Agency constitutes a growing list of things that resist the binary division between culture and nature, expressions and ideas and consequently between creations and facts, subjects and objects, humans and non-humans, originality and banality, individuals and collectives, etc... These things are derived from juridical processes, lawsuits, cases, controversies, affairs and so forth around intellectual property (copyrights, patents, trade marks, etc...). The concept of property relies upon the assumption of the division between culture and nature. Each thing on the list invokes the moment of hesitation in terms of this division.
Agency calls things forth from its list via varying assemblies inside exhibitions, performances, publications, etc... Each assembly explores in a topological way a different aspect of the performative consequences of the apparatus of intellectual property for an ecology of art practices.
For Assembly (PA/PER VIEW), Agency will call things forth, speculating on the question: How to include book making in art practices? How are typeface designers, book binders, lay-outers, etc... taken into consideration by copyright law? Thing 001452 (Orion) and Thing 001535(Introductory Language Work) will convene an assembly at PA/PER VIEW in order to bear witness. On April 1, 2011 Agency will invite a diverse group of concerned guests to translate on these things: Thorsten Baensch (publisher Bartleby), Sari Depreeuw (legal scholar VUB), Manuel Raeder (graphic designer), OSP (Open Source Publishing: Ivan Monroy Lopez/Seb Sanfilippo/Femke Snelting/etc..), Ziga Testen (graphic designer), etc...
Thing 001452 (Orion) concerns a controversy between Eltra and the copyright registration office. Eltra deposited the typeface Orion at the copyright registration office, but the office refused to recognize typefaces. During a court case of 1978 the judge had to decide if a typeface can be protected by copyrights.
Thing 001535 (Introductory Language Work) concerns a controversy between the publisher Maynard Merrill and the second hand paper dealer Harrison. Harrison obtained from a damaged paper stock pages of Introductory Language Work, and bound these together into a book. Maynard Merrill attempted to forbid this, cause he considered the
bookbinding a derivative work. During a court case of 1894 the judge had to decide if bookbinding can be protected by copyrights.