Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 08:09:01 +1000
From: Edwin Coleman <edwincoleman-AT-mail.bigpond.com>
Subject: Re: art/capital


Robert Janiga wrote
>
>Could this be expanded on?  It isn't clear that "contradiction" plays a role
>(unless, I guess, you're an adherent to symbolic logic, or something) here. 
>Sure, to say that a particular cultural artefact "copies" something that
>doesn't even exist sounds bizarre.  But it seems to me that it points to the
>circular predicaments of reason.  Secondly, take a dance track, say, from
>the genre of acid jazz.  When Djs like Kruder and Dorfmeister mix various
>musical genres from different decades, add in samples, and employ other
>technological manipulations, how does one even begin to speak about
>"originals"?  A particular track on their CD might pay homage and credit to
>an artist (Depeche Mode, for instance), but is this a copy of something
>original?  What are the specific conditions for originality?  Nonetheless,
>it is a "copy" since it can be re-produced ad infinitum by major record
>companies, as well as with CD burning technologies.
>
>Robert
>

I don't know what you mean by the "circular predicaments of reason", please
explain.
I am a longtime opponent of accepting symbolic logic as hegemonic, but I
still think we should use terms with care and consistency.
You ask 
>how does one even begin to speak about "originals"?
but in fact you show how this can be done yourself in a completely
unconfusing way by the description you have given : the samples are copies
[of ordinary originals] in the usual sense, which are then combined and
altered to make something which is not itself a copy of anything, though as
you say it can itself be copied. But 
[1] why call something a copy just because its ingredients are copies ?
That's an empiricist confusion begun by David Hume, so at least it has
basis in tradition, though we should reject it. And 
[2] to call it a copy because it can be copied is like calling a mountain a
copy of a photo of it. You can do it, of course, no-one owns english, but
you are being confusing, since until recently copies have been understood
to come after what they copy. All you are doing is introduce a new and
incompatible use of the term copy so that people can't be sure if its your
usage or the usual one when someone else says 'copy'. I just think things
are confusing enough without deliberately making it worse.

edwin coleman