Philosophies of Sampling: Part One
Artistic
Appropriation is Fundamental to the Task of Creation :
The tenets behind the psychology of art have always favored fragmentary
"theft" in a way that does not engender a loss to the owner. Appropriation
has been an integral aspect of the creative process well before the emergence
of digital technology. In the early 1900s, Cubists attached found materials
such as product packaging, photographs, and newspaper clippings to their
paintings. Andy Warhol appropriated popular images such as the Campbell's
soup can and the Brillo box. Marcel Duchamp made sculptures out of pre-existing
objects with little alteration. Indeed, many scholars argue that appropriation
has been an essential element of the creative process throughout history.
Thoughts from Detritus.net : "Our society spends a lot of time telling us that there is some brand new, fresh cultural produce, generated from thin air and sunshine, slick and clean. They package it with pretty plastic and ribbons and then feed it to us. A lot gets thrown away: the ribbons, the wrapping; culture becomes garbage, or it dies, and rots behind the refrigerator. But the new fluffy, shiny stuff still gets churned out, and it gets forced between our teeth. And we are told to swallow it. We will not swallow. We will chew, and then spit. We will play with our food, and create something new and interesting from it."
Thoughts from Negativland : "In the realm of ideas, techniques, and styles, most artists know that stealing (or call it "being influenced" if you want to sound legitimate) is not only OK, but desirable and even crucial to creative evolution. This proven route to progress has prevailed among artists since art began and will not be denied. To creators, it is simply obvious in their own experience.
"Now some will say there is a big difference between stealing ideas, techniques, and styles which are not easily copyrighted, and stealing actual material, which is easily copyrighted. However, aside from the copyright deterrence factor which now prevails throughout our law-bound art industries, we can find nothing intrinsically wrong with an artist deciding to incorporate existing art 'samples' into their own work. The fact that we have economically motivated laws against it does not necessarily make it an undesirable artistic move. In fact, this kind of theft has a well-respected tradition in the arts extending back to the Industrial Revolution."
"This now seems an obvious and perfectly natural desire to embody or transform existing things into their own work as a form of dialogue with their material environment. And that 'material' environment began to grow in strange new ways. Appropriation in the arts has now spanned the entire Century, crossing mediumistic boundaries, and constantly expanding in emotional relevance from beginning to end regardless of the rise and fall of 'style fronts'. It flowered through collage, Dada's found objects and concept of 'detournement', and peaked in the visual arts at mid-century with Pop Art's appropriation of mass culture icons and mass media imagery. Now, at the end of this century, it is in music where we find appropriation raging anew as a major creative method and legal controversy."
Superswell recommends checking out the literary and visual collage works of Kathy Acker, Jiri Kolar, Kurt Schwitters, Max Earnst, Winston Smith, Mara Kurtz, Stephen Linhart, and Joseph Cornell.
Part 2: Media - The New "Natural" Environment:
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