Blasphemous Procurement

an interview with Antonio Mendoza

by Kyle Shannon

(continued from previous page)

UD: You state: "Copyright is an attack on creative thought." Do you feel that artists have no right to protect their works or do you think the "honor system" is enough protection?

AM: I feel that this whole copyright issue is not about integrity, but about greed. It's all about people wanting more money for what they did. Of course if I take your work and claim it as my own, I'm violating your rights. That's different than if I scan your work and use it to create something new. The loudest complaints about digital violations of copyrights tend to come from photographers who see people doing things with their work for which they are not getting anything. You can't protect against the recycling of images. Digital technology cannot be held back by outdated copyright statutes. People say that if you want to use a picture of a tree, go ahead and take the damn picture. Fuck that! It's like saying if you want to paint with a certain type of brush, go ahead and make the brush.

UD: As a firm believer in "Anti-Copyright Laws," your source material rarely comes from the public domain? Aren't you imposing your beliefs on the holders of the Copywritten material you procure?

AM: None of my material comes from public domain. It all comes from magazines from newsstands. I'm not doing my work to satisfy the beliefs of the original photographers. I'm using their work as raw materials to create something new. I cannot consider the feelings of the original photographer because he/she will probably not like what I did and/or will ask me for a chunk of money. If to make my art I have to start contacting people and explaining what I want to do and ask them for permission, I won't be getting much work done.

Some argue that when I appropriate an image I'm taking money away from the photographer's children. This assumed financial loss is non-existent. It's like in the film "Tequila Sunrise" when Mel Gibson, an ex-drug dealer, is watching a newscast about a drug bust with a street value of over a few million dollars, and comments, "I always wondered where that street is".

However, if Pepsi or some other company decides to use one of my images to sell their product, then it's only fair that they should compensate me. There is a clear demarcation between the use of images for artistic or personal reasons and the use of images for commercial reasons. We shouldn't force the standards of one field onto the other.

UD: As a fellow digital artist, I often ask the question: "At what point of digital manipulation does a procured image (or sound or video) become the property of the manipulator?" How do you answer that question?

AD: My ability to make the image my own relies on my ability as an artist. Most amateurish manipulations cannot transcend the power of the original image. If I cannot transform an image into something new, I should not be faulted for my attempted appropriation. I should be faulted for being a lousy artist.