Collaboration, Copyleft and Dispersion: A Lecture with DEXTER SINISTER
September 4th, 2009 by Sydney
Aside from the fucking awesome cool shit- I mean… aspects of fantasy in real life that we find out in the world and post on this blog, we do have a few other interests, believe it or not. And I would like to hope that the readers of this blog have checked out the main site at least once since it’s been up but I can’t be sure of that. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but the URL for this site is fantasyirl.net/blog. Ever wonder would would happen if the /blog weren’t there? Were would it take you?
Though the main site, fantasyirl.net, is headquarters of our ongoing project, Fantasy IRL, the official purpose of this blog has always been to act as a place where we can document our work as well as gather, collect and share our many influences, inspirations and interests not only as nerdy fangirls, but as artists.
So, what you’re about to read is my first post in a long time of any real substance! (Be excited) I present to you… *drum roll*… a special rant about collaboration, copyleft and artists/designers Dexter Sinister!
(It should be noted that the piece was originally written for the blog my design class keeps.)
Wednesday afternoon, I attended the lecture of visiting artists David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey, collectively known as Dexter Sinister, at USC’s Roski Graduate School of Fine Arts. I felt compelled to go, not just because of the extra credit that I was offered from my design professor (though I must admit, it was nice incentive) but more because I was curious to hear the duo speak about their work as a collaborative team.
For the past several months, I’ve been working on my first collaborative project, tentatively called Fantasy IRL, with a fellow Roski student, which investigates fantasy and science fiction fan culture and their members’ methods of finding or enacting their fantasies in-real-life (IRL). I’ve found that people often underestimate the added pressures and responsibilities of working as a collaborative team as opposed to by one’s self and I was interested in observing the ways in which Reinfurt and Bailey interact and work with each other, and in this case, particularly in the public sphere.
They spoke they way their work looks: direct, plain and and well-researched. Their way of speaking was regimented and at times seemed planned, but not in a stiff or unnatural way. When there was a pause in the c
onversation, one would fluidly pick up where the other left off with plenty of things of his own to say, almost like they had their talk rehearsed down to an art in itself, which I’ve found that many artists do. Though I regret not asking them any questions during the Q&A about their practice as a collaborative team versus their individual practices, I later spoke with Shannon Ebner, artist, professor and head of Roski’s Photography Department, who, having collaborated with Dexter Sinister on a number of occasions herself, was able to further illuminate some of what I was further interested in knowing. From what she said, while working as Dexter Sinister, Reinfurt is more hands on with the actual designing of works and has a small design company of his own. Bailey, though still a designer, is more of the front-of-the-house kind of guy, talking and dealing with galleries, museums and whoever else they need to keep in contact with while making their work. This sort of pragmatic division of labor is something I find most helpful in my own collaborative dealings and processes and one that I hope we can further implicate in mine and my partner’s practices as we continue on with our project.
Aside from the inner working of Dexter Sinister as a team, I was particularly interested in how they deal with mechanical reproduction, copyright (or in their case copyleft), and dispersion of information in their work, all issues that I, as of laterly, have 
been considering and dealing with in my own artwork as an artist (issues that designers working in today’s world should be concerned with as well). Though photography itself is a form ofmechanical reproduction, the issue has only become more exaggerated with the current digital revolution. And as I have been using more and more digital means to produce my own work, work that also often deals with aspects of the digital age and a movement toward the future and technological singularity, I found their words and interests particularly applicable. Also, having recently become an avid blogger, I’ve had to become more and more aware of copyright laws and ways of legally dispersing information that might otherwise be illegal and it was interested to hear the ways they delt those issues as well. In one of their works in particular, the piece consisted of a copy machine and a number of loose chapters of a book on a table next to it. Dexter Sinister found a loop hole in the book’s publisher’s copyright laws that allowed them to at any one time let any person make one photo copy of one chapter from the book and keep it without technically doing anything illegal. This also meant that technically the same person over the course of several hours or days could go back into the gallery and copy a different chapter of the book each time until they collected the whole book without ever having to pay for it. Technically.
Though designers they may be, I’ve come to see, appreciate and respect Dexter Sinister more for their ideas and conceptual work as artists, rather than as designers (thought I must say, I do love the clean simplicity of their visual designs). Not only am I interested in now keeping up with their various publications, such as dot dot dot, but I’m excited to observe the way they will further adapt to the world in which they live and work as it continues to evolve around them, as well as keep track of more future incarnations of Dexter Sinister.
