Course Description
In 1928, Oswald de Andrade published the “Cannibal Manifesto” (Manifesto Antropófago) that identified the principle of cultural appropriation as key to Brazilian culture. He wasn't the only one. Throughout the 20th century, numerous artistic movements – cubism and dada, music concrete and found-footage film, situationism, pop art, and appropriation art to name but a few - have worked with pre-existing cultural materials as an avant-garde practice. With the spread of digital media, we have surrounded ourselves with a near-infinite amount of cultural materials, easy to access, easy to manipulate, easy to distribute. Now, appropriation is the new normal in artistic practice, and new cultural genres are emerging from it, from popular meme culture to sampling in music, collaborative films, performative reenactments, and works of art for the white cube. In recent years, debates about the limits of ‘cultural appropriation have come to the forefront, questioning the power relationships inherent in acts of appropriation and sharply criticizing certain practices as racist or colonial. In this module, we will look at the history of appropriation as an artistic technique, focus on the practice of appropriation in the networked culture of the present and address the controversies around contemporary practices.
Course Requirements
Shared Notes
“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” Steve Jobs
“Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal.” Pablo Picasso or Igor Stravinsky
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” TS Eliot, 1921
Anthrophagia, Tropicalismo, Open Culture
Peter Bürger. Theory of the Avant-Garde, trans. Michael Shaw, University of Minnesota Press, 1984, 134 pp. (read p. 73-82, Chapter Montage)
Alfred Döblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz. Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf. 1929 (read S. 13-21) Walter Ruttmann: Symphonie einer Grosstadt, 1927, 664 min (watch at least first 15 minutes)
William Burroughs. The Invisible Generation. 1962 (original layout) William Burroughs. The Cut-Up. Method of Brion Gysin
Music Concrete
Found Footage Film
Crimp, Douglas. 1977 Pictures, New York: Artists Space, 1977, 30 pp
Crimp, Douglas. 1980. “The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism.” October 15: 91–101.
Crimp, Douglas. 1982/1993 "Appropriating Appropriation", in Image Scavengers: Photography, ed. Paula Marincola, Institute of Contemporary Art/University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982, pp 27-34; repr. in Crimp, On the Museum's Ruins, 1993, pp 126-137.
Re-Photography
Sherry Levine
Richard Prince
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984, 2009
Evans, David, ed. 2009. Appropriation. Documents of Contemporary Art. London : Cambridge, Mass: Whitechapel ; MIT Press. Read Introduction. p.12-23
Kenneth Goldsmith “The Body of Michael Brown” 2015
Dana Schutz “Open Casket”, 2016
i-D. What’s the Difference Between Appropriation and Appreciation? 2019 3:28 (mostly refers to fashion).
Referentiality & Remix
Meme Culture
Black Meme Culture
Preview of student texts
Nate Harrison Can I Get An Amen?, 2004
Kirbey Furgeson. Everything is a remix. 2015, 38 min. (in particular: part 3: the Sources of Creativity)
Copyright Reform: Recht auf Remix
Feels Good Man. Documentary on Pepe the Frog, 2020, 90 min.
Writing Essay
