A recent and rather shocking law from Minister Rutelli in Italy forbid the digital representation of art on the Internet, virtually cutting the Italian art market out from the rest of the world, promoting ignorance in art history, and sabotaging student researches.
In Italy there is a saying: “Fatta la legge, trovato l’ inganno” (as the law’s made, the trick is found); this time the trick was in the law itself, that at some point states: “The publishing of low resolution or degraded versions of protected images and sounds is allowed in the Internet Network, free of charge, for scientific and educational use, as long as this use is not aimed at profit”.
The key word now is “degrade” (like Italy hadn’t been degrading enough lately): the art group DegradArte is calling out for “degraded” versions of art works, here is a funny one of a Van Gogh degraded by junk (you must have read about the junk tragedy in Naples…).

While the purpose of these sort of laws would be to hold change back, they simply accelerate the process of remediation and cultural renewal. At the price of “degrading” masterpieces. Good degrading to all.

Technorati Tags: educational, Italy, participatory, remediation, Web 2.0