Contemporary Artistic Domain among Digital Environment in the Canadian Arctic
The access of digital technologies in the Canadian Arctic represents a main asset, on a sociocultural level as well as on a political and economical level, even more important that this step matches with two strong values among Inuit societies : opening to the world and demand of visibility. Internet gives people the opportunity to share their individual and collective experiences giving priority to the word, in Nunavut as elsewhere. When the digital duplication of artworks and knowledge is easily accessible, the management of copyright systems established in the 1950’s are reappraised nowadays, as new concerns about ethics and moral rights occur. Following a theoretical and methodological approach derived from anthropology, ethnolinguistics and history of art, this research note engages a reflection on sociocultural issues that are inherent to the use of Internet within the contemporary artistic domain in the Canadian Arctic. Focusing on the double question of copyright and intellectual property, the discussion aims to understand the system of Inuit values that revolved around it, in connexion with the notion of property of ideas.