Course Connections

This may be a bit of a cheat entry, but I'm finding that some of the topics and, certainly, most of my thoughts in this course are intersecting with those from my other course. The following was my response to the second discussion question this week. It really related to some of the things we discussed as we debated what is and is not creative, specifically the notions of reproductions losing their creative appeal or maintaining an aesthetic arrest (love that term).

Q: Sturken references Walter Benjamin who claims that "[...]the meaning of an original image changes when it is reproduced" (p.124). It is easy to assume that something is "lost in translation" when an image is reproduced, but it's possible to gain something as well. How can the reproduction of images, a new literacy, be beneficial?

I think my almost immediate reaction to this is to think of Andy Warhol. I find his life and work fascinating. His most famous pieces (Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles and 100 Dollar Bills) are examples of a reproduced image (not his own original design), which is simply and literally reproduced within the creation of a single piece of art. It sounds hokey and shallow, but that act of reproduction was an artistic act for him and, ultimately, for our society. (Whether you think it was good art is a moot point; it is accepted as art.) It was the birth of pop art, and I think it’s fascinating. His work was meant to make us stop and think about our commercialized world; interestingly, I think he even intended that we celebrate the democracy of it.

His explanation (found in his 1975 publication, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again ): “What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.”

I appreciate that in this question, image reproduction was called a new literacy. I think of the mass produced t-shirts that our school makes to sell for sporting events. The images on those shirts are going to hold a powerful personal, maybe even political, meaning for students in our school. Some will identify with school pride or ‘spirit’; others will connect with more negative feelings, like a dislike for everything that is saccharine and fake about high school and the popular crowd. There’s no doubt, though, that a student is ‘reading’ that image in a unique way because it is common in their world.

I know this next comment might be a slight oversimplification, but here goes anyway…

I can’t afford an original. But I have a Picasso print, purchased with frame from Ikea, in my workroom. I’m glad that there are cheap reprints of important visuals. I have Van Gogh and Seurat posters stapled to the walls of my classroom (not far from a giant “The Simpsons” poster with all the characters from any episode gathered together). We had a discussion in my creativity class about whether if something’s reproduced, it loses its merit as a creative piece. I like to think not. Just because something becomes iconic (and I loved the distinction in our readings between iconic and symbolic – I may use that in my class), it doesn’t lose its aesthetic value. Often, it has simply become more accessible for mass scrutiny, enjoyment, and interpretation.

I think we have to remember with any type of communication (verbal, written, visual) we only ever have control of one half of the communication – either we’re communicating or we’re ‘getting’ /interpreting the communication. Once we’ve spoken, written, or visually represented something and sent it out into the world, the objectification and subjectification (a word?) of it is beyond our control. It may speak to people or it may not, and what it says will depend more on their perceptions than anything else. So to have someone reproduce your idea in a way that alters it, adds dimension to the original idea. We have new perspective, we think about our perspectives, we become familiar with the image or symbol or icon. I think this familiarity in itself is quite beneficial. I’m happy that so many people are familiar with “The Scream” in whatever incarnation they found it. Hopefully, they felt connected because of the shared sentiment because we probably don’t feel connected often enough.