When we were talking about Manovich's idea that one of the principles of new media is that it involves selection, meaning that one can choose from images, text, and pieces that have already been made to make something new. The first thing I thought of was this YouTube video called Amateur , in which the author videotapes himself making sounds on a drumset and a piano and then edits them together to make a song. He selects small sounds from a long video and edits them together to make something coherent and impressive out of something that was mundane before.
Let's see if I can embed the video I talked about above inside the browser.
I've changed settings, so you should be able to embed now. What you need to do is click on "input format" below the editing window and change the setting from "filtered HTML" to "full HTML," and then it should work....
I noticed in one of my Media Sketchbook classes that a few of the pieces (I really don't like this word, but that's a story for another day) people made, which were ostensibly about themselves, prominently featured media created by other people (a television show, a song, etc.). I couldn't help thinking about what Manovich writes, and what you mention above. It seemed emblematic of this new age and these new media that we would construct our identities in this way, using other people's work. I can't imagine someone in the 1910s responding to an autobiographical assignment with a lengthy quotation.
But is this so wrong? Do we agree with Manovich that, short of coding Microsoft Word ourselves, there's no way we can really create our own identity? I got into a short discussion about this with someone after that Media Sketchbook class. She talked about how little there has ever been "of ourselves." We've always, to an extent, used things we "found" in the culture to construct ourselves. A word, for example, is itself a metaphor jointly created by many other people. Is that so different? I'm not quite sure what to think. There's certainly room for debate.
The concept of creating something "new" or "unique" that cannot be found anywhere else makes my brain hurt.
Once I stark thinking about everything that makes me me, from the most superficial level of how I dress or how I decorate my room to the deepest level of the things I write or think, there seems to be nothing that is not in someway a collection gathered over time of other people's work or thoughts! I mean, I buy my clothes, but even if I didn't I'd have to either follow a pattern to make them or base my own pattern after the socially-constructed image of what I think of when I think "pants." Who came up with pants anyway? And was that person unique either or were they only taking another existing concept one step further (wooly mammoth toga, most likely)? Sorry if this is off topic, my brain apparently works in a spatial "branching pattern..."
Anyway, perhaps selection in itself is the creative process, and taking it a small step further in the way you put it together, or add your own commentary, is the "something new." Although, I can think of a lot of examples where I wouldn't consider that unique either...
I just don't like the thought of not being "unique." There's got to be something in this.
Once again, I attempt to embed.
This is Amateur. Watch it, it's super sweet.
whoa.