Watermarked

My default position is that I don’t want to put my images online where they can be readable/scannable (because that would defeat the purpose of coming to an exhibit to scan them in person). It’s an exclusionary tactic; just like excluding viewers without smartphones, I can exclude people who aren’t in the physical presence of the work. But, alas, I waffle on this.

Artists want to get noticed, but fear having their work stolen. So their solution is to obscure their digital image slightly with a graphical watermark, making it undesirable to steal. The first image in this series, “Regretfully Yours”, mocks the use of the graphical watermarks that copyright holders (or wanna-be copyright holders) use to make their images theft-proof on the internet.

“Regretfully Yours” has a watermark. However it is not applied digitally; it is actually part of the painting. And, it does NOT preclude the viewer from scanning it from his/her computer screen (click the large image to view the whole barcode). And, the result of scanning it drives the point home. Additionally, the watermark reads “(c) parasol b”. No technically legitimate copyright exists for this work.