What makes something an original Artwork? Let’s look at the Mona Lisa. Can it be called an original?

I change her hair. Now? What about if I change the background and clothes too? Now can I call it mine? How much do I have to change in an image to call it an ‘original’? If my start point was the Mona Lisa, can the resulting artwork ever be an original? When everything is changed, what connects it to the Mona Lisa? If changing everything still means I cannot claim it, then what is it on the basis of which it isn't original? Is it the iconic pose? Can I claim copyright based on a pose, is it even possible to claim a pose?

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These are the kinds of questions this artwork hopes to give birth to. Especially in the age where material is so easily found and copy-pasted from the internet, concepts such as copyright and ownership become difficult to understand.

This project is an attempt to shed light on the intricacies of these concepts albeit, with some humour and excitement.

Starting with what seems like an ordinary image of the Mona Lisa presented as if in a gallery, the viewers are free to interact with the image via the control box. they can change the hair, the face, the backdrop, and the clothes.

At the end of every creation, the viewer presses a button on the console which saves the image created in a databse and displays a message which either congratulates the player or asks them to try again.

On the internet, the people are the police and hence in most case, they decide what is an instance of copying.

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Hence, the messages displayed at the end of creation either validate or point towards a retry based on the information I have gathered from discussion forums and online Q and As between the internet community.

For example, from the discussions, I saw that most people don't consider the same poses as copying because there are only so many poses the human body is capable of. So if everything changes but the pose the same, it will not be possible to claim it as a copy.

The composition is an important basis for determining if a piece of art is plagiarised and hence I chose the Mona Lisa which has a very seemingly simple layout to shed light on just how complicated these rules can be.