Experimental writing is only private action.

This title sums up a mainstremist (?) prejudice and shallow attitude toward writing that interrogates the formal arrangement of language. I speak to this as not a new phenomenon or attitude but as an observation directly relating to my own current practice as a young writer.

I recently developed a piece of writing that experimented with sentence formation for Sam Rountree-Williams solo exhibition currently showing at Newcall Gallery. I had expressed doing writing for the studio-based collective as I saw them in keeping with some of the things I am doing in my own practice. Sam approached me to write for the show, and I feel our pairing worked really well in terms of the proximity of some of our ideas and ideas for articulating them (in paint and in writing). My piece specifically emerged from a series of discussions with Sam as well as the writing/language studies I am currently undertaking and poets I am reading. (I would undoubtedly cite Leslie Scalapino as my main influence - spurring these thoughts and how I could consider writing them - but there are so many others).

The writing was described by one funded art blogger as "waffly" and "impenetrable." I differentiate Hurrell's blog from his other writing because I am not familiar with it and assume there is a difference in terms of critical content and form. While I understand that my writing is difficult to "digest wholly" (assuming that's what readerly penetration does and highlighting that in fact my piece purposely resists that), he offered no commentary on why he thought this - as if it explained itself. I am interested in what constitutes as "waffly" and what the referent is precisely in my piece - he does not talk either of these things.

It's not that I expect I won't receive remarks like this, but want to point out the way in which his comment denigrates and voids my writing as a valid interpretation and experience of Sam' work. It also blatantly assumes clarity is both always being "self evident" and that isn't something we should be interrogating.

Hurrell finds my writing frustrating in its refusal to offer a singular meaning for a reader(?) It slides deliberately to configure multiple meanings and senses of Sam's work (as in I could not write that in a straight forward way because I wanted the reader to actually experience that in the writing - so it had to be distinct from the normative way of communicating with people). This textual openness I agree is so unlike the majority of art writing that legitimises an art experience via one's ability to categorically situate the work or connect it to "movements" and other practitioners (describing the viewer's experience to them?)

It surprises me also because I am directly speaking about an idea that has been articulated by so many (phenomenologists, quantum physics, Zen, Cage...) and I focus on that particular thing throughout the piece - it is not divergent in that sense I am talking about many different things. So I am both sustaining attention and versioning the same points (so in a way what I say does not change, but also changes) allowing the reader "to get a hold of" what I am saying without tying them down per se.

Sam's show runs from 15 October - 1 November. Copies of my piece are available from Newcall Gallery and on their website.

Protecting As Relinquishing: Creative Production & Publishing Online (Oh, The Anxiety!)

In response to some comments left on my previous post Post(Your)Secret(s)... I was similarly alerted, like the respondent, to some things I had not given much thought to or attention to in my discussion, namely intellectual property rights, online publishing and ownership of material, in this case actual-virtual. (Presumably, creative production online is covered UCC, defining a copyrightable expression as one that is fixed in a tangible medium of expression – I am sure, irrespective of whether people are still arguing over this, readers of this blog will agree, online publication/posting is in fact a tangible medium of expression).

It does appear that corporations are ripping ideas off individuals who publish them online, with a disturbing amount ease, or perhaps more to the point, identifying how easy it is to do so (the short answer here - simply because there is so much material published online). I think this connected to an interesting issue Samuels raises, although I should point out that she is specifically concerned with verbal ideation in her argument – “idea-mongers might hike out to very foreign parts, those not covered by the UCC, and have some very stimulating conversations…then use those ideas with absolutely impunity in their “works” " (372). This is similar to coming into contact, while browsing online, with an interesting, small creative project posted by an individual online that seemingly no one really knows about or one that is not apparently copyright registered .

I am going to refer particularly to the case of NBC claiming that in fact they were “inspired” by a film and not the online PostSecret blog project, for their new show Fears, Secrets & Desires (thank you Pareidoliac for pointing this article out to me). It is interesting that they are able to simply circumvent accusations by proving the idea for the show was planted before the PostSecret project began. Considering that they may have had any number of “ideas” for a new show in the mix before coming in contact with the project's website itself, so who is not to say that this effected the shape and form of a show they already had an “idea” for?

While I think this brings up several interesting threads for discussion, I am going not going to follow any of them here in this post. I will instead focus on a counter-comment that could be made in response to the occurrence of corporations “sourcing” (or stealing) their “ideas” from individuals, “[who] could be more protective of their intellectual property so as to commercialize for their own profit”. This points to a double-edged sword for many artists, writers, musicians and creative people who do publish their work regularly online, and would like to protect their creative output. Part of the attraction to the internet is its capacities to deliver “our” ideas or projects to the world. The more you present your idea to others; circulate and distribute – with your name as author/creator attached, the more likely people are to recognize/associate you with that particular idea or creative production. Thus the internet is a hugely efficient medium for achieveing this, capable of reaching a large number of people in a relatively short amount of time. This is illustrated by the following and publicity the PostSecret project has gained, it was obvious to many that NBC was ripping off them off, because many already knew about the project and recognise the recycling of its central idea.

However, on the other hand (ambivalence sets in…) I must acknowledge that which some find threatening, with an increased number of people who know about your idea or have come into contact with your project, there is an increased likelihood that some of those people will be so fond of your idea or project they will either claim it as their own or recreate something astoundingly similar.

I think that currently, from the sample of online creative projects & blogs I have been looking at, the circulation ideas and creative production online is more focused upon sharing and forming communities (and hopefully it will remain this way), rather than worrying anxiously whether someone is out to steal your ideas (I have not noticed many blogs that are actually copyrighted for example). I am not suggesting that this should not be a concern, but I do not think, therefore you should make your idea/project especially “marketable” (if you do in fact just intend to simply share a thought). For instance, those who participate in PostSecret project by contributing a postcard are not recognized individually (putting aside the fact that individuals would not want to be associated with the secrets they send and anonymity is crucial component of the project), they participate in order to contribute to and re-generate the art project, rather than protecting their individual intellectual property rights to the particular postcard they created.

The efficacy of putting energies into the actual project itself, and working to get your name attached to it, by distributing and circulating it (the internet offering this potentiality) is telling - especially as so many recognised the striking similarity between NBC's new show and PostSecret. I am not suggesting that intellectual property rights should not concern those who publish their ideas and work online, however I do not think it should be a reason not to publish, circulate or distribute ideas or work at all – the threat of someone potentially ripping you off should not overcome the sharing impetus to publish ideas or projects in the first instance. As Samuels points out, “ideas are “public” and once a good idea is exposed…” (361), and this suggests the only guarantee for the protection of your creative idea is to expose and publish, distribute and circulate the idea as that which is yours as widely as possible (Samuels 361).




~ Works Cited ~

Samuels, Lisa. 'Relinquish Intellectual Property'. New Literary History. Vol.33, 2002, 357-374.

Play It! Make It!

Click here to be directed to some writing I have done about Luke Munn's one night exhibition.