Lazy

From Introduction to Electronic Literature
Jump to: navigation, search

Lazy, Lazy, Lazy. Is Conceptual Writing lazy? Dworkin's Against Expression put much emphasis to the copy/paste function and how it opened up a pandora's box of possibilities for manipulation and conceptual-based writing. Can this writing be considered a masterpiece like one would think of Herman Melville? IS this still literature? Is taking a passages from the 99th passage of a novel and creating entirely new passages from it (Walter Abish's "Skin Deep") just as important as the original novel? Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question, a question that is not really the point of conceptual art. However, I can't help but be intrigued by the idea of it all. If we can merely copy and paste everything, does this mean that the idea of manual writing (as in "not-copied/pasted") become obsolete? Do we need to write anymore? Going through this week's posts, I see many people have embraced copy/pasted writing. Another topic that has caught my attention was the idea of image anarchism. The idea that once we post something online, it is no longer the property of the you, the creator, but another material that could be used and manipulated as the internet sees fit. Is the act of reblogging a work of art, and creating a new context for it, the same as creating the original work of art? Does this post belong to me or does this post belong to everyone that's reading it and wants to use it? -Bliss