Art, Creativity, Intellectual Property and the Commons

Let us begin with a story about art. In this story, art produces aesthetic works of durability and stability — things that “stand up on their own”. The act of artistic production doesn’t come from nowhere; neither is it born in the heads of private individuals. It doesn’t dwell in a social nothingness. Nor does it start with a blank canvas. Any moment of production involves the reassembling and rearranging of the diverse materials, practices and influences that came before it and which surround it. Out of this common pool, art creates aesthetic works with emergent properties of their own. From the social world in which it lives, art creates affect and precept. It forms new ways of feeling, seeing and perceiving the world. It gives back to us the same object in different ways. In so doing, art invents new possibilities and makes available new forms of subjectivity and life. Art is creative and productive.