While speculating on the question “how can the world become included within art practices?” for Assembly (Sofam Artist Talk), Agency calls Thing 1141 (Coors Billboard) forth from its list of things. On a first view it might seem like an odd question. Isn't the world always included in art practices? But how?
In assessing copyrightability, courts try to separate the 'external' world out there from 'internal' choices by an artists. But what is for example the 'external' world of a photo? The treachery of images is that the 'truth' of pictures is at the same time it's 'falsity'. The magic of pictures comes from that they are hard to see as things in themselves. Often one forgets the relation between a picture and what it seems to depict. “Ceci est une image!” Also judges tend to treat photos as 'transparent'. They often deny that interpretation is necessary, claiming that photos merely replicate 'the world out there'. Pictures appear for copyright law as to resemble 'un-mediated' rendition, as 'windows onto the world'. What courts protect as original in photography are the elements of choice that indicate that it is a photograph: angles of shot, light and shade, exposure, effects achieved by means of lenses and filters, developing techniques, etc...
Thing 1141 (Coors Billboard) concerns a controversy between the photographer Jonathan Mannion and the company Coors about the Iced Out Comp Board beer advertising. On July 21, 2005, during “Mannion v. Coors Brewing Co.” judge Lewis Kaplan had to decide if the photographer's arranged or created 'world out there' could be protected. Thing 1141 (Coors Billboard) summons an assembly in order to bear witness.

Agency

Agency is a Brussels-based initiative that was founded in 1992 by Kobe Matthys. The modern concept of intellectual property relies fundamentally upon the assumption of a division between the ontological categories of “nature” and “culture”. However, for many practices such a distinction is difficult to make. Agency constitutes a growing list of things that resist this split. These things are derived from controversies and legal affairs around intellectual property (copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc...). Agency calls things forth from its list via varying assemblies inside exhibitions, performances, publications, etc... Each assembly explores in a topological way the operative consequences of the apparatus of intellectual property for an ecology of art practices.