Stealing? Appropriation? Creation? Inspiration?

I'm going to take a stab at something here. It's a post I've been wanting to write for a quite awhile and now seems like a particularly good time to explore these ideas especially in light of this. I'm not going to spend a lot time hashing over my own experiences with having my own work (writing and staging) stolen and/or appropriated. I know many people consider these issues open to debate and others who feel that writing and direction should somehow operate in the area of open-source. I've tried to open my mind to this idea. I like the fact that Charles Mee makes his scripts available and encourages artists to -

Please feel free to take the plays from this website and use them freely as a resource for your own work: that is to say, don't just make some cuts or rewrite a few passages or re-arrange them or put in a few texts that you like better, but pillage the plays as I have pillaged the structures and contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht and stuff out of Soap Opera Digest and the evening news and the internet, and build your own, entirely new, piece--and then, please, put your own name to the work that results.

But even he is clear about copyright protection of plays that are performed "essentially or substantially" as he has "composed" them. And I confess to being a huge appropriator. I use this word in the sense that Mee uses it. I often use words and images that appear in magazines, newspapers, flyers, subscription solicitation ads, works of art, television, film, etc. I deconstruct them - rearrange and cut them up in the manner of William S. Burroughs and Byron Gysin. Some of these cut-ups are used as sources of inspiration or the text is used compositionally in the studio. Sometimes it gets cut-up and rearranged again and again. Sometimes it just gets thrown away. Mostly it's a way to interrupt my own habits of speech and thought. It's a tool.

So where do I get off being all self-righteous about stealing and appropriating?

I guess because when your living depends on the words you write, how is it fair that another person gets credit and remuneration for words and/or staging that were first written/created by you? I guess because it feels pretty shitty to get raked over the coals by critics only to have someone else take your work and get praise and recognition for it. Not to mention grants and commissions. And it's not just my work, it's angering to see directors steal staging and replicate aesthetic elements from other people's work (Remember it's not an homage if you don't change it in some way, if it isn't in quotations somehow, and if you are passing it off as your own.)

Unfortunately it is a fact of life in both the theater and film. So it seems we have to suck it up and deal with it or hire a lawyer resources permitting. I say yes. Sue when you can. But that doesn't salve the anger and the hurt. And aside from the personal injury - I question what acts of theft and appropriation reflect about our attitudes in regards to our art. And here is where I want to take my machete and bushwhack in another direction. I want to examine the implications of our use of the word "steal."

The idea of stealing is pretty common place. Artists use phrases like "I stole that from a dance thing I saw the a few years back" or "I'm stealing left and right from so and so." It's pretty much an accepted practice and we all think we know what is meant when the word is used. There's an idea that we'll take whatever we've "stolen" and go off in a different direction with it. Stealing is filling in for appropriating here. Supposedly, what we don't mean is that we're going to use actual staging or text. Along with that, it's implicit that when someone says they're stealing that it's meant as a compliment (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, that kind of thing.) We mean that we've been inspired by someone else's work.

Well. I don't take it as flattery. It really offends me. I mean, I get the idea - we live in a post-modern world and all. It's a tongue in cheek sort of thing. I shouldn't get all emotional about it. There are only seven stories that can be told, nothing is new under the sun. Yeah. I get that. But, again, I'm constantly wondering what our choice of language does to the art form. Why is it necessary to use aggressive language to describe the creative process? And here, I'll say that I'm with Picasso - I see the act of creation as a violent act. But I'm trying to articulate something different here.

Here's my thinking. Theft is an act of aggression. When we say that we are stealing, we're essentially agressing against the source of our inspiration. The way I see it, the source of our inspiration is objectified, we treat it as property, an acquisition - it's a kind of artistic manifest destiny. It smacks of entitlement. What does it reflect about our culture? Inspiration by its very nature means to take something into our body and allow it to change us. But the thing is, by taking it into our bodies we change the composition of the thing itself. Stealing on the other hand, guarantees that the source of our inspiration will remain outside of us.

I'm not saying this is a conscious thing. It's not necessarily a malicious thing either. But how hard is it to say that we've been inspired? What's at risk in that admission? We are. We risk appearing earnest and vulnerable. We risk taking responsibility for our work. Edward Said addresses this issue brilliantly in his book On Late Style in a chapter written about Glenn Gould and the art of invention. For Gould's own thoughts on invention and negation read Advice to a Graduation, his address to the 1964 graduating class of Royal Conservatory of Music at University of Toronto. In examining Gould and his performance of Bach, Said is able, among other things, to describe a way of seeing the history of composition as a continuum - that we are invented by the work created by the artists who come before us. We become the aesthetic children of the work that inspires us. Issac covered this on Parabasis recently and I'd link to the post, but I can't find it - basically the idea was that without Chekov there'd be no Beckett, etc). It seems kind of obvious. But, for me, it's a wonderful way of looking at the act of creation. I don't have any answers here. How about you? Any thoughts? (thank you to Nick)

Addendum:
The ecstasy of influence: a plagiarism by Jonathan Lethem (Thank you to Nick)
The Promiscuous Materials Project
freeculture.org