This essay explores creative works that produce powerful reactions of discernment, hostility, or deep uncertainty from mysterious forms of “blankness.” They all use silence or similarly ineffable qualities to challenge the thoughtfulness and tolerance of audience members. They force us to understand that creativity sometimes manifests itself in strange and bizarre ways that test not only our viewing tolerance, but also our traditional notions of creativity and of intellectual property boundary lines. It is like forcing fully sensory-enabled people to think about creativity in ways that may mimic a small fragment of the daily experience of those with limited sight or hearing. Indeed, it is long overdue to think of the world of intellectual property through the perception of those with sensory limitations. Should copyright law be altered in some ways to accommodate that perspective? In the history of art, music, and dance, defiant creative souls have periodically driven a reluctant world to new feelings about the legitimacy of unusual endeavors seen initially by many as bizarre. They have challenged us to think about the creative and artistic meanings of silent music, blank canvases, invisible sculpture, motionless dance, and inaudible drama, and by analogy to the ways in which the deaf and blind process creativity. And they also have challenged us to consider whether the coverage of copyright law should be altered or rethought to better embody the legal needs of the defiantly creative. Copyright protection is available for “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” What this means for works “filled” with subtle blankness is certainly unclear. Can works lacking characteristics most associated with our standard notions of copyrightable creativity—tangibility, visibility, sound, or movement—still be treated as “fixed,” “original,” and “expressive?” Are they actually “better” suited for those with sensory limitations than for others? Those are the seminal issues explored in this essay.
