I opened my first email address in 1996. ´Multimedia´ was a novelty and I was part of a team, which made contents planning for digital projects. Multimedia was a new way to think and the net was just being introduced as a global changes for good. How total it would be, we had no idea.

A man from India somehow managed to log in that same email address as I. ´Sini´ is a common first name for males in India as in Scandinavia it is only for the female. I guess in someway we had different server paths around the same service offering email addresses. This created uncertainty but comical communication as I received emails meant for him. I deleted them or tried to contact him. No reply.

I learnt that he lived in Kerala, down South India and was an engineer. I tried to contact many times, but I managed not. So, I let the uncertainty of any net controlling to just be. I think we still share some things without knowing, but most likely both of us have also new email info.

Each email leaves a mark to each server it passes. Bigger cables run in the waters, on the sea surface meeting the continents. If we leave no other mark in our life time, we definately atleast a flourishing digital one of emails, information, our likes in social media, posts and info gathered under our name. If I surf to find flight info of good travels offers, soon on my screen comes many options of hotels to buy too.

Even most emails date 20 years back, they now are a part of the new technology to follow email contents. Even we would delete them, the receiver can still store. So many emails, so many people. Who could remember all the places they were sent in a 20 years time?

The power of the digital has made a phenomenon of our intimate information not being seen so serious anymore. This new attitude is an emotional self-defence mechanism against shame for whole urban societies dependant on internet use as there is now a high risk of anyones private info being exposed. Now new values of seeing the private not so important are here. But the history of the ´intimate´in general is quite young.

Celebrities expose, the body and images without make-up are easier shown to the unknown masses in the net. Even in some cases the court looks at the time, when contact was active as a legal angle in valueing the then set outcome of the court process. If some email in a case is old, its importance might not be seen the same as if the same message would have been sent more recently.

Old email not mattering to many regards can be a good thing, because if we were valued by our communication looking at its whole time spam of all the posts, emails and net comments over the years, it might be a very hard life for most of us.

In my case, art images have been posted in emails for 20 years to possible clients. CD´s with art pictures have been left to galleries across the globe in negotiations. It is impossible in this life time for me as an artist to try and clean all that.

So I think posting images of my art has more value to people who see them, than if I would try and protect them from spreading to some places. Still, if an event of crude copyright explotation or fraud would take place, naturally my own actions about it would also go for the legal ones. But for my art images to been seen or shared to people widely is to me as an artist meaningful and wanted in my heart. And the original itself is always unique. Most would be difficult to copy anyway.

Sharing images of my art in the net is a great honour for me if they mean inspiration to You. So please share. An enjoy.

(Artist Sini Kunnas: “The Conservative Goes Techno”/1999. Acrylic and pen on paper)

#copyrights #netsharing #multimedia #artistsinikunnas #theblackline #drawing #internetrevolution