Week 06 – Ecstasy of Influence – Hannah Kasak

The Ecstasy of Influence elaborates on the limitations of idea-ownership and explores the nuanced ways in which all creative work is inevitably inspired by another. To what degree can a work be influenced before it is an infringement on the rights of the previous artist? And what if the inspired piece adds value to the original piece? Jonathan Lethem also points out the impossibility of tracing the origins of ideas or restricting sources of inspiration. He writes that “I’m not alone in having been born backward into an incoherent realm of texts, products, and images, the commercial and cultural environment with which we’ve both supplemented and blotted out our natural world.” Because we are, as he puts it, born backwards into an incoherent world, the idea that we ought to synthesize “original” work is an unattainable, theoretical standard. In the same way that we cannot imagine colors that we’ve never seen, we cannot create something entirely without influence of previous works. Lethem discusses “the commons” as a way to conceive the sharing of ideas. Just as a road is created for everyone’s use, an idea or concept when put into the world because a foundation upon which others will also build. Aside from this being somewhat inevitable, it is also a beneficial mindset. Why not encourage the continuation of an idea into future pieces?

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