Authorship is a phenomenal phenomenon, of course, if understood in the right way. This range of civilized man began to emerge with the first breaths of the Renaissance, and today it takes such bizarre forms that as an artist I begin to understand those supporters of anonymity, typical of the Dark Middle Ages when works were not even signed. Already at the beginning of industrialization, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe warned artists what was in store for them as authors. But, before quoting the famous German, I will remind you of some forms of authorship:
- Independent author's work - the result of an independent creative act that the artist performs mostly without premeditation about its objective purpose. Then the artist is the complete ruler of his work, he enjoys the absolute freedom of creation, which gives him the right to destroy the work, if he feels like it.
- Co-authored work - the result of a joint creative act, whereby the authorship is divided into equal parts. Sometimes, however, preference is given to first among equals for practical reasons. A clear example of equal co-authorship is the wall painting on the staircase of the CNP in Podgorica - the painting was signed by two painters, B. Filipović and A. Prijić.
- Merged author's work - created by merging several author's works. The compiler is credited with authorship over the compilation, but not over the individual embedded works. For example, take your favorite song compilation - I believe that you all, without exception, know which song follows the one that slowly ends. In other words, you know the order of the songs, but that's why you probably won't know the name of the author who established that order through a creative act. To this day, I still like to listen to the famous Cafe del Mar (V or VII), a compilation by José Padilla, and when it comes to partying, in the local version I prefer the collections of Comrade Baki, and in the city sets by DJevaiz Beat at Joe's.
- Author's work on order - works that were created at the initiative and under the supervision of a certain customer. The very fact that without the initial creative impulse on the part of the client, the work would not have existed, confirms a significant part of the authorship of the client over the final realized work. Once it is finished, and after payment of compensation to the hired author, the work becomes the property of the client. An example is my little graphic designer creating a trademark for a client. Banalized, he creates a drawing that the company orders, accepts and buys. Experience tells me that direct engagement is always the best way to a commissioned work - communication is immediate. However, someone in our homeland remembered that it must be done through public procurement if it is about public institutions. And what must be done, it is not difficult... to play the game: the author is engaged in advance, the details are agreed with him, an "anonymous" tender (or competition) is announced and finally, look at the miracles, the work of the court artist from the beginning of the story is chosen. A real ball under codes - the star of the evening shines in the middle of the herd, and the orderer rhythmically rings the bell. If it weren't for pastoral porn, one would think of the real bravlja pastoral from Komovo, sung in the song of respected Branka Šćepanović, whose timeless hit should open and close every such tender.
- An author's work under mentorship - it differs from the previous one only in compensation to the author - there is none! At least it seems that way at first. The student creates a work that is finished only when the mentor says so. By creating a work, the participant learns (acquires knowledge, skills and competences) and actually earns what no one can take away from him, capital that is not wasted. On the other hand, responsibility for what has been done is borne by the mentor and the school through him, as well as all material rights over the same. Such a rigid ("inhumane") principle in the case of art schools actually very often leads to the implicit imitation of the art pedagogue by the students and/or to the material use of the students' works by the school by selling them on the art market.
Thank God, at the art faculty where I teach, we do not apply this principle. Our student is always respected as a creative individual, and thus the responsibility for what has been done is placed on his shoulders. Nevertheless, we reckon that every one of our graduate students will at some point meet themselves on the "unpredictable waves of the ocean of the profession", and with this kind of educational (less educational) measure, we throw them into the fire of their own ego in time, preparing them for angry battles for their own authorship before future clients. We achieve this through directed situations in which students are their own clients, where they have the luxury of consulting a problem with an expert mentor - the best client they will ever meet in their career. Therefore, we never give the student solutions, but he finds them himself. Moreover, we don't even give tasks to the student - he recognizes them, articulates them and solves them by creating a work. Okay, of course there is a set of mandatory exercises (drawing, painting, graphics, software...) that the student has to do according to PS, but the goal is authorship, not bare manual craft.
There are many other types of authorship: agency work (in the workplace), interpretation, redesign, adaptation, translation, rendition... but I'd better stop and conclude, similar to a registrar at a wedding who reads only the basic legal obligations of the spouses, and then, without exception, coming out of his official role, humanly warns the newlyweds not to allow the very law he just read to govern their marriage.
Copyright has come a long way in the world (too far, if you ask me) - together with intellectual property in Montenegro, even the entire (seventh) chapter in the accession negotiations with the EU belongs to them - and that's the only chapter that has received an A so far! This only speaks to the fact that European integration is also an example of vain Montenegrin formalism. I have been working in the field of creative industries and education in them for a decade, and I am a witness that the aforementioned five have absolutely no basis in the content of things. The copyright law has been imported, it has no effect on the copyright awareness of Montenegrin artists, who consciously or unconsciously renounce authorship, undermining each other. In it, it is written for nothing that the artist is guaranteed artistic freedom when the creators do not use it in the right way. What remains unfathomable, even to the best law in the world, is the intention of the artist during the creative act, which is difficult to prove. And that intention is often the renunciation of authorship for opportunistic reasons, often with the complete absence of awareness of the aesthetic decadence and non-collegial corruption of such an act.
Be that as it may, in our little pond, behind the hill, the tsunami of the digital earthquake, which was back in the XNUMXth century, is unstoppable. Goethe predicted at a time when only a few boilers of steam engines were simmering in the world: And now we will have a large factory of pictures, in which, as we are told, they intend to copy every possible picture, quickly, cheaply and indistinguishable from the original, and that entirely mechanically operations, such that a child will be able to manage them. If this happens, then, of course, only the eyes of the common herd will be deceived. But along the way - points out Gete - however, artists will remain deprived of numerous sources of support and many opportunities to become better.
Any Tarabići, bro!
Faculty of Visual Arts, University of the Mediterranean
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