"Whenever you look at an image, there’s a ruthless logic of selection that you have to go through to simply to create a sense of order. The end product on this palimpsest of perception is a composite of all the thoughts and actions you sift through over the last several micro-seconds..."
Appropriating existing work, or the "cut" as Paul Miller calls it, can create something new when the remix comments on the original, when knowledge of the original in its original context informs the new context. The re-appropriation becomes an extension of the original work and the conversation started by the original work. When the original is not acknowledged as being its own unique work with significance in its own right, appropriation seems more like theft and less like reference. In the second case, you are laying claim to the other work's originality. Paul Miller's "Rebirth of a Nation," xtine burrough's "O Browser My Browser", and Kenneth Goldsmith's "Traffic" are all framed in response to another work or conversation. However, do we need to recognize the original in order to understand the remix? I could recognize that "Rebirth of a Nation" contained clips of "Birth of a Nation," but if the music was also sampled from other sources, I couldn't tell. Is the remix significant in its own right?
On a separate note, in the links from Christine Sundt's "Copyright and Art" were descriptions of two court cases involving the copyright of form, Meshworks vs. Toyota and Bridgeman vs. Corel. In both cases the plaintiffs argued that their work was protected by copyright and in both cases the defendants argued, successfully, that the work was not protected by copyright because work expressed no originality. In the first case, the work was the 3D modeling of an existing car (designed by the defendant, Toyota), and in the second case, the work in question was photographic reproductions of 2D fine art. Since the intent of both works was to portray with as much fidelity as possible an existing work, the courts ruled that they did not contain expressiveness or uniqueness, only technical skill. So what does it mean when technical skill, or craft, is completely reproducible without renumeration toward the craftsperson? Does it imply that there is no new contribution in crafts, just execution of existing know-how?
(On a really separate note, reading "Getting Inside Jack Kerouac's Head" reminded me of The Onion's obituary for J.D. Salinger from 2010: http://www.theonion.com/articles/bunch-of-phonies-mourn-jd-salinger,2901/)
I'd think the remix was significant too--are there liner notes, do liner notes still exist? In the realm of appropriation this just popped up on my FB and discusses some of the photography projects mentioned in class:
ReplyDeleteDigital Appropriation as Photographic Practice and Theory
I think one potential response to this question of creativity comes by way of another of DJ Spooky's observations:
ReplyDelete"The eyes stream data to the brain through something like 2 million fiber bundles of nerves. Consider the exponentional aspects of perception when you multiply this kind of density by the fact that not only does the brain do this all the time, but the millions of bits of information streaming through your mind at any moment have to be coordinated and like the slightest rerouting is, like the hearse and omnibus of Méliès film accident, any shift in the traffic of information can create not only new thoughts, but new ways of thinking."
"...the throes of World War I. A world which, like ours, was becoming increasingly inter-connected, and filled with stories of distant lands, times and places – a place where cross cutting allowed the presentation not only of parallel actions occurring simultaneously in separate spatial dimensions, but also parallel actions occurring on separate temporal planes – in the case of Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” four stories at once – and helped convey the sense of density that the world was confronting..."
Spooky, deliberately or otherwise, conveys a "sense of density" twice: both in his attempt to come to terms with our inner wiring and with our historicity. In aesthetic terms, I think an argument can be made that he's drawing from our experience of the sublime -- the feeling that arises from an encounter with the infinite (and, if you follow the German mathematician Georg Cantor (1845-1918), ends with our "unifying" it with the number one). Simply put, Spooky uses density to mean inner infinity or the infinitely small.
To return to the issue Melanie raises with regard to "technical skill" I think it's important to recognize the "end" of other artistic forms that play with "fidelity" (e.g., fan fiction, etc.) is hardly clear to its practitioners. For example, one writer I came across last night goes so far as to give craft an etymological treatment:
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp175.htm
Is "craft" in the court cases Melanie cites a kludge in the sense of "smart" or "witty," or were the art works themselves merely kludges, i.e. unwieldy contrivances you toss overboard for the sound they make when they hit the water ("kludges")? All of this is to say that, yes, we do confront density in the world and this makes divining the ends of our artistic creations difficult. However, while I don't believe an answer to the question of end is necessary it does stand to reason that when the artist is forced to come up for air (in the courtroom) they should be ready to provide an "etymology" for their work -- an act that requires more than just technical skill.
"Appropriating existing work, or the "cut" as Paul Miller calls it, can create something new when the remix comments on the original, when knowledge of the original in its original context informs the new context. The re-appropriation becomes an extension of the original work and the conversation started by the original work. When the original is not acknowledged as being its own unique work with significance in its own right, appropriation seems more like theft and less like reference. In the second case, you are laying claim to the other work's originality."
ReplyDeleteI see your point here and I wonder how you'd situate that definition of appropriation in the world of music. I'm posting links to two tracks by Frank Ocean. The first is a whole-sale appropriation of Coldplay's "Strawberry Swing."
The second is an appropriation of The Eagles' "Hotel California."
Note, these are not examples of sampling or covering--Ocean has taken the the songs themselves and simply changed the lyrics and re-released them to largely critical acclaim. He has repurposed the songs by changing their original intent but maintaining their original form and melody.
Is this artistic appropriation or theft? It's probably worth noting the two responses to his work: Coldplay invited Ocean on tour with them...The Eagles have gone the litigation route.
I have really enjoyed all of the examples of primary text appropriations we have brought forward for discussion. Re-formatting and re-imagining an original text can be a compliment or a critique, but either way it is in its own way a citation and an acknowledgement of the prior work. It also allows the artist to make a genealogy of influence legible within the
ReplyDeletework -- however, engaged and informed fans and followers, with long memories and strong historical awareness, seem to be required for this type of work to be effective.
I wonder about our own DH projects in terms of proper citation and standards for presentation of material. This NEH funded project, called "Remixing Rural Texas," shows a constant "permissions" section in the bottom left hand corner of the screen clarifying fair use. Meanwhile, historical footage and written material plays out in a user experience that is based on remix forms of artistic production. It is an interesting mix of academic and popular forms of presentation.
http://web.tamu-commerce.edu/academics/colleges/humanitiesSocialSciencesArts/departments/literatureLanguages/RRT/RRT_Remix2.html
hi all,
ReplyDeleteHere's an example of technology adding to the reality of a situation. You may have seen this video when it went viral a while ago--it's of a dove model being prepared for a billboard ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U
The thing I wanted to bring up was a certain backlash from the people who do intense photoshopping--at the time I found a thread arguing that the people who manipulate these images are "artists" (damned if I can find it now). So it's sort of an anti-example from Melanie's faithfully reproduced car. Because it is NOT reality, it immediately became nameable as art (defensively).
"It also allows the artist to make a genealogy of influence legible within the
ReplyDeletework -- however, engaged and informed fans and followers, with long memories and strong historical awareness, seem to be required for this type of work to be effective."
I think you're right to point to the question of "fans and followers" and their "long memories" (or lack thereof). The interesting point for me is that there is an anxiety that the "fans and followers" won't have long enough memories--that the genealogy will get lost--which seems to be at odds with the way other "sampled" instances worked in other texts at other moments in history.
For example, when Petrarch "accidentally" invokes Virgil (I'm thinking of the discussion in this letter, which also refers to the well-worn "bees-as-creator" bit: http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/read_letters.html?s=pet15.html ), the whole point is that only a sufficiently learned audience would catch it. The audience that misses the genealogy is not the one he's addressing, so there's no anxiety.
With the sample, there's obviously the monetary element (and that certainly comes to the fore with copyright), but there's also a different (less elitist? more democratic?) assumption about audience: If I'm reading it/listening to it/watching it, it must be for me.