The Machinery of Creation. Oulipo Poetry, Copyright & Rules of Constraint

Abstract

This article explores the double burden of creative regulation – the aesthetic restrictions artists choose and their interaction with copyright rules, using the example of oulipo, a constraint-based creative practice. Part One explains the Oulipo movement. Oulipo technique is then demonstrated in new poems by artist and poet Janet Bi Li Chan, based on existing works, Franny Choi’s Turing Test and Tracy K Smith’s Sci-FI, applying word substitution (N + 7), erasure or blackout technique, and remixing. Part Two applies a copyright law reading to the new poems. We show how legislative frameworks measure all creators – regardless of artistic self identity and process – as if they were humanist authors. But in application tests also produce far more surprises than might be expected if law is conceived of as rule-based constraint. Part Three applies Oulipo techniques to key articles of the Berne Convention that permit artistic licence: Art 9 Right of Reproduction; Art 10 Certain Free Uses of Works; and Art 10bis Further Possible Free Uses of Works. These new Berne poems highlight the prescriptive face copyright law presents to creators. We argue it is the emotional resonance of copyright, rather than its technicality, that primarily impacts creative practice. We conclude that law reproduces an idealised imaginary of a humanist author to measure creative transgression and this confinement means that copyright is unable to properly converse with artists or poets. Law suppresses the cyborg in all creation.