RE: [-empyre-] "appropriation prohibited": iconoclash

["Millie Niss" <men2@columbia.edu>]

Regarding collage, there is weak "collaging together" items from the web in
a when a certain image one is in no position to create is needed in a piece
For example, I needed a Christmas Tree farm opicture, I'm in NYC and don't
drive and so had no way to take my own photograph.  The piece is not based
around the picture-- it is a fairly minor visual element; however it is
ABOUT Christmas trees and their supposed Marxists objections to becoming
christmas trees, and so needed that photo.  I do suppose I could have drawn
one, but the photo is more effective.  If interested, look at
www.sporkworld.org/webart/xmas.swf and expect to wait a little between
sections if you don't have broadband)

A more justifiable collage (or at least a different sort) would be one which
uses the appropriated elements in a creative and novel fashion, uses only
oart of each appropriated item, and modifies (adds value to artistically)
the approprotaed elements.  This wold be the case if someone took an odd
shaped piece of a magazine and drew intricate designs on it, modifying the
sense of the words, and them sprap painted it.  In web collage, a similar
effect might be using an element in a photoshop collage.  There is a
question of how much modification is necessary to add artistic value and
also how "mixed into" (ie distilled) into the piece the approproated item
has to be.  In my work Sini and Subway, I taok photos and applied basic
filters to them to make mosaics to match the subway theme (we have mosaics
in the subway in NYC).  This doesn't disguise the oroiginal photo usually
amd requires no artistic skill.  I don't think it counts as the most
acceptable kind of collaging, except that the images are totally inessential
to the work -- they are merely decorative and the main work is a hyoertext
poem.  (www.sporkworld.org/subway/poemtitle.html)  The manic depression
sumilation where I use snippents of poetry as part of a field of thought
noise strikes me as appropriate collaging.  It is hard to hear anything but
a few words of each quote, the quotes are short in their entirelty, and I am
artisticallay repositioning them.  (www.sporkworld.org/webart and choose the
Voices of Madness)


Millie