still remember the ugly Predator with a crab-like mouth, the green corrosive
blood with disgusting, salivating Aliens and spooky red eyes on robotic
Terminator.
Although these movies were made in the late 20thcentury, the cinematic scenes remain picturesque in my memories. During 2004, a science-fiction movie – “Aliens vs Predator” was screened. The crossover concept between two species of organism from the cosmos with a brand
new storyline did not fool the viewers and me. Instead it evoked the public collective memories, allowing them to retrospect the typical horror scenes.
In this recreation, I assume the movie crew, especially the director and writer would have watched the original movies in order to create this crossover movie. This fusion convulsed the viewers who had or had not seen ‘Aliens’ or ‘Predator’. Perhaps the teens are unfamiliar with those fictional organisms, but for the people who have known about them, they might think the crossover movie is unoriginal.
Indeed. It is not original! Similar to the idea of Roland Barthes: ‘a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures...[i]’. In his article - Death of the Author - he insists that author nowadays is a scripter and copyist rather than a writer. This concept cynically indicates
that authors in this world are not creating, but just remodifying the existing works[ii],
particularly in this Postmodernist epoch.
French curator Nicolas Bourriaud had this idea too; he explicated, “Today artists program forms more than they compose them.[iii]” The notion of ‘nothing original’ is basically true. For example, our different race as human beings initially belong to the same humankind, as well as our ancestors were the same species of ape. Today people talk about globalization, but the fact is that it is not a new idea since the world was a piece of land millenniums ago.
However, the human evolutions and the earth’s fragmentation brought a variety of cultures to the world, followed by economic freedom between counties. People now not only trade products, but our values are also being exchanged in this globalizing phenomenon. For example, we all know that McDonalds originated from America and TOYOTA is from Japan, they pretty much
can be found everywhere in our planet. McDonalds did not create the hamburger and TOYOTO did not invent the car. Their products are not ‘original’, but they refine and remodify the ‘original’, and became the most successful brands in the world. It reflects the fact that a good product does not need to be original.
The importance in these cases is the innovative progress, not its origin. The markets do not take the origins as part of the factors in terms of the product success. The consumers do not really care whether the product is a mixture of other products, or not. As long as it synthesizes all
the advantages of others, then the consumer is satisfied. It points out that the maker (author) and user (reader) have a subtly indivisible relationship.
According to Marcel Duchamp’s creative act, which manifested in the 50’s, he tried to explain the idea of ‘art coefficient’, which is the difference between the intention and the realization. It emerges simultaneously with another distinction between what the artist intended to realize and did realize. In spite of that, Duchamp promoted another thought, which the creative
act is executed by artist and spectator, not only the artist oneself. The spectator links the work to the external world together with disentangling the cipher and interpretation. The spectator unconsciously gets involved into the creative act.[iv]
Duchamp, for instance, created Bicycle Wheel (1913/1964). He assembled a bicycle wheel on a wooden stool, and conceptually gave birth to it. After couple generations of refining the Bicycle Wheel, the word Readymade, so-called Found Art, was announced. “I enjoyed looking at it (when the wheel spinning), just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace.[v]”
He explained. Four years later, he created another Found Art. He used an existing urinal, ignored the canvas and pigment, just simply signed R. Mutt on it, (the owner of a large equipment-producing company) and gave it an ironic Fountain (1917) [vi]. Later, Duchamp collaborated with a photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, and produced an image of the Fountain.
The collaboration consisted of creative acts, because Alfred Stieglitz got involved in the work as a spectator, and recreated the Fountain in photographic form with a plinth and backdrop in the picture. In that period, the concepts were still in a raw state.
After 20 years, Roland Barthes had a similar debate in terms of the theoretical spirit. In his article - Death of the Author, he contradictorily mentioned, “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author[vii]”. The paradox of this statement claimed that the meaning of the work is dependent upon the impressions of the reader more than the intention of the writer. Hence, it causes the death of the author.
This distinctive opinion not only subverts our conventional thoughts of artwork in terms of expressing the feeling of the artist, it also challenges the way how we understand art. Barthes basically inverted the meaning of the art itself, emphasizing the perception of the audience;
essentially he was trying to lead us to comprehend art without being affected by the background of the author and the political and social impact of the art.
It is similar to the New Criticism promoted [viii] [ix], which enhanced the concept of the “art coefficient’ to its next level. New Criticism suggested the idea of intentional fallacy [x] and affective fallacy [xi]. The critique amplified that it is impossible to understand what the exact meaning of the work is. Ultimately, the reader/audience determines what the meaning of work is.
In today’s contemporary art phenomenon, our value in viewing art has changed. “There is an easy connection when the artist is referencing the same life experience as their audience. “ said Ben Plumbly, director of art at Art + Object auction house. He indicated that no matter what materials used, what quality was or how it created, provided that the value on the work is about the comment to society today, the tension among the work and audience will be established.[xii]
These various thoughts generate another debate which questions what is a good art? Does it mean if the art is recognized by the public, then it will be a good art? In other word, the definition of a good art is determined by the audiences rather than the artists themselves. If the
emphasis is orientated upon the audience, then the artist will become business modifier - “we produce what you want, what you like!”
Here is a convincing quote that can respond to the above statement: “You cannot create art. You can’t. You can create culture, and if you create art, it will be about the purity of the idea.[xiii]”
Said Jeff Koons. He clarifies that if you can create a trend or culture, even though your work is meaningless, people will love to buy it. On the other hand, it illustrates that the artist can dominate the market in terms of the popurility of the work, as long as you have aimed towards the right audience and create the right trend.
But the fact is how many artists can be like ‘Marcel Duchamp’, using the existing materials as an art, create a trend of art called Readymade (Found art), and become famous? How many artists can afford buying 8601 diamonds and get a real human skull to produce a 100 million US dollar
skull?
Perhaps very few. Nonetheless, technologies nowadays are more sophisticated, and the World Wide Web’s platform breaks the distant boundaries between nations, and then happens to an information explosion. The value exchange is easier than before. People can easily discuss any topic on forums, express their thoughts on blogs, upload self-made movies on YouTube, and paste photographs on Flickr. Internet symbolizes ‘Share’, it represents the Internet is a wonderful place to fulfill “artworks belong to everyone[xiv]”.
Undoubtedly, everyone could be a writer, a creator, an artist or a prosumer (producer-consumer), and manifest anything to the public. Appropriation and postproduction are unavoidably happening throughout the world. Regarding to the postproduction, DJ is an exemplary case for us to discuss.
We all know DJs remix the pre-existing songs by looping the sounds and superimposing the beats, thereby creating a new form of the music. Whether the content is modified or the melody is distorted, the DJ is post-producing the originals at a specific place and time. Unlike other art,
music is a timeline-base art, which can constantly affect the audience. In order words, as long as the audience has a portable MP3 player, he can listen to the music anytime, anywhere.
It is such a valuable characteristic in terms of commercial reason, which cannot be found in other art. And that is why the production houses they seriously care about copyrights. Yet, does the copyright law protect the intellectual property?
Danger Mouse is a producer, and became prominent after creating ‘The Grey Album’ in 2004. The idea of this album was inspired by Jay Z’s ‘The Black Album’ and The Beatles’ ‘White Album’. He superimposed the vocal track from Jay Z and the melody of the background from The Beatles, reproduced an innovative music. He sent the album as a sample to his friends, later the album was put on the Internet. But unfortunately, due to the fact that it was a replica, it offended the copyright of The Beatles’ distributor, the distribution of ‘The Grey Album’ was halted.[xv]
“It is the best example of how copyright law undermines everyone’s interests.” Said Siva Vaidhyanathan [xvi]. Yes! What a typical tragedy to our creative activities. Although I have never
listened and will not listen to it, I personally think it is a great album. Because it culturally breaks music genres between American-black hip-pop and classical British-pop, contextualizing one another without conflicts.
Another example, DJ Girl Talk, is a biomedical engineer by day, and a DJ at night. He released ‘Night Ripper’, via a legal way – sampling, in 2006 (still on sale on internet), and explicitly utilized over 150 pop-music artists’ songs, heavily manipulated as a mashup. Ironically all the
artists’ credits occurred along with the album too. It demonstrates that everyone could be an artist, as well as testifying that what many samples could those artists recognize and pinpoint it[xvii].
These cases interrogate what is the purpose of copyright in intellectual property aspect, and who really owns what? Does the work belong to the creator or the publishing company? Or everyone at all? Should we base upon the capitalist angle of commerce, the artistic angle of author, or the
communist angle of user to consider the intellectual property issue?
It is such a hard question to answer. Perhaps Andy Warhol is right – “Making money is art, and working is art and good business is best art.[xviii]”
[i] P. 148,
Death of the Author, 1977
[ii] P. 146,
Death of the Author, 1977
[iii] P. 17,
Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World, 2005
[iv] http://www.wisdomportal.com/Cinema-Machine/Duchamp-CreativeAct.html
[v] http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=81631 (N/A)
[vii] P, 148,
Death of the Author, 1977
[viii] http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/new.crit.html
[x] Intentional
Fallacy: The meaning of the work does not match the intention of the author
or the author wants to present the idea does not reveal in his work, causes a
communication gap between author and reader, becomes a fallacy.
[xi] Affective
Fallacy: The audience is interfered by an emotional effect and occurs
judged mistaken to the work.
[xii] P.12,
Canvas, 2009
[xiii] P.18, Jeff
Koons: Pictures, 1980-2002
[xiv] Page.34,
Nicolas Bourriaud paraphrase Philippe Thomas, Culture as
[xv] 08’35
– 11’12 , Good Copy Bad Copy, 2007
[xvi] Associate
Professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University
[xvii] 00’00
– 02’51 , Good Copy Bad Copy, 2007
[xviii] P.49,
The philosophy of Andy Warhol, 1977
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