The internet and digital technology has profoundly changed the way art is created and shared. For many artists copying, remixing and sharing on the internet is a rewarding part of the creative process which helps to build an audience and drive sales and commissions.

Artists working this way are coming into conflict with outdated copyright laws and are unfortunately seeing their work being removed due to overreaching copyright claims.

In this lecture Antonio Roberts will introduce you to his artistic and curatorial practice, with a focus on various challenges that artists working digitally have faced, and the ways that they have addressed this and sought lasting change.

Antonio Roberts is an artist and curator based in Birmingham, UK, working primarily with video, code, and sound. He is critically engaged with the themes surrounding network culture and in his practice explores how technology continues to shape ideas of creation, ownership, and authorship. As a performing visual artist and musician he utilises live coding techniques to demystify technology and reveal its design decisions, limitations, and creative potential.

His work has been featured at galleries and festivals including Furtherfield (2013, 2019), Tate Britain (2014, 2015, 2020), Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago (2014), Birmingham Open Media (2015-2016), Jerwood Arts (2016), Whitney Museum of American Art (2017), Green Man Festival (2017), Barbican (2018), Victoria and Albert Museum (2019), and the Czurles Nelson Gallery (2019).

He has curated exhibitions and projects including GLI.TC/H Birmingham (2011), Bring Your Own Beamer (2012, 2013), Stealth (2015), No Copyright Infringement Intended (2017), Copy Paste (2020), and Rules of Engagement (2020). He is part of a-n’s Artist Council, is an Artist Advisor for Jerwood Arts and from 2014 – 2019 he was Curator at Vivid Projects where he produced the Black Hole Club artist development programme.