Open-source author

From Karen Karnak

Karen Karnak is an invented multi-user nom-de-plume which has been made available for the purposes of examining the ‘author function’ within this WikiMedia environment.
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The ‘author function’ is tied to the legal and institutional systems that circumscribe, determine, and articulate the realm of discourses; it does not operate in a uniform manner in all discourses, at all times, and in any given culture; it is not defined by the spontaneous attribution of a text to its creator, but through a series of precise and complex procedures; it does not refer, purely and simply , to an actual individual insofar as it simultaneously gives rise to a variety of egos and to a series of subjective positions that individuals of any class can come to occupy. (Foucault, M. 1980. 131)

In brief the author function “does not refer, purely and simply , to an actual individual” (Foucault, M. 1980. 131) but to a space which can be occupied and altered at will by any number of individuals, in this case working under a collective name Karen Karnak. You may be asking “Who is this Karen Karnak ?” in which case part of the author function, as well as creating a collaborative work, will be to attempt a definition of the artist which claims to be behind the authorship of this collective work, with particular attention to the processes involved in the attribution of authorship. Karen, as an invented character, is a close associate of other multi-user nom-de-plumes which have been created in the past and which, similarly, allow the author function to be made visible. In 2006 Emit Snake-Beings (actual name, changed by deed-pole in 1993) used the nom-de-plume Brian Karnak for a series of radio shows broadcast on the Hamilton based Community Radio open access channel. The weekly show, which ran until 2008, comprised of a one hour multi-layered sound sculpture which allowed a departure from the expected coherence of radio broadcast personalities through its use of multiple sound sources and simultaneous overlaying of voices and sounds. The name Karen Karnak is a combination of Brian’s interests melded with that of Karen Eliot; a multi-user artist which emerged in 1985 and functions

to create a situation for which no one in particular is responsible and to practically examine western philosophical notions of identity, individuality, originality, value and truth (Home, S. 2006).

The ‘multi-voiced’ nature of sound and visual art is a theme around which this research project has been created. The technique of using a multi-user nom-de-plume, such as Karen Karnak, also explores the concept of disparate media acting through a perceived agent of coherence; such is one of the functions of authorship. These concepts of authorship and mutli-user authors can be used as guidelines for interactions within the multi-author environment, in which unrestrained editing and alterations of each collaborator’s gifted files represents the polyphonic or multi-voiced dialogue between Karen Karnak and the worked media. Creatively each collaborator should not feel attached to their own contributions, nor feel the need to restrain their alterations of another’s material for any reasons of preserving original intentions. Just like in the film Being John Malkovich (1999), each collaborator can temporarily occupy the constructed personality of visual artist Karen Karnak for expression of their own agenda. For the purpose of this project you will all be Karen Karnak. All work will be registered through the Creative Commons License under the name Karen Karnak.