writing

My first NFT – and why it was not a live-changing experience

Cornelia Sollfrank / 31 May 2022
From Commons to NFTs” is an (expanded) writing series initiated by Shu Lea Cheang, Felix Stalder & Ewen Chardronnet. Cautioned by the speculative bubble (burst) of NFTs, the series brings back the notion of commons from around the turn of the millennium to reflect upon and intervene in the transformation of the collective imagination and its divergent futures. Every last day of the month Makery publishes a new contribution of these “chain essays”. Fifth text by Cornelia Sollfrank.

https://www.makery.info/en/2022/05/31/english-my-first-nft-and-why-it-was-not-a-life-changing-experience/

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writing

obn_a – A situated Archive of the Old Boys Network

The text is a critical reflection by Cornelia Sollfrank on building an archive of the Old Boys Network. The work was part of „Networks of Care“ that offered a platform at nGbK Berlin in 2021, enabling an exchange of ideas and information between practitioners and experts concerning strategies for dealing with artistic estates, private and public archives, or idle documentation volumes. Editors: Anna Schäffler, Friederike Schäfer, Nanne Buurman, AG Networks of Care, nGbK, Berlin.

https://ngbk.de/templates/ngbkberlinmelior/shop/index.php?letter=N&lang=

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writing

The Art of Getting Organized. A Different Approach to Old Boys Network.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2021

This text explores the dynamics underlying the Old Boys Network as an hybrid form of political self-organization. Shapeshifting between a network, a group, a temporary collective, a structure, an infrastructure or a dust cloud, OBN remained elusive while building on affective involvement and activation as a their micropolitical strategy.

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writing

IN THE SHADOW OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. Artistic takes on the Digital Commons.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2020.

The projects discussed in this text all make cultural products available online for free. What is special about them is that they have all been initiated and are run by small groups of artists or individual artists who provide the infrastructure as well as the contents, and they do so without a budget or any sort of official mandate. Due to their radical open access practiced in the art context, they unfold an enormous symbolic value, parallel to their practical value. In this sense, they are manifestations of current political problems rather than solutions, and their relevance lies in the complexity of the questions they are asking. Published in German in: Sich mit Sammlungen anlegen. Gemeinsame Dinge und alternative Archive. Martina Griesser-Stermscheg, Nora Sternfeld und Luisa Ziaja (Hrsg.), De Gruyter, Wien. Seiten: 85-94.

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writing

Post-IP Aesthetics.
Kunst und ihre veränderte Rolle in der ›Knowledge Economy‹

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2018

Kunst und Urheberrecht stehen nicht nur in einem engen Verhältnis, sondern bedingen sich als Systeme gegenseitig. Seit dem 18. Jahrhundert beruhen sie beide auf Vorstellungen von individueller Autorschaft und Originalität, die einerseits Eigentumsverhältnisse begründen und andererseits für die Autonomie des Kunstfeldes konstituierend sind. Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass das Urheberrecht im Rahmen der Knowledge Economy einen wesentlichen Bedeutungszuwachs erfahren hat und nun weniger ein kulturelles denn ein ökonomisches Recht ist, stellt sich die Frage, welche Konsequenzen dies für die Kunst hat. Der Begriff ›Post-IP Aesthetics‹ soll in diesem Text als Vorlage dienen für eine Diskussion über Kunst und ihre Funktion unter den veränderten Produktions- und Rezeptionsbedingungen einer global vernetzen Welt.

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writing

The Surplus of Copying – How shadow libraries and pirate archives contribute to the creation of cultural memory and the commons

in: Franz Thalmair and Michael Kargl (Eds.), originalcopy, DeGruyter, Boston/Berlin.

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writing

A Pervert’s Guide to Artistic Research

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2016

Der Text gibt eine genaue Einsicht in die Praxis einer Künstlerin, die mit der institutionalisierten Form künstlerischer Forschung bestens vertraut ist. Cornelia Sollfrank stellt darin das selbst erfahrene Modell des practice-based PhD in Großbritannien vor, kritisiert es aber auch.

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writing

Revisiting the Future. Cyberfeminism in the Twenty-First Century.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2016

In this text I will revisit the various elaborations of cyberfeminism that were practiced in the 1990s. Underlying this trip into the past is a series of questions that might help to better understand the present: what were the impulses behind the techno-feminist upheaval?[1] How did the different concepts vary? Can cyberfeminism play a role in the current situation in which the atmosphere of departure has evaporated, making space for a seemingly all-encompassing dystopia? Are there any techno-feminist approaches that respond to contemporary challenges?

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writing

Nothing New Needs to be Created. Kenneth Goldsmith’s Claim to Uncreativity.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2015

This text discusses the claims of New-York-based artist Kenneth Goldsmith regarding his artistic strategies of writing poetry and building the online archive UbuWeb. It is based on an interview Sollfrank conducted with Goldsmith on 1st of February 2013.

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writing

Copyright Cowboys Performing the Law

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2012

This text looks at the role of Appropriation Art in contemporary discourses on copyright and intellectual property. It discusses whether appropriation artists have been able to meet their own critical claims, and what the value of a strategy, which depends so much on the workings of the art world, could be within a copyright-critical discourse whose issues go far beyond the art world. In: Joshua Pablo Rosenstock (Ed.), Journal of the New Media Caucus, V.08 N.02: Found, Sampled, Stolen: Strategies of Appropriation in New Media, 2012.

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writing

THE THING Hamburg. A Temporary Democratization of the Local Art Field.

Rahel Puffert, Michel Chevalier, Cornelia Sollfrank / 2014.

THE THING Hamburg was an experimental Internet platform whose vocation was to contribute to the democratization of the art field, to negotiate new forms of art in practice, and to be a site for political learning and engagement. The authors of this this paper trace the (local) circumstances that led to the emergence of the project and take a look at its historical precursor; they reflect on the organizational form of this collectively-run and participatory platform, and investigate the role locality can play in the development of political agency.

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research, writing

copyright © 2004, Cornelia Sollfrank

Cornelia Sollfrank /2004

The starting point for this text is the question of who can be considered the author of a digital image collage produced by nag_05. The related investigation is based on legal research conducted in the field of copyright for computer-generated works as well as joint authorship, and aims at meticulously discussing as many legal options as possible. The text simultaneously applies and reflects legal thinking as it is performed through the adopting of legal terminology. There is also a video available in which the author reads the text to screen.

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