Theory Into Practice: Initial Ideas and research

Having completed my essay entitled: 'To what extent is pastiche and inevitable and integral part of contemporary creative practice' that explored ideas of authenticity, authorship and originality within modern contemporary practice I began to think how I could explore similar themes visually.

I begun this by compiling lists of words that seemed most imported to these concepts. The most important of which seemed to me to be be:

Pastiche
Parody
Replicate
Homage
Reference

I have highlighted these words as being the most important for my initial research as half back up the idea of intentional and stagnant recycling of ideas and motifs within the arts (Pastiche, Replicate, Homage) where as the others (Parody and Reference) suggest the use of past ideas/motifs as being essential in the process of creating new works through building and taking your own stance on what has come before.

The two main theorists I was drawn when exploring these themes were Walter Benjamin and Mark Fisher.

Walter Benjamin

Benjamin's ideas relating to how mass reproduction had radically altered both how art was produced and how it was viewed seemed central to the notion on pastiche vs parody/replication vs referencing within contemporary practice. This is because it has allowed for anyone to draw influences from anywhere whilst simultaneously removing the 'aura' from contemporary arts.

What is meant by this is that the notion that art and the person who has created it is on a higher level of creative or philosophical thinking has been removed and that the process is now open to anyone as is the understanding of how work is made. Therefore it could be argued that the process of looking backward and drawing from the past has always been aprt of the artistic process but only recently in the late modern and post modern era been made obvious to the majority of society.

Mark Fisher (aka K Punk)

Much of Fisher's writing relates to how the internet has altered the way in which artistic movements begin and develop. He mainly argues that we are now living in a 'post-everything world' due to vast amount of resources and references we can now draw on due to the onset of the internet.  In particular he argues that now popular culture has 'succumbed to its own inertia and retrospection'.