On August the 7th, 2014 a portrait of a
celeb crested macaque appeared in in-boxes, instagrams and newspapers around the globe. It
depicted a primate grinning blissfully into the camera. The photograph was
taken in North Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Though the articles named the simian as Naruto’ the operator of the
digital camera was none other than Floy; it was his first ‘selfie’.
Oblivious of the media storm raging around copyright
ownership of the now-famous self-portrait, Floy aka Naruto could not possibly
grasp the implications of the negative effects £10,000 loss of earnings would mean for the
camera’s owner Nature Photographer,
David J Slater following Wikimedia’s publication of the image in the public domain,
free of charge, due to nonhuman intervention; purloined momentarily by the
playful monkey this momentary lapse of attention which would come to signifying
for the camera’s owner not only the loss of all creative rights of the image, but a lawsuit filed by PETA, would seek to establish, as Floy’s ‘Friend’ or representative in absentia, that
the curious male crested black macaque was indeed sole ‘author’ and owner of
the image.
Floy could not know, of course that Wikimedia Common,
the US-based organisation behind Wikileaks, would have a hand in propelling his
image, gratis, into the public domain making him more famous than he had already
become before his escape from a flat in Paddington, London, following his
emergence from a tea-cup, saucer and spoon purchased in Harvey Nichols by an
African woman who had sought to save her own face in a manner entirely
different from Floy’s pixelated attempts.
On September 22nd, 2015 PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) waded into the argument on the matter of creative ownership of the famous image by issuing a statement of intention to file a lawsuit against David J Slater and his, company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd., to gain sole copyright for the crested macaque in Sulawesi and seek to rule that Mr Slater and Wikimedia should administer the proceeds of the “monkey selfie” sales for the benefit of Floy (aka Naruto) and his community, without compensation to PETA.
Those representing Floy would prove that creative
control had been taken out of Mr Slater’s hands, literally, as it was clearly
evident, from the quality and general composition of the photo that the line
separating simians from humans was indeed extremely thin to thread-bare. Having
the requisite digits- fingers and a thumb, to grasp the apparatus, especially
an index finger to operate the shutter-the evolutionary leap necessary to
operate the light-setting, flash and tone would be proven negligible in a court
of law. While composition and quality
would be presented;” Exhibit A!, The
Photograph Your Honour”. The fact that Floy is depicted flagrantly posing,
sporting a wide toothy grin, would constitute “Exhibit B! Again, the Photograph
Your Honour,’ and represent a degree of self-awareness in the celeb crested
macaque, if somewhat inane, “Exhibit C “Your Honour, the phot...” for the final
summing up the photo would be held up for comparison against other ‘selfies’ of
primates in the world of celebs. “Exhibits D to Z! Your Honour!” to illustrate
that cheesy grins were not only the preserve of the nonhuman.
In London, once Floy had freed himself from the
tea-cup after the arrest of the African woman, her husband and his best friend
(her lover), following a violent skirmish; Floy found that the effort of
emerging fully formed from the piece of crockery had left him deplete of
energy. Debilitated, he was also intuitively certain, knowing the thinly-veiled
knee-jerk racial prejudice of the British Police Force, that the trio of Africans
were not likely to be allowed to return home from the police station to pick up
a few belongings before deportation. Floy stretched out on the sofa to
recuperate. There was not much reading matter in the flat except a pile of magazines
stacked in a corner of the florid living room.
Among the vivid pages of Nature Magazine Floy
learned all that he did not need to learn about what type of images got the
editorial and aesthetic thumbs-up; the articles offered the means, after trial and
error, to attain something approaching the perfect self-portrait, one worthy of
publication.
The autodidactic photography course was subsumed by
a familiar sound, the Javanese gamelan was being played somewhere in the
neighbourhood; homesickness sank in and stuck. Floy pondered long and hard how
he might return to his beloved jungle. After weeks he found he was thinking a
little too hard as he seemed to have, not so much as a brain-wave but, a series
of embolisms. Jumping up from the sofa he rooted through draws and cupboards. A
large box, tins of Pilchards, a black marker, masking tape and five A4 books of
first class stamps lay out before him. He pasted the stamps onto the box, placed
the tins of Pilchards inside along with a few cushions and a tin-opener, he wrote,
‘Gamelan Set’ in large letters on the side and, in the available space between
the pages of stamps addressed it to: Harry Hilser. Selamatkan Yaki. North
Sulawesi. Indonesia. Under cover of night, Floy dragged the box the few
yards to a red pillar box, climbed in and, using the masking tape, sealed it up
from inside, and waited for the postman.
Harry Hilser, (who renamed Floy, incidently) Manager and Celeb Crested Macaque
Conservationist at the Sulwesi Reserve knew instantly, the moment Floy leapt
from the box reeking of pilchards, that here was a Macaque with an above
average IQ. “The first thing he did when he sprung from the box was shake my
hand”, said a proud Mr Hilser. When asked later about Floy obtaining copyright
of his own image, the conservationist replied, “Why not, we could do with the
money. Having a fixed media image of a tribe or species invariably leads to its
extinction; within the last 40 years around 80% of our own personalities have
been in serious decline since the invention of television and the internet. Ownership of our own personalities might be evidence, during our own life-times, of
our actual existence!”
Joyful, rejuvenated, Floy was back among the less
socially anorexic embrace of his own kind when he stumbled upon a camera
mounted on a tripod. He knew exactly what to do. He located the shutter, turned
the lens towards his friends and snapped away blissfully unaware of the bitter
acrimony that his seeming mischievous play would cause on the other side of the
world. Adjusting the settings he then turned
the camera on himself. Floy was no mere
monkey signifying at the crossroad of humanity but an out-and-out liar supremo class for it
is clear in Floy’s golden gaze that he knew he’d taken, that instant his finger
squeezed down on the shutter, the money shot.
