Screening & Artist Talk+ Roundtable Discussion for Copyright Ordinance

Screening & Artist Talk (Curated by Phoebe Man)
Date: 12 November 2011
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Videotage

Roundtable Discussion for Copyright Ordinance
Date: 13 November 2011
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Videotage

The Hong Kong government has recently been reviewing the Copyright Ordinance, mainly to curb Internet piracy. The Director of Intellectual Property Department made it clear that “Kuso” style works are infringement of the copyright law. The government’s guest lawyer, who is supposed to be familiar with intellectual property rights, said using other people’s works, as art material is comparable to stealing. All of a sudden, artists who use found footage or images in their works are liable to criminal charges for suspected theft. The proposed stipulation makes a criminal offence any distribution of (creative) work that resembles an existing work, whether commercial or not, “to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the copyright owner(s)”. No wonder some critics of the proposal have dubbed it the “Article 23 of Internet”. Obviously, the government is using it to combat “Kuso” style political criticism to the effect that there is no exemption for art, thus further infringing on Hong Kong’s freedom of speech and creation. This situation worries many artists.

To provide more information for the discussion of this issue, the program “Second-hand Material Original Works” will show seven experimental short videos which involve the use of copies of images or found footage. The style of these works vary, some of them are serious research and discussion of culture, not restricted to “Kuso” style.

Curatorial statement and artists statement:
http://phoebeman.blogspot.com/2011/11/second-hand-material-original-works.html

Chinese Curatorial statement and artists statement:
http://phoebeman.blogspot.com/2011/11/blog-post.html

“Second-Hand Material Original Works” Screening & Artist Talk
Date: 12 November 2011
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Videotage

City Memory. Memorize Hong Kong
Tong Wing Sze / 2008 / 5′

Voices Seen Images Heard
Linda Lai / 2009 / 27’58″

The Moon is Larger in Peking (short version)
Ip Yuk Yiu / 2004 / 8′

Flowpoints: Kiss
Hector Rodriguez / 2011 / 10′

Fanfare for the Common Man
Ellen Pau / 2010 / 4′

Disabled Novel
Law Yuk Mui / 2010 / 17’36″

Star (alternative version)
Choi Sai Ho / 2011 / 8′