As soon as a creation comes to meet a coincidence

It was last October 18 when a Creative Commons Art Happening Event: ‘A Lucky Day’ started on-line and off-line at the same time. This event was hosted by Creative Commons Korea with participation of 19 artists, which was indeed a unique exhibition in every respect showing animations, drawings, contemporary music, and photographs.

The Creative Commons Korea (www.cckorea.org) is a nonprofit organization which respects the rights of copyright holders and distributes a creative commons license (CCL) which is an open license for sharing knowledge, information and art. The copyright holders mark a CCL on their creative works as a promise to define the criteria of their copyright such as display of the copyright holder, use of it for noncommercial purpose, prohibition and permission of its modification under the same condition, which ought to be protected when their creative works are consumed.

“Though it is true that copyright law exists to protect the rights of creators, it can rather inhibit free sharing of arts and make the creators’ brain stiff when they think of creation. A lot of people expect that reinforcement of the copyright will diminish illegal downloads, but it doesn’t in fact. It rather makes people afraid if their creative work might infringe copyright of someone else, which may result in excessive self-censoring and fear against copyright infringement. Through this event, I wanted people could use the creative works as much as they like by applying CCL, and wanted to show them the creative works continue to evolve in the process.” Jo In-ho, plan maker of this Art Happening Event, explains that ‘A Lucky Day’ exhibits an encounter of ‘coincidence’ and ‘creation’.

“You are also an artist if you can share something

‘A Lucky Day’ is composed of an animation under the title of ‘Friends from All over the Space – Instinct Beauty Salon’ directed by Hong Hak-soon; a music concert with songs from photographs and stories of 12 people arranged and played by songwriter Kim Beom-gi, Lee Gang-gyu, Seong Yong-won, Yoo Beom-seok, Han Gyeong-jin, and Choi Won-seok; an exhibition of drawings under the title of ‘The Origin of Birth’ prepared by artist Kim Se-hee, Rabbit Thief, and Bang Yang (the work was comprised of drawing sketches found in their wastebaskets); and a photograph exhibition under the title of ‘Photo-Exhibition without Frame – Meeting Photographs in the Book’ arranged by photographer Gang Jae-gu, Go Eun-gyeong, Shin Eun-gyeong, Yang Jae-gwang, Yang Ji-young, Lee Il-woo, Jo A-reum, and Jo Jae-man held in 10 libraries of Seoul and Gyeonggi-do area under participation of 19 artists.

One of the most important factors in the series of this work is ‘Human’. For instance, making animation and contemporary music was possible by social funding (or crowd funding). When some artists post their intention and purpose of their work on the web, their followers raise fund to support them. In case of director Hong who made an animation, he made one of his fund investors a cartoon character. Participation of human was inevitable throughout the process from the beginning to the end which is to share the works with the people and recreation of them. The library photo-exhibition was actively drawing people’s attention. Photographs were hidden in some pages of books in the library. People would find some photographs while reading books and would be surprised. Besides, people could find some incompletion of the works in the drawing exhibition, then visited the website of art happening to download complete drawings from which they made selection in order to feel and experience ‘completion’ of the works.

An art recovers its real ‘value’ by being with people and gains strength by their participation. ‘A Lucky Day’ shows the future of art, which will grow when it is shared and participated by the people based on the CCL. Now, a glass bottle filled with ‘creation’ thrown toward the world by the 19 artists will swim through the ocean of the world.

Written & Photographed by Park Sarah

Photographs from the homepage of CC Art Happening Event ‘A Lucky Day’