea Facchetti (Eds.), AI & Conflicts. Volume 02, Krisis Publishing, Brescia 2025, ISBN 9788894740158, pp. 222-271.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really means, for an artist, to work with Artificial Intelligence. My main point is this: it’s easy for us to speculate about what AI represents for us, the users – whether it’s a mere tool, a powerful medium, a collaborator, a co-author, the true author, a bad joke, a thief, a nightmare, and so on.
But what are we, from the machine’s point of view? I found the best answer to this question in a relatively old (2018) text by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, where they talk about Amazon Echo. They write:

“It is difficult to place the human user of an AI system into a single category: rather, they deserve to be considered as a hybrid case. Just as the Greek chimera was a mythological animal that was part lion, goat, snake and monster, the Echo user is simultaneously a consumer, a resource, a worker, and a product.”

This quote, to me, opens up a vertiginous perspective. Where does agency lie? Who controls what – or what controls whom? Are we free to engage with it as we like, or not?

I’ve tried to explore these questions in a series of texts that will be gradually released in the coming months, touching on authorship, appropriation, kitsch, and tactical behaviors. The first one is now available in Italian in a thoughtfully curated anthology, published by Krisis, featuring essays and artworks by Matteo Pasquinelli, Eryk Salvaggio, Hito Steyerl, Rosemary Lee, Minne Atairu, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Anna Ridler, Zach Blas, Yuk Hui – just to name a few. Enjoy it, if you can.

Appropriation Art from Early Net Art to NFTs

Texts

In an order issued on October 25, 2023 in the District Court of Central California, judge John Walter condemned artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen to pay Yuga Labs, the company behind the NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), about 1.6 million dollars, including statutory damages, fees and other costs. The decision followed a summary judgement issued on April 21, 2023, saying: “The court granted summary judgment in Yuga’s favor on its false designation of origin and cybersquatting claims, and against defendants’ First Amendment, nominative fair use and unclean hands affirmative defenses, as well as defendants’ counterclaim for knowing misrepresentation of infringing activity.”
I wrote this essay for a workshop held at the University of London in September 2022, and first sent it to the editors in March 2023. It has been released recently as part of the book NFTs, Creativity and the Law: Within and Beyond Copyright, edited by Enrico Bonadio and Caterina Sganga, and published by Routledge. In it, I contextualize Ripps’ practice as conceptual appropriation art. Judge John Walter, I strongly disagree with you.

Domenico Quaranta, “‘If You Don’t Want Something Stolen, Don’t Put it on the Net’. Appropriation Art from Early Net Art to NFTs”, in Enrico Bonadio, Caterina Sganga (eds.), NFTs, Creativity and the Law: Within and Beyond Copyright, Routledge, London 2024, pp. 201-217.