Since the birth of the avant-gardes of the last century art and cultural production changed shapes and significance. During these last years, change has reached dimensions and speeds that have never been seen before in human history, arriving to a complete redefinition of creative processes that, today, assume characteristics that are completely different from the ones of even just a few years ago.

Specifically, digital technologies introduced artistic and cultural creation modalities that are completely innovative.

The infinite possibilities for manipulation, replication, sythesis, reenactment and sharing of contents and processes are the main characteristics that define the new creative processes, becoming their practical and cultural foundations.

As of today it is just not imaginable to conceive digital creative processes that are completely isolated from the practices related to content manipulation, image processing, sound sampling, video reuse, textual quotation, software generation, knowledge sharing, hyperlinking. Unless the goal is to use digital technologies to create maimed and not very significative forms of expression, hitting off creative practices of other times, of other social and anthropological contexts.

On the other hand, artistic and cultural creative acts have never been totally separated from the practices of knowledge sharing and of manipulation: literature, photography, painting and music alone provide masses of significant examples.

Surfing the web we came to know about the website of the RomaEuropa WebFactory competition organized and promoted by the RomaEuropa Foundation.

Several elements found in the general design of the contest and of its related processes managed to tickle our sensibility.

Staring with the submission process to be followed by the artists.

In the contest rules document Article 8 reads:

No mashup, remix and any other manipulaction activity is permitted to the artists, and in no case the works produced through mashups, remix and other manipulatory techniques will be allowed to participate to the Competition

The exclusion of those works of creativity that are the product of techniques such as remix, mashup or, generally, digital manipulation is "strange" in more than one way.

First of all as it excludes, as a fact, most digital products of creativity! Let's not forget that we are dealing with electronic music, videoart, web literature! Musical samples, footage, hyperlinks, but also fonts, icons, geometrical and typographical compositions are all elements of digital productions. Even more, they have become a foundamental part of the culture that is at the base of these forms of creativity.

But there is more, as the legal architecture of the contest is shaky to say the least. The exclusion is based on a presumption of illegality, as it gives for granted that a product created, for example, using a mashup is necessarily illegal, absolutely avoiding to taking into account the existence of contents distributed using open licenses (Creative Commons, but others as well) according to which free diffusion (or even free manipulation) is among the rights that the authors explicitly and willfully granted to the community.

We asked Gianluigi De Stefano, the curator of RomaEuropa Web Factory, about it, and he answered, among other things:

To be able to admit works that are the result of mashup and remix we would have had to verify the legitimacy of the rights on every work, making the whole admission process too cumbersome and impracticable, or even exposing the whole contest to the risks of legal actions enacted by other artists or by some of the participants.

Excluded as "too hard" to manage. A doubt rises spontaneously: what will the organizers do for the works that will be effectively be admitted to the competition? Will they just trust them? Won't they verify?

But, naturally, the "strange" elements of the competition do not end here.

Reading the disclaimer that the artists need to accept and sign to be able to join the contest:

1) to give up, with effect from now, to Fondazione Romaeuropa Arte e Cultura with legal headquarters in Roma, via dei Magazzini Generali 20/A and to Telecom Italia S.pA., with legal headquarters in Piazza degli Affari, 2.20123, Milano (in the following "the Promoters"), for the whole world and with no time limitations, the sole right, any and every exploitation right, in any form and through any mean, present and future, and, specifically: reproduction, adaption, publication, diffusion, execution and public representation, communication to the public, public availability, distribution, translation, elaboration, renting and lending, of the Work that the undersigned will load on the website. It is intended how these rights will be available to the Promoters and to the third parties that will be autorized by the Promoters themselves; in which case it will be allowed for the promoters to identify such third parties and to autonomously negotiate and agree with them the conditions to exercise these rights, to its own discretion..

even more
5) to accept this disclaimer and that the granting of the abovementioned rights to the Promoters is totally free of charge; therefore the undersigned will have no possible claims, under any form whatsoever, towards the Promoters, and towards any third party that the Promoters will authorize, for anything concerning the granting of the rights and/or the exploitment or not exploitment of the Work.

and then, at point 4
"4) to authorize, with effect from now, the Promoters - and the third parties authorized by the Promoters - to also use single parts or fragments of the Work, and also to edit the Work, totally or partially, whenever this is believed to be appropriate by the Promoters or by the third parties for the better exploitation of the Work; the undersigner specifically authorizes the Promoters to perform mashups and remixes using the Work, giving up, with effect from now, the possibility to obtain any refund, allowance or compensation".

Summing things up, RomaEuropa Foundation and Telecom can remix. Artists can't.. And, besides, artists are practically forced to give up to the RomaEuropa Foundation, free of charge, in exclusive and with no time limitation, ALL of the rights on their works!!!

Besides being truly surreal, all of this is an expression of an action of cultural (un)promotion that is truly harmful and reactionary, not only denying any support to artists and to the possibilities offered by contemporary technologies, but mostly denigrating the cultural, social and anthropological ecosystem in which and for which they operate.

Synthesizing, it's an expression of italian institutional processes, a way of using citizen's money and resources, that we don't feel like accepting. Our critique materializes itself through this contest: a free opportunity for expression, for study and research, and, why not, for the creation of opportunities for digital creators of any age and social extraction.