Italian version
.hacktivisms
18.05.04 Modernism Inc., copyright protected brain.
Sometimes conceptual artists surpass the spirit of enterprise of figurative ones and, just with the formalization of an idea, develop striking paradoxes which can provoke immediate emotional reactions. One of the most recent operations of this kind was carried out by Jonathon Keats, who signed a contract with the United States Copyright Office to protect his mind under the terms of copyright law. Since one of the clauses of this law extends the protection for 70 years after the author's death, his brain will be protected for seven decades more after the end of his life as well. Modernism, Inc., based in San Francisco, will sell shares of his brain at the price of 10 dollars for a million neurons which can be chosen among the 60 billion available. The narrative triggered by such an operation becomes as fast as a ball thrown into the media pinball because of the intrinsic sarcasm in the commercialization of intellect and for the doubts it stirs up on the fate of one's own personal identity after one's demise. The provocation is also based on the promise to give new life to Keats' brain after his death, and skillfully exploits the commonly perceived seriousness of a legal contract and its memetic potential.