It's also interesting to consider authorship when, as an artist, one choses to allow all work to be infinitely reproduced as Creative Commons licensed work.

I often grapple with authorship when creating work with and within communities. I think there is a consideration of being more of a "catalyst" then an author, especially when as the artist you are really in the position of generating thought and ideas as opposed to leading a production (walking into a community with a fully formed idea or providing "tools" for artistic production).

I will think about this more...

hmmm... I'm not quite sure how to approach this. But, like I initiate anything I'm going to jump right in!

The power of working as an artist in the contemporary moment is the loss of authorship, and the liberation of being productive in a fleeting moment. Social engagement is the acknowledgment that we all exist in a continuum, the awareness of our presence in that movement, and the negation of the individual genius.

I think a lot of this is what you guys mention in the post about generosity. That the artist gives their time and creative thoughts. I think where the discussion about authorship becomes tricky is not so much in the process of work but rather in the process of supporting the work. In order to do work within communities there has to be a support structure, often that is funding from entities and they want to know WHO is involved. They want a single identified person who will be responsible for the project. And as much as we claim no authorship, there are other times where it is required (i.e. all of the artists presenting work at a Creative Time summit or getting grants from Creative Capital).
I do think we need to reconsider how institutions, funders and academics talk about work when the authors are many. But I also think there is no escaping the role that an individual artist can and does play in instigating a work.

I'm both excited and admittedly confused by this discussion. It's a complicated issue; when to take responsibility for something so it can move forward and when to back off of authorship so the project itself can generate involvement and critical exchanges in a range of ways.

While working on the new edition of "What We Want Is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art" Ted Purves and I have come across a an extremely diverse sampling of how collectives and artist groups are approaching this issue. Sometimes a group doesn't openly state who its contributors or authors are, allowing the project itself to become a unique identity. In other cases, contributors to a group are extensively profiled and made visible, as a means to engage with the particular perspectives and subjectivities of the project and its influences.