Pixelsumo is a blog about interaction, with an emphasis on play, installation, video game culture, playgrounds and toys. Written by Chris O'Shea.
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Posted June 25th 2010 under Me
Hand from Above is a piece I made last year for an outdoor screen, where a giant hand picks up people from a crowd, and flicks them off the screen (it also squashes them, tickles them).
Today I have been sent this advertising in Time Square, where a giant super model picks up people from the crowd and throws them out of the screen.
Watch video…
Create by ad agency Space150 for Forever21.
Good to see what can be achieved with a better production budget, such a using video for the animation, higher resolution camera and massive screen. There are a few other things it does like take a snapshot Polaroid and picking people out carrying a yellow Forever21 bag.
I’m not by any means suggesting that the creators have seen Hand from Above, but it certainly feels familiar. Maybe inspired by? What do you think?
[update]
There had been a heated discussion on Vimeo comments about this and I have now posted my response…
http://vimeo.com/12855619
Comments
(June 25th 2010)
Simply put, it’s a blatant copy.
Your work is way better, since originality can’t be surpassed.
IMHO (aka from an unknown follower)
(June 25th 2010)
I don’t know…it sure seems an awful lot like Hand from Above. However, this is the way innovation is supposed to occur! The question is, what will your response be to outdo them?
(June 25th 2010)
Chris, no doubt your work was a huge inspiration for us. Thanks for pushing the envelope, and creating new possibilities. - Billy Jurewicz, space150
(June 25th 2010)
“huge inspiration”, come on! all ad agencies can do is rip off other people’s work and make a pile of shit out of it. how about getting creative yourself?
(June 26th 2010)
Not the same work at all, sure hand from above is the inspiration but the american version doesn’t have any poetic level, just a consumerist feeling I guess…
keep up the good work!
(June 27th 2010)
The upper hand is clear: Hand from Above.
(June 27th 2010)
As a comedian and comic book reviewer I know how easy it is to write “in parallel” and seem like you lifted something. But frankly its never clear if someone stole something… it could always just be two people working in space and creating similar ideas. So lets not throw anyone under a bus until someone can PROVE it was a lift.
Great Minds Think Alike is something we all say, and its a nod to this. Sometimes we all have the same idea. No foul if its not done malicious and deliberate intent to steal.
(June 28th 2010)
There’s no way the advertisers wouldn’t have heard of your work. There are so many ads out there that rip off what others do, if you watch youtube a month later whatever’s gone viral will be an ad
(June 28th 2010)
Zach Lieberman
Eyebeam.org
been working with this for years.
Zeitgeist maybe?
(June 28th 2010)
Congratulations on the publicity you are getting out of this ;-)
(June 28th 2010)
Here’s another nice variation to the theme, maybe even more poetic. :)
Just saw it at the RCA degree show:
http://www.di10.rca.ac.uk/helgefischer/
(June 29th 2010)
Hmm.. I dont know guys. This sure is a delicate question of copyright and how far we, as creatives, should go claiming it. But we dont want to see a copyright deadlock like we see in the technical sector.. do we?
Sure it might be picked from you, Chris. And acknowledgment might be nice, if so. But creatives pick all the time, dont they? Its part of the process. I dont write every artist for an inspiration i got from their work.. And isnt it that ideas fly around and you see suddenly a lot of people doing similar things, sometimes also independently, and in the end history remembers only one for it?
I think they took it further enough to be legitimate.. the context is very different too. And Chris, I dont think you have to be afraid to loose out on something here. We all have seen your work first(!) and “we” are enough to ensure your credits stay put. I would rather be proud.. as Dali said, you know you made it, when people start copying (in this sense literally) your work.
Johanna Blakley had an interesting talk on TED how “copying ideas” actually fuels creativity in the fashion industry:
http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html
my two cents
(June 29th 2010)
I prefer the sexy girls to the hand.
(June 30th 2010)
Myron Krueger did very similar work (to both your project and the NYC billboard) in 1975. Just look up wikipedia entries and images for Myron Krueger and also for Videoplace.
(July 7th 2010)
it’s exyzt vs mtv all over again (http://blog.antivj.com/2008/exyzt-installation-ripped-off-by-the-killers/).
The open community is a relatively new experiment in how to act in commerce, and people are still getting to grips with it.
most of the time people end up saying “here’s the idea, do what you want with it”. then an asshole makes loads of money with it and you’re stuck in a muddle.
so maybe artists need to be more careful. stamping working with creative commons stamps all the time?
or, just accept that work will be stolen and let it happen without complaint. perhaps in the hope that the people that matter will mind.
the third way appears to hope that others will respect your ownership of the idea, and perhaps contact you in advance to discuss terms.
One question for chris:
if they presented you with what they had in mind before they started, then would you have agreed on the same attribution terms that they’ve now agreed to. Or would you have asked for more? Maybe that’s a private question.
(July 8th 2010)
Another example of an “adapted” art piece by an ad agency: Ice cream vending machines Share Happy vs Dr Whippy (more info). The lack of acknowledgment or credit of the prior-art is the most disturbing.
(August 25th 2010)
oh, that forever21 thing is just repetitive boring work. Nothing interesting. It’s not interacting at all!! Your work is way better. Plus, eventhough now is the time that people just copy other’s idea and use it for free, they’ll have to pay for it, somehow, someday. Let’s never stand with the boring, uncreative, money driven people!! BE CREATIVE, yeahy~