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
- Presence and active participation in the joint and break-out sessions
- Contribution to shared note-taking
- Short Essay (1-3 pages) consisting of, roughly, one-third own material, one-third material from Wikipedia, and one-third from shared notes.
Shared Notes
- Joint Sessions (https://pad.vmk.zhdk.ch/appropriation_art-joint)
- Break-out Sessions (https://pad.vmk.zhdk.ch/appropriation_art-breakout)
Monday: Imitation, Stealing, Digesting
“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
- Oswald de Andrade, 1928. Manifesto Antropofago Cannibalist Manifesto transl. Leslie Bary. Latin American Literary Review, Vol. 19, No. 38 (Jul. - Dec. 1991), pp. 38-47
- Dunn, Christopher 1996. The Tropicalista Rebellion. Interview with Caetano Veloso. Transition(70): 116. (read 121-126) (local copy)
- Democracy Now! From Political Prisoner to Cabinet Minister: Legendary Brazilian Musician Gilberto Gil on His Life, His Music and the Digital Divide. JUNE 25, 2008 (openness in the digital domain: 35:08 - )
- Digitofagia Sao Paolo, October 2004
Afternoon
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
Tuesday: Swimming in the sea of analogue media
Music Concrete
- Luigi Russolo. The Art of Noise. (futurist manifesto, 1913), translated by Robert Filliou. 1967 (Modern reconstruction of the machines)
- Arseny Avraamov. Symphony of factory sirens. Baku 1922, Moscow 1923
- Halim El-Dabh (1921-2017). The Expression of Zaar/The Wire Piece. 1944
- Pierre Schaeffer: Etude aux chemins de fer, 1948
- Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry: Symphonie pour un Homme Seul, 1949
- John Cage. William's Mix. 1952 (full-length version, 5:44)
- Holmes, Thom. 2008. Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.
Found Footage Film
- Charles A. Ridley. Lambeth Walk: Nazi Style, 1941, 2:18 Min.
- Burce Conner: A Movie, 1958, 12 Min (a video essay about “A Movie”)
- Dara Birnbaum. Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, 1978. 5 Min
- Martin Arnold. Piece Touchée, 1989, 15 Min.
- Rick Prelinger: This is Prelinger Archive. 2001
- Christian Marclay. Telephones, 1995 7:15 The Clock, 2010, 24:00:00
- Hausheer, Celilia und Christoph Settele (1992): Found footage film, Luzern: VIPER/Zyklop-Verlag.
- Sebastian Lütgert: Get in the car, get out of the car, 2019
Afternoon
Crimp, Douglas. 1977 Pictures, New York: Artists Space, 1977, 30 pp
- Jack Goldstein The Jump, 1979, 00:52
- Joan Jonas Disturbances, 1974, 11:00
Crimp, Douglas. 1980. “The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism.” October 15: 91–101.
- Edward Westen. Neil. 1923
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.
- Michael Graves, Portland Municipal Services Building, 1982
- Frank Gehry Residence, 1978
Wednesday: Postmodernism & Apporpriation Art
Re-Photography
Sherry Levine
- Art Works. The Art Story
- After Walter Evans, Metro Pictures Gallery, 1981
- Buskirk, Martha. 1994. “Interviews with Sherrie Levine, Louise Lawler, and Fred Wilson.” October 70(Autumn): 98–112 buskirk1994.pdf
- Michael Mandiberg. AfterSherryLevine.com 2001
Richard Prince
- Cowboys, 1989 ,Untitled (Cowboy): Behind Richard Prince's Photographs & Appropriation, Time Magazine, 2016, 14 Min
- "Canal Zone." Gagosian Galery, 2008
- Patrick Carriou. 2000. Yes Rasta.
- Prince vs. Carriou, The question of fair use The ‘Transformation’ of Fair Use After Prince v. Cariou 2014
- New Portraits Gagosian Gallery 2014
- Review of New Portaits. Brooklyn Rail, 2014
- How many layers of copyright infringement are in Emily Ratajkowski’s new NFT? The Verge, 21.03.2021
- Emily Ratajkowski Buying Myself Back When does a model own her own image The Cut, 15.09.2020
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984, 2009
- Jerry Saltz Great Artists Steal, ArtNet, 2009
Evans, David, ed. 2009. Appropriation. Documents of Contemporary Art. London : Cambridge, Mass: Whitechapel ; MIT Press. Read Introduction. p.12-23
Afternoon
Kenneth Goldsmith “The Body of Michael Brown” 2015
- Context: Shooting of Michael Brown. Wikipedia
- Racial controversy over poem ends conference event earlyThe Brown University school newspaper’s account of the reading and response
- What Happened When A White Male Poet Read Michael Brown’s Autopsy As Poetry, Huffington Post, March 17
- Much ado about Kenneth Goldsmith. eflux, March - Sept. 2015
Dana Schutz “Open Casket”, 2016
- Dana Schutz’s Painting of Emmett Till at Whitney Biennial Sparks Protest Artnet News, March 21, 2017
- Dana Schutz Responds to the Uproar Over Her Emmett Till Painting at the Whitney Biennial Artnet News, March 23, 2017
- Speidel, Klaus. 2017. “ Dana Schutz’s ‘Open Casket’: A Controversy around a Painting as a Symptom of an Art World Malady.” Spike Art Magazine. March 24, 2017.
- Michaels, Walter Benn. 2018. “Who Gets Ownership of Pain and Victimhood?” Le Monde Diplomatique, May 2018. https://mondediplo.com/2018/05/14race-class.
- Steve Locke. 2020. Guston, Whiteness, and the unfinished business of the vile world. Artforum (December)
Thursday: Limits of (Cultural) Appropriation
i-D. What’s the Difference Between Appropriation and Appreciation? 2019 3:28 (mostly refers to fashion).
Afternoon
Referentiality & Remix
- Felix Stalder. 2018. Digital Condition. Polity Press. (read chapter"Referentiality" p. 59-79)
Meme Culture
- Patrick Davison, 2012 The Language of Internet Memes. from The Social Media Reader edited by Michael Mandiberg, 2012
- Richard Dawkins Foundation. What’s In A Meme? 2014
Black Meme Culture
- Jackson, Laur M., 2016 The Blackness of Meme Movement modelviewculture.com (archived version)
- Aria Dean Poor Meme, Rich Meme Real Life Mag, July 25, 2016
Friday: Remix & Memes
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.
Afternoon
Writing Essay