Repurposing

This week we looked at works of electronic literature that encouraged a discussion on the concept of “repurposing”.  Poet and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Kenneth Goldsmith discusses repurposing in response to what conceptual artist  Douglas Huebler wrote in 1969: "The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more."

Goldsmith views this concept while considering new works of literature, writing, art, etc. while noting that “themes from older works form the basis for new ones.” Goldsmith himself in an course he teaches in Uncreative Writing pushes students to reshape, reuse, and even recycle works that they did not create.  This method of producing can be viewed as perhaps a form of recycling and repurposing, but definitely not cheating or steeling. .  

Two particular works expressed the concept of repurposing in a creative and interesting manner.  The first is The Sweet Old Etcetera, created by Alison Clifford. Clifford describes The Sweet Old Etcetera as “an interactive web project based on the poetry of e. e. Cummings.” This interactive work plays with the visual aesthetic that Cumming’s poetry is well known for by using motion, graphics, sound and programming to adapt his poetry in a digital landscape.  The viewer interacts with Cumming’s poetry by clicking on  images and selected words within a poem causing the words to spin and branch off, creating a visual landscape made of text.  

Girl Talk's album All Day is composed by using overlapping samples of 372 songs performed by other artists.  The album is intended to be listened too as on piece from start to finish.  When viewing the album from the above link, the viewer not only is exposed to the audio of the album, but is given a visual component, by seeing what songs are sampled, where they are layered and even what year they were original released.  This work makes use of the technology provided by soundcloud.  

When listening to the album on this platform, one can click on a song sampled and will be taken to a Wikipedia page, providing information about the song, artist and album it was originally featured on.

Works like All Day and The Sweet Old Etcetera are  viewed as  creative mashups that use previously produced works as the structure for their own independent work.  What makes these pieces unique is their use of previously produced pieces as the content/structure for their own creative work.  It can be compared to a musician who does not create the sounds that their instrument necessarily makes, but arranges already known sounds into something new.  Or even a writer.  A writer does not create the English language, however uses already “made” words and they “repurpose” them to create fiction, essays etc.

These pieces demonstrate how we should never fear that creativity will be lost.  New and creative works can always come from new arrangements of what has already been made.  Some might say this is almost a discouragement to creating your own individual work. But in reality, are not  all original thoughts and ideas just repurposed and recycled from other people. It’s fascinating to think about.