Response to On the Right of Molotov Man:
It’s very meaningful to look at an event from two perspectives, and it’s not for the purpose of comparing or choosing from right or wrong. “Indeed, Joy’s practice of decontextualizing an image as a painter is precisely the opposite of my own hope as a photographer to contextualize an image” (56). Listening to voices from different perspectives enriches the content of the event itself, where the readers could discover profound meanings. This is my general feeling after reading On the Right of Molotov Man. On one hand, the open questions raised by Joy Garnett are closely related to daily life. The sharing of documents should be carefully considered because it is concerned with the protection of authenticity and the need of tolerance. On the other hand, I think Susan Meiselas’s clarifies a more important point concerning the general modern online network. By explaining the background of the photograph and her own experience, I can see that many ways of sharing, and recreating a photograph without references dismiss the original content in real life, associated with real men. If people lose track of where the image comes from, people lost the meaning behind the original image, which contains many real life histories that shouldn’t be abandoned. In all, like Meisela says, artists “owe this debt of specificity not just to one another but to our subjects, with whom we have an implicit contract” (58).
Response to The Ecstasy of Influence:
Although the subjects that this article and On the Right of Molotov Manare similar, both on copy right, recreation in the field of art. However, I find these two articles talking from different angel; The Ecstasy of Influence carves in details and talk about appropriation in literature, television shows, and so on. Generally speaking, the author clearly distinguishes the copy of shame from the copy of glory. For example, he mentions The Simpsons on Page 61 and reflects on the question “Animation is built on plagiarism!” In a sarcastic way, the author expresses his idea of copying: “If these are examples of plagiarism, then we want more plagiarism” (61). The works from former generations are accumulated resources that later generations can always turn to for appreciation, learning, and being inspired. And among all these resources, the idea of originality may have already changed. The originality of modern times is different from the originality in a time where you can easily say “Let there be light: and there was light”. In Jonathan Lethem’s words, “Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos”; what an inventor can carve his or her own path through the chaos is what matters for real art creation (61).