Collage: a. An artistic composition of materials and objects pasted over a surface, often with unifying lines and color.
b. A work, such as a literary piece, composed of both borrowed and original material.
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| Picasso “Still Life with Chair Caning” |
What does it mean to collage? Let's examine it's use in a few different contexts. Pablo Picasso was one of the first artists to utilize collage in his art, placing his use under definition a. However, Picasso was using the art and resources of the time. The new mass culture that was readily available was physically tangible. Later in history see the emergence of DJs producing so called "mash-ups", essentially cutting and pasting parts of different songs to create a new overall piece. They use the mass culture (in this case, music as opposed to Picasso's use of advertisements) and create something of their own design. Bill Morrison's film, Decasia, is a film collage. He used pre-produced materials and rearranged them in such a way that they formed a new and unique entity, completely different from their previous incarnations as separate films. Added to the images, Morrison's choice of audio helped further the individualized nature of his film, giving it a distinct eerie tension.
Each artist has had their own specific way of twisting what is available to them in order to concoct a slightly altered and personalized end product. To bring the art of collage up to speed with the modern age, where do we drawn the line between pirating someone's materials and simply using a small part of their materials in order to birth a new creation? As I mentioned in a previous post, it's hard to make this distinction due to the constant stream of media and the availability of these materials. As the current generation, we have more access than ever to mass culture. We are all potentially one mouse click away from creating a YouTube masterpiece, but that can come with a price. It boils down to the politics of fair use. This trademark law states that individuals are allowed to use copyrighted materials for certain purposes. Personally I find this to be a huge limitation of artists, yet also necessary to make sure the right people get credit for their work. So what do you think is more important, artistic freedom or adhering to the laws of copyright infringement? And,should limitations continue to crop up, do you think these restrictions could effect the future of collaborative art like collage?
Thanks for reminding me the DJ's mesh-ups, I almost forgot about the other form of collage, the form of music. We can see modern technology has brought the idea of collage from 2 dimentsional picture to the dimention of sound, motion pictures, and literacy. I agree that "Each artist has had their own specific way of twisting what is available to them in order to concoct a slightly altered and personalized end product." that's why I still saw the thick artist value of Decasia even though it gave me a headache, it was the expression and interpretation of the artist himself.
ReplyDeleteCould we say that collaging has evolved into a medium of its own. If we think about remixes, collaborations, and remakes of things, that would fall under that category..
ReplyDeleteCopyright reformers feel the copyright laws are written to make artists fail and corporations profit. Is there much difference between taking things found on the Internet and remixing them and an artist painting a haystack s/he sees? Raw material, technology and artistic intent play into it!
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