Week 6: Response to Ecstasy of Influence – Murray Lu

I found this post to be quite interesting because it talks about how people will use ideas from others to display or showcase in their own work but by using other people’s ideas, they aren’t copying or “plagiarizing” it, their just using it as an outlet for their own expression. Reading the article really reminded me of a TED Talk that I saw that featured Mark Ronson called “How Sampling Transformed Music”. In the TED Talk, Ronson explains that “sampling isn’t about ‘hijacking nostalgia wholesale,’ it’s about inserting yourself into the narrative of a song while also pushing that story forward”. The video really resonated with me because as creatives, it’s totally normal to have inspiration from others and to showcase it in your own work, but by directly using that inspiration, you are extending upon it and adding a totally new direction, kind of like passing the torch down from one generation to another. The article also reminded me of my senior quote that I used in high school: “Good artists copy, great artists steal” – Picasso. I loved this quote because it means that great artists are about to steal the ideas of others and use that to showcase their own work and originality, rather than copying an inspiration that one may have of someone else and make it appear blatantly obvious. I think this article is especially important for our Audio Project, because we will be using audios from other sources and directly showcasing that in our work and adding our own artistic direction upon that.

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