Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 13:54:26 +1000
From: Edwin Coleman <edwincoleman-AT-mail.bigpond.com>
Subject: Re: art/capital


Adrian

I am often looking for an argument, but I am interested too, so this is
just exploratory.
You are right that we use 'copy' in this way about books ; but there is/was
an original in a straightforwards sense in most cases - it used to be lead
type ! I think the destruction of such an original does not change the
asymmetry of the  relation of copies to it. But the real point is deeper, I
take it : that there can be multiple instances of something which we call
copies where there is no such original. Well, is this really so ?

Prints are made in editions, from something which is not a print, but is
their original. Do we call them copies ?
Multiple performances can be made from a score, which is very different in
nature to them, but we don't exactly call them copies either. 
Going back to the book example, if all copies are destroyed but one, and we
make lots more from that, something may have changed. Many texts we have
now are corrupt for just such reasons !  I do say that I have copies of
Plato's Phaedrus
though his manuscripts are all lost - but they existed. There is a real
question if a "copy" I have is accurate to what Plato wrote.
Displayed web pages have an original - a text file on the  page author's
machine. Of course, they may have a very short life because theses files
are edited and changed frequently, but the reason the page you see may
change from day to day is precisely because it is copy of an original in
which those changes are first made, surely ?
As for the copy you can make of the broadcast of a smartbomb's
transmissions, the original reality is the target being pictured, the first
copy is the bomb's telemetry and so on. There are many and various
copyings, sure, but people killed and bridges deystroyed by bombs are not
simulacra. Or do you think that the destruction of the original allows us
to call your copy a copy without an original ? It's true enough that is
*has* no original, but it had one !

Perhaps ther are genuine examples of multiple instances we rightly call
copies for which there never was an original. (The print and performance
pseudo-examples are discussed by Goodman in Languages of art as a distinct
semiotic kind, but he does not use copy of them.)
Can you suggest another case ?


At 23:10 20/06/99 +1000, Adrian Miles wrote:
>Responding to the message of Sun, 20 Jun 1999 10:09:35 +1000
>from Edwin Coleman <edwincoleman-AT-mail.bigpond.com>:
>
>> I would question if one can "understand" simulation in this way : a 'copy
>> without an original' is a contradition in terms.
>> The only reason for caling Baudrillard's examples "copies" is to create
>> semiotic confusion.
>> 
>
>so if i hold a copy of a book in my hand it presupposes and requires an 
>original? what would the original book be?
>
>if all copies were destroyed except mine. and we reproduced that. has 
>anything changed? 
>
>if i visit a web site that dynamically generates pages on the basis of my 
>request (any search engine) is the original the page displayed from the 
>server, the page cached on my machine, or something else? what is original 
>here? 
>
>if i record off air (digitally, lets say via the ABC's satellite feed) the 
>video footage provided by a 'smart' bomb live, where is an 'orginal' and 
>where is the 'reproduction'?
>
>i'm not looking for an argument. just interested.
>
>adrian miles
>
>
>