As creative type for as long as I can remember I have a strange relationship with copyright. Always entrepreneurial I remember hosting a “gallery show” of my paintings when I must have been five or six and charging not only for entry but, surprising my parents, exit as well.
I have loved to draw and paint throughout my life but my main passion has been photography. Having had the opportunity to study the subject at GCSE and A Level at my school, I excelled at it and enjoyed my time immensely.
I was persistent to say the least in my ambition to get into the London College of Printing to study photography at degree level and was eventually admitted in 2000. I was a promising young student and started my studies with high grades especially in the practical modules.
During my time at art school I slowly started to loose my grounding in reality. I was eventually hospitalised and diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a diagnosis that would scare anyone but one which helped me understand what was going on.
With help from my university I graduated one year late after taking time off to recuperate and finish written work I had neglected while unstable. It was a huge undertaking being on psychiatric medication and only just then learning how to deal with my condition.
With a degree in my back pocket I tried to be productive in my art but ultimately found myself working in a high street camera store “Oh how the mighty have fallen” one fellow student remarked after being served by me.
The problem was that I was not suited to the 9 to 5. The stress of work would compound my relapses making me seem flaky. My medication making it hard for me to wake up in the mornings making me tardy as well.
After loosing my job my parents helped fund a return to university to study computer science. Already interested in computing and the free software movement in particular I was inspired by the digital advances happening all around me. I had been an active follower of digital culture and the hacker underground over the years.
But the stress of study and several breakdowns and relapses would soon take their toll. Able to achieve high grades but unable to deal with the tight deadlines and heavy workloads along with my condition I dropped out of university.
All the while I would take pictures and flirt with putting them online on sharing sites like flickr. I would read books by Stallman and Lessig and understand the limits copyright placed on our creativity.
I made several video works using copyrighted music and would understand the dangers as well as the ludicrousness of the issue as my friends would download whole archives of music, TV and films for free.
But I understood that if I was to be on a sure footing I needed to be legit and be able to monetise my projects and not leave them as internet flotsam. I thought copyright would allow me to monetise my work. But the greater struggle was gaining the recognition as an artist to be taken seriously enough to be bought and sold.
So I came to the conclusion that my ability to work productively in a commercial context or as a freelancer was not tenable. It placed too high a monetary burden on me to support myself. I knew I would almost certainly be hampered by yet more breakdowns and relapses.
It already has effected my tentative steps to help out friends and charities with creative work. As soon as there are people relying on me my illness likes to remind me that I just can’t sustain the working life I need to pay the rent and I would need the support of a very understanding and patient employer if I was ever to get a lasting job.
Understanding being one of the hardest things to come by when you are faced with living with a mental health condition. My search for a employer that would understand continues.
So my plan? Is to give back to the community that has so inspired me, all the re-mixers, hackers and copyright activists who’s work I have followed for all these years.
I’m not a die hard. I am posting this on tumblr and hope to utilise flickr which I’m sure Stallman would baulk at but I hope to leverage as many free and open source tools as I can. I want to create great art and continue my commentary through my blog and my twitter. Not focusing on my condition but creating art and documenting the world through its distorted lens.
I want to release my art under creative commons licences simply because I need to give something back to the people who pay their taxes and keep me fed throughout my struggle. I realise that due to UK law I can not make money while receiving my out of work benefits. The system being so complex and convoluted that I don’t want to rock the boat. I fear the day I have to fill out another benefits form while ill. Or go to a job centre interview while suffering from hallucinations.
Even scarier is having to deal with these things in my window of clarity. Where I feel like I am undeserving of this ongoing support. Finding myself in the pits of another relapse soon enough but missing out on important funding that could make my life less painful.
I would love to come off benefits and make a name for myself in one field or another. But I need a cushion, I need people around me who I can inform about my struggle and who can be there to support me along the way.
I have been a lurker on the internet for long enough I feel it is time to contribute to this wonderful pool of talent. And by committing myself to be productive in my moments of clarity and releasing that work to you the public under licences that would allow you to share the work and my story.
I want to be a productive member of society and I have so often let down friends, clients and employers just as much as they have let me down. I hope to forge new links amongst the digital community and pave a new path.
With your support, by just bookmarking one of my digital outlets and following what I do I hope you can begin to enjoy the art and commentary I create and maybe one day be a vital part of getting me on my own two feet and earning the money I need to get by.
I pledge to keep on posting, creating and keeping my work available under a creative commons licence for the foreseeable future. I hope you enjoy what I post and spread the word about my very real struggle and my pledge to give back to the culture of the internet that kept me informed, educated and amused for all those years sat at my computer fighting off my demons.
