In response to the following:

  1. Jonathan Lethem’s The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism
  2. On the Rights of the Molotov Man: Appropriation and the Art of Context
  3. Allergy to Originality
  4. Kirby Ferguson’s Embrace the Remix


Mind blown… just from the first paragraph of readings. I never knew that Nabokov’s Lolita might be considered a stolen plot.

Yet, also very liberating. As an emerging artist, there’s so much pressure in finding our individual practice, on being original.

Cryptomnesia - experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration.

There’s so much gray area. But at the same time, I think I’ve always known that none of my thoughts are purely original.

The burden of citation is too high. In some selfish way, I hate that the labor of doing so falls onto the artist. How can we shift some of that responsibility to the consumer–after all only some of them care about original source whereas most consumers don’t. Even then, how far do you take it when attributing to an original source. Do I cite Bob Dylan if I sample from Bob Dylan? Or do I cite those artists that he sampled from? Does anyone really care unless money or fame is involved?