I think somewhere in here is the "difficult" copyability of art.
If it was just "any random but competent art" as a performance piece, we wouldn't care. And stories are just text, my copy is as good as your copy from Gutenberg's Mark Twain set. And for music, there's whole cultures (besides the lawsuits of grumpy musicians) of mashup. Same with pics.
So I think Form Factor and notoriety are all over this.
-TaoPhoenix
If you take the argument that "stories are just text" to the next level... then text is nothing but words...and words are nothing but letters...and letters nothing but geometric shapes and lines...and as such, have no meaning, or value.
On a certain level, everything becomes meaningless - if you allow yourself to fall for that deconstructionist nonsense. It might make you sound clever in certain faux-intellectual academic circles. But it leaves you with nothing if you embrace it without realizing the intellectual and spiritual cop-out it is.
I guess if someone doesn't believe in intellect, or spirit, or meaning, that's no great loss. Especially since there's nothing such people have to lose. Because there's nothing
in them for them to lose. Sad really. Those are the true "walking dead" even if they're not the usual flesh-eating zombies we usually think of.
We create ourselves. And we create value. That's what makes us (hopefully) conscious and sentient creatures. We
interact with our reality - we're not defined by it.
I forget who once said one's level of enlightenment can be determined by how well you can answer two very simple questions:
1. Of all the possible things you could be doing right this moment, why are you doing
this?
2. And why
now - as opposed to any other moment?
If you can
consistently and
completely accurately answer
both questions, you have no need for instruction, prayer, or meditation. Because you already
are enlightened.
So... out of all the things you could possibly do with a Picasso print, why would you want hack it into pieces Mr. Temkin ? And why do it around January 1?
Oh...and Mr. Danny-boy Gallagher, freelance blogger for C|Net and the usual techo-weenie websites? Don't bother trying to answer those questions. You've already clearly established you're a complete rectal orifice...