You Are A Mashup Of What You Let Into Your Life

from the so-true dept

Aaron DeOliveira alerts us to a wonderful presentation by writer/artist/poet Austin Kleon called Steal Like an Artist. It's a little less than 8 minutes, but worth watching: There's a lot in there that will sound familiar if you're a regular reader, but it goes over the simple fact that content creators always build on the works of those they come across, whether on purpose or not. There were two lines that really caught my attention. The first was this one:

You are a mashup of what you let into your life.

We keep hearing from people who seem to think that the only "real" art is art that is wholly original. And, yet, they can't point out anything that really is original. All art builds on the works of others. There's simply no getting around that. The second line that caught my attention:

Imitation is not flattery. It's transformation that is flattery.

I'm not sure I agree with that statement, but it made me think. I actually believe imitation may very much be a form of flattery, and furthermore that imitation very often is what leads to transformation. In many cases the first step of transformation is, in fact, imitation. But I fear the situations where we make it illegal to imitate in large part because without being able to imitate, we often lose the ability to transform and build and create something special.

I'd never heard of Kleon before, but it appears that this presentation is a short version of a longer talk that he's actually turning into a book. Should be an interesting one to watch out for.

Filed Under: austin kleon, culture, mashups