Our last few class discussions have touched on the topic of authorship and the idea of “new”. We asked, “how much originality is needed for a writing to be considered new?” and, “can a piece rely on aspects and ideas from other places and still be new?” The more we discussed these questions, the less clear and simple answers became. Are there any true authors anymore? Is there anything being created that is truly new? To add to the mess of confusion, we brought in the job of a programmer and his relation to (creative) authorship. I found myself thinking of how far I could take an authorship role over my Flash animations. Sure, I’ve created the line works, placed the tweens in the right places, and developed the ideas myself, but can I say I am the author of that work? Can I be called the sole creator of my animation? I think the answer is no. There are thousands of people’s work that I reflect when I do anything with a computer and software. I would never be able to re-create an animation ‘from scratch’. I have no idea what’s going on behind my screen, can’t build a computer or develop programs. So since my work relies on other peoples work, what does that mean? How original can it be?
In our last discussion, I tried to make sense of this by thinking of a sculptor and his work. Has anyone ever questioned the originality and true authorship of a sculpture because the sculptor didn’t recognize the man who created his chisel? Is the sculptor’s attempt at sole authorship diminished because he did not create the tools he used? I don’t know how much a chisel maker and a computer programmer have in common, but I think of them both as ones who develop tools for a certain group of people to use. The may share the most basic intentions. So how do the intentions of toolmakers compare to the intentions of the ones using the tools? I think of the two as completely different. The ones who use the tools are focused on expressing, describing, representing and showing.
The chapter, ‘Between the Academy and a Hard Drive”, in Digital Poetics by Loss Pequeno Glazier, he says that the ideas of ‘author’ can be trap in thinking and is unproductive in creating innovative writing. He makes a distinction between the two that I agree with. He says this about the author versus the programmer.
“The concept of a poet-programmer or prose-programmer is of a person who works among the tangles of the vines that yield the work. It is of one who sets up a series of events that culminates in the work as an action or execution of procedures. It includes a concept of intelligence that is more concerned with setting into motion a number of variables than with creating a representation…The focus is less on any individual product of that process, through individual products can be valuable as a documentation of a given process.”
I hope you have some sense of how clear your writing is, and how thoughtfully expressive it is, Lucas.
ReplyDeleteYou describe well here various tensions among views of authorship and originality, and how those views can also change as we move among different communication technologies.
I can see questions arising about why we value the person who can make the final artistic piece -- and why we value the art -- above the more prosaic work of making the tools. What does an artist do that the awl maker does not, and why does it matter?
And why might one want to keep in mind that even the most "original" or "creative" writer or artist is working with ready-made tools? Given that true creativity is impossible because we always must use the word systems into which we grew up, or depend on ready-made understandings of what art is, why do you think we end up valorizing the artist?
And, again, how much of such a view of the artist tied to the kinds of technologies we use to make art, to make representations, or to make thinking?
You provoke good questions.