TED2006: On tidy canvases and animal copyright

Eleventh session of TED2006 (background): running notes.

Fellow Swiss Ursus Wehrli is the cleaning man of canvases and the author of "Tidying up art", a book where he takes the elements of paintings and "cleans them up". For example, he walks into Van Gogh's "Bedroom" (here at right) with Photoshop and tidies up everything onto and under the bed ("this room hadn't been cleaned up since 1888", the year it was painted). Speaking with a Swiss-German accent, Wehrli is very funny. He shows the work he has done with works by Picasso, Bruegel's village square (which looks deserted "after I sent everyone home"), Niki de Saint-Phalle, Keith Haring, Paul Klee (he shows his 1930 coloured chalkboard Farbtafel: "you see that the artist had no idea how to use colors, or maybe he was in a hurry"), Jackson Pollock ("I decided to go all the way and just put the paint back into the cans"), and many others. He ends showing his most recent work: tidying up national flags. He claims that tidying up art is somehow an art in itself, and indeed it is.

Controversial British biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey of Cambridge University claims to have created a roadmap to defeat biological aging ("to save lives", he calls it) so that humans can live for hundreds or even thousands of years. "Aging is the greatest embodiement of our faliure as a species; if we figure out how to defeat aging (if we were to live 1000 years) we would have more ambitions than we have now and solve the big problems of the world". Basically de Grey believes that aging is a set of accumulating molecular and cellular transformations in our bodies, caused by metabolism, that eventually cause pathology and kill us. That could be approached "as an engineering problem", he says: identifying all the components of the variety of processes that cause tissues to age, and then design remedies for each of them. Needlessly to say, de Grey (a spillover speaker: he spoke already at TEDGLOBAL last July) is not universally respected in scientific circles.

Education and creativity expert Ken Robinson is the author of "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative": "We have no clue how the world will be in five years, yet we are educating our children for that world". "All kids have tremendous creative potential, and we are squandering it: schools educate kids out of creativity - the process of having innovative ideas that have value - because mistakes are stigmatized - and if you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original". "Creativity is now as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status". "Our education systems is predicated on the idea of academic ability (math is considered more important than, say, dance), and encourages you to stay away from the things you liked as a kid" ("dance doesn't pay rent" - for most people anyway). "Our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology: our education system has mined our minds for specific capacities (pretty much like we have mined the Earth for specific resources, oil, minerals, to the edge of depletion) and we can't keep doing it".

Gregory Colbert is a Canadian photographer who has spent the last fifteen years on a unique artistic and human project: to reconcile through pictures the world of people and that of animals which, from past harmony, have progressively become separated and even confrontational. Colbert is not an animal-rights advocate or a cat-hugger: he dances with whales underwater, creates a sense of spirituality by making children "dialogue" with elephants, and so on.
His exhibit "Ashes and Snow" is a must-see: a triumph of beauty, a celebration of an out-of-time nature-man communion. For a dozen years, Colbert has travelled to the end of the world, to deserts and jungles and under the surface of oceans, in search of images capable or representing this harmony. A couple of years ago he showed some of his work at Venice's Biennale. Then he asked Japanese architect Shigeru Ban to conceive a "nomadic museum", and Ban came up with a majestic recyclable cathedral made of ship containers where Colbert's pictures are hanging, hand-printed on gigantic sheets of Japanese paper, in a paradoxical overlapping of metal and poetry (I saw the exhibit in New York a few months back; the museum is currently in Santa Monica and soon the pictures will be shown in Vatican City - the first non-religious exhibit there in 2000 years - and travel around the world). Colbert's images, which he claims to realize without artificial light, without computer graphics nor digital tricks, and without employing tamed animals (this last claim is controversial) revisit and reveal a forgotten world of human-nature osmosis. His are not images of nostalgia: they are a bestiary of poetry, a celebration of beauty and of emotions - and the fact that we marvel at these images is by itself a statement on their necessity. "For the last 15 years I've been an apprentice to nature, collaborating with 35 species", he says, and then he shows his awesome pictures and movies. Here are three of his photographs:

Colbert comes back on stage: "It is standard practice in our world to compensate people for use of their intellectual property. Until now that has not been the case for nature and animals: for years corporations have used nature and animals to promote their products". So Colbert announces that he will shortly launch the Animal Copyright Foundation, a non-profit entity that will exist "to serve and preserve species and habitats around the world". The foundation will seek "to collect 1 percent of all media buys that use animals" in advertising and commercial communication, and distribute these funds to conservation organizations around the world. He believes that this organization could raise 600 million dollars a year. How to make it happen? Through an ingenious and shrewd use of market pressure. There will be a logo, a sort of "animal copyright seal" (image left: a mockup created by Ethan Zuckerman) to display on ads and billboards - and Colbert counts on the fact that corporations may "feel the backlash" from consumers if they don't display it and are therefore perceived as exploiting the animal world. The idea is crazy enough that it miight well work. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this - and in any case, go see Colbert's exhibition if you ever get a chance. "On behalf of the elephants, thank you for listening", he says closing his speech.

(tags TED2006 - TED 2006) (TED site  - flickr photos)

Comments

[Mike Shipman]

I am a photographer and former wildlife biologist. While there must be good intentions in Mr. Colbert's wish to create this animal copyright foundation I think his focus on large media companies to foot the bill for his foundation may be misplaced somewhat. It's not the corporations that buy, house, train and otherwise offer up for rent these animals. Certainly, the corporations have the funds to spare, but if there were no captive animals available for rent the animals would possibly not be exploited as they are now in mass media.

Why not assess this "copyright fee" to the trainers and handlers, and also to the trappers who capture them for the animal entertainment industry, the "owners" of exotic animals, the roadside attractions and traveling zoos, bars and restaurants, shopping malls and other establishments that hold captive animals as a draw and certainly care for their animals less than those used in the media. And what about the movie industry?

Of course, the corporations are where the money is. I'm not dismissing them as a target source nor that they shouldn't also be responsible. I think you can't be selective about your targets on this issue.

[tamir berkman]

While I understand and support Mikes opinion I believe Colbert is getting it right. Brands are the ones paying for animals to be featured so they drive the demand. If there will be no demand, there will be less animal trainers and capturers. It's hard to enforce our believes on someone who's next meal depends on capturing an animal but if we can get brands to pay some money for their use of talented animals we can lower the demand and make a real contribution back to nature.

[Juliette Banks]

I am a marketing professional and believe Mr. Colbert's idea is fantastic. It is about giving back to nature and our planet, and balancing out life. People need to understand, like he said, that this is the way of life and if we continue down our current path then nature will continue to bite back. This is not a financial venture to make money for Mr Colbert as this is a not-for-profit organisation. This is not aimed at the trained animals and their trainers. This is big picture planetary stuff. Spiritual. I think its a wonderful idea and support it wholey. The more attention it gets, the greater it will be! I have searched the net and cannot find anything but gossip. I hope he launches a website soon to keep the momentum going. Best wishes to Mr. Colbert and what a beautiful film!