Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Appropriation.
Some schools have thought namely post-modernism suggest there's
nothing new under the sun, that ideas are continually recycled
like the water we drink.
Whether or not this is true, artist of all kinds are informed
by and imitate the work that came before them.
For new media artists this kind
of appropriation is a core strategy,
early in the mid-20th century, artists redefine the idea
of originality in art.
People like Hannah Hawk who clipped, printed
or found paper images to create photo montage or Marcel Duchamp
who exhibited found objects called Readymades and others
like Andy Warhol's "Brillo Boxes" or Bruce Conner's
"Found Footage Films" represent a move towards recycled
and recontextualized images and objects in art.
Late 20th century artists when presented with advanced audio
and video tools, Internet file sharing,
and a saturated media's sphere began media appropriations,
like audio sampling in hip-hop
and dub genres and video mash-ups.
Other examples of remixes are from video games
and mash-up unlike genres.
For example, the 1979 work
of photographer Sherrie Levine is a series of rephotographs
of the earlier works
of Depression Era photographer Walker Evans.
Levine's explicit strategy was to illuminate the complexities
of intellectual property in photographic imagery.
In 2001, Michael Mandiberg digitally scanned Levine's work
once again and offers these photos
on his website aftersherrielevine.com,
including a downloadable certificate of authenticity
that asserts cultural value, but little or no economic value.
Often this appropriation would include commercial intellectual
property, this practice prompted business to overreact
and apply great pressure on the courts
to win more repressive intellectual property laws
to prevent elusive copies and distribution
of their media assets like DVDs and audio CDs.
Corporations also stepped up the prosecution
of people sharing Internet music and movies.