Is plagiarism creativity?

Teaching Visual Communication yesterday and was embroiled in a discussion about culture. Basically what defines culture. Some days back I was also watching an interesting TED talk by Larry Lessig. You can see it here! So, both of these ingredients combined by the fact I was trying to teach the students a theory of "the medium is the message" from McLuhan's book "Understanding Media" made everything come together.

What I believe the students were finding difficult to understand or conceive is the fact that in some arguments there has to be some evaluation to a metaphysical state rather than a rational real world state. By this, and as trying to be taught yesterday, was the notion of containers. These were described by McLuhan as objects that hold values in the form of a message. This message is released or broadcast and creates an effect. McLuhan nicely uses the lightbulb as a good example. Stating that the mere presence of a lightbulb creates the message of the room. In a pitch black room the room still exists as the light is able to give the message that the room exists. It all sounds a little deep, but if you consider the fact that many seemingly random things are connected then you will understand the principle that darkness can only exist if there is an absence of light. Darkness is not in itself a whole entity. So the lightbulb allows the position of either element of the whole to be communicated. The darkness of the room is merely a patient state of anticipation waiting for the broadcast of the bulbs message; which is light.

What I did then, was to use this in an every day example. This was to show how culture can be created by a change in the container and the content it holds, as to produce a strong message. I used Apple's introduction of the iPod. Instantly my example was knocked. Mainly because the concept of what I was saying about containers and messages was not clearly seen by the arguers against my example. They constantly insisted that iPods never created culture they simply extended culture. That of the mobile audio sound device. I said that according to McLuhan's theory music is the extension of the ear, and the transport of the music was not in itself a culture change. It was in fact the way the transport was broadcast. In the case of iPod it was Apple's clever idea to generate white ear buds instead of the standard black. This was the lightbulb to the music player's dark room. The message was to illuminate the change of appearance; thus creating a culture shift.

How this bends round to plagiarism and Warhol is through Larry Lessg's speech at the TED talks. He also promoted the way in which culture is defined by a need for a container, however much it already exists today, to have a new message to broadcast. If you watch his speech he is very good at convincing the notion that the new culture is in plagiarism. What he basically indicates is that in many respects cultural definition is now about reworking existing cultural entities in order to deliver a new form. Much the same way as Andy Warhol so delivered rehashed images of tin cans and famous celebrities in the name of 'pop' art. Now there is a need in a new culture to be creative at someone else's expense. To have a definition generated and then to believe that (as Lessig calls it) trespass into aspects of that former creativity and allow for a more radical 'amateurised' remake.

Lessig states that as trespassing is an hidden acceptance with the government, as they break the set rules of such violation on a daily basis then to not allow others to explore the possible regeneration of art (which defines culture) would be a crime masked by their seemingly legitimate excuses. So theft and reworking are ways that a new message is being delivered which aims for UDC (user driven content). People are not happy with what is being given, they seek personalised variation which then becomes public domain through its illegitimate airing. It is the new 'punk' of the cyberspace. In light of the orphan works bill this could be a turning point to create a new accepted culture. A position of notice. However, like all trespass someone is affected, and the strange dichotomy here is that the art being generated is in fact affecting the art that defines the culture it is raping.

So, is plagiarism creativity? To me, no! To a culture of young radicals out to say something, but not having the creative mind to invent, then yes, but it is not only stealing physical property to create a new culture, it is stealing the aspect of the creative that generates culture. Thus weakening the message, and thus potentially ending up with us in a pitch black void of a cultureless society.