Original just a copy?
Another point that struck me is actually something my mother has been telling me for years..Nothing is new! Everything has taken its ideas from past ideas. I guess this goes back to my first blog about Design History. I guess it is relevant as nothing is new. If we trace back to the ideas of the industrial revolution most likely they will be found in modern day, art, technology and literature. I find it hard to accept though that nothing new exists. There has to be things that nobody has done before, right? We aren't that narrow minded a race that we've thought of everything humanly possible to think of?
The lecture spoke of Star Wars (original trilogy), I actually have a book called 'Star Wars: Power of the Myth' which shows exactly what the lecturer was referring to. How this film was based on much older narratives and theories. Of Yoda as a 'Zen Buddhist', of the Hero Heroine scenario, of the search for a father figure, labyrinths, swords and dragons. It pretty much describes the films in the context of other stories.
There was talk of Madonna, how she takes styles and recreates them as her own. Working in clothes retail, good old Next, I am constantly bombarded with posters of current trends telling me what is fashionable for this age and gender and what's not. Originality seems to be gone, even as people strive to be original...or say they do.
This brings up another point from the lecture about social norms and why people fit in. "Social Pleasing." "We know we aren't watched all the time but the fact that we might be makes us act differently." We are so aware of being part of a culture that we fear standing out. Even those who try to stand out can be put into classes, meaning they don't stand out anymore e.g. goths. In our strive to be different and unique are we just fitting more into society?
This brings me back to the 'nothing is new' standpoint. Past fashions, styles are all coming back "revamped" (to use the word of our lecturer) and so shown as new! But it isn't truly original. I am completely stumped. Can we create anything new? As having a future in the media I am concerned that my future productions won't be 'new' they will be mixtures of things that have influenced me in the past. Is anything I do truly original? If you look at Derren Brown's mind control he has proved how what surrounds us affects our sub-conscious. Does that mean that what I have watched I will sub-consciously reuse as there is nothing else to do? Are my worries just I wonder? Can originality prevail?
posted by Ceara Nissa @ 12:57 pm
1 Comments:
I see your point. But I personally don't want to live my life as a copy of someone else. I have people I look up to, people I admire and people I don't. I have my own sense of moral and conscience based o nthe World around me, what I've been taught and what I know is socially acceptable. But I don't want to be like them, I don't want to do things the same way somebody else does. I like my 'uniqueness' I like my ability to analyise things in a different way from my peers. I won't be the only person out of the, what is it now, six billion people in the whole World who thinks along these lines, obviously, but I don't personaly want to give up the hope that I am.
I think inspiration and copying are different. You can be inspired for a piece of work and it be completely different from what has been done before, or at least you used to be able to. For example, you can be inspired by a persons use of morality in a story and try to find your own sense of morality for your own piece of work. They will be very different results yet the inpiration you gained will connect them in some small way. (Not a great example I know) I suppose you could say it's to suit their own needs but it is still something that hasn't been done before.
I looked up the meaning of original. One meaning was: new; fresh; inventive; novel
If you look at your surroundings in a new way and change to suit their needs in a completely different way than before is that not original?
But back to my 'original' post. I'm not talking about people being original, everyone is influenced by their surroundings. We act like the people we know. We talk like the people we know. We can still be unique though. My post was about original ideas mainly. Can we come up with new things? New products new ideas? If you go right back in time, the wheel was an original, it hadn't been done before. But nowadays do we ever get things that give us that WOW factor. That make us truely think well I've never seen anything like that before! Does such a thing exist? Or, should I say, will it?
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