Alateia

In my textuality class, we learned that there is nothing original, only a reiteration of the samething by a different person through changes in unique nuances. Everything is copied and renewed in various forms. So really it s a question of how close is the imitation, now isn’t it?

immitation is at all levels, it is to what degree of the immitation. Look at Star Trek and Star Wars, immitation indeed, but they are both unique. Look at LOTR and Star Wars, again immitatory, yet unique. Every anime on the planet another great example. Each picture of a sunset, each painting of a sunrise, each leaf bound poem and tree rooted novel all immitate something else. Combining hundreds and thousands of sources into one actualized state.

Again, the questionis to what extent. If a person is literally immitating something to death it’s plagerism, if one is using elements of story among many to create something new, that is flattery.

I’ve always kind of thought that an artist would rather have their work stolen than ignored…...if your work is influencing others then its working…... so that has to be good …we all are influenced by everything we see on some level….. so crossovers are inevitable….. and not always a bad thing…... my thoughts anyway

There has been an Alateia and a Xtom, but we are their reincarnates continuing from where they left off.

I agree that just about everything has been done before and of course as we know with retro, old can be new again. I was once told that a person in one part of the world could have a creative thought and bring it to fruition only to find that his thought form had been thrown out into the universe and picked up by someone across the other side of the world who believed that they had that first original creative thought

the intentional or unwitting presentation of another’s ideas as one’s own

Ideas can sometimes be original, but since ideas come from the human mind, it’s likely that more than one person may come up with a similar idea.

I think you can patent something like an “idea”, but you can’t copyright an idea. An idea isn’t tangible. You can copyright the resulting image or written work.

In terms of an image, a lot of people have unwittingly produced similar images – practically since the beginning of commercial photography. It’s not so amazing. Go to any stock site and you’ll find tons of images with almost identical setups and lighting – many uploaded or created at the same (or close) time period. Some of those sites have had similar discussions in the forums.

The written works perhaps might be somewhat different – copying exact paragraphs without attribution would certainly be wrong, but many a writer has used similar story lines without having ever read each other’s work.

I don’t think I have an opinion on whether it’s flattery or not – it happens; sometimes one can prove it’s directly copied (such as a painter using your photograph to paint a scene), other times it would be quite difficult.

Guess I went off on a different tangent, not with it tonight. I agree with what you are saying. Being a photographic judge I see that all the time Alateia where someone will win with a great idea and then suddenly all these imitations will turn up in the judging gallery

there is nothing new under the sun…I often find myself wishing I had done that, why didn’t i think of doing this or that…
if someone were to copy/imitate something of mine I’d be flattered, if they made a million bucks from it, I’d be dismayed, of course…however, it would be the luck of the draw…
it would be great to give credit by saying “inspired by” but sometimes so many have already done the same thing…what make’s something NEW to me is me doing it.
Now, if it is an exact forgery, then there is a problem…
In photography, especially, it seems everyone borrows from everyone in some way..then, you put your own special touch on it…..was Andy Warhol original? Yes, did he take his ideas from other’s, yes…

I would make an example of the Beatles, they were original, but they took from other genre’s and made their music uniquely theirs..the Greek Statues of ancient times were not new to the sculptor, but he put his “signature” on it is a different , if ever so slight way.
You can only pose a model in so many ways…there is nary a pose that hasn’t been done, as well as other effects..you can improve on them, maybe, post production may make it different…
occasionally, I can be utterly original, but , mostly they are either variations on a theme or extremely similar to someone else’s idea.
I wouldn’t say something adds or detracts, it is so subjective…most who understand this obviously know of influences…inspired by or influenced by usually comes with the territory…
I’ve seen imitations of famous artworks that are actually better than the original as well as some that are terrible, it is subjective…
I have one photo I call..”the similarity ends here” I have seen this pose before but not in the same setting, mine is in the kitchen sink, for an example, and obviously done with a different model, different lighting etc…

Every conversation since the first grunt has been based on quotes of previous utterances … whether artists are conscious of their influences and whether they attribute them are two signs of maturity (though they are often not attributed out of reasons other than avarice, eg mischieviousness) ... but also there is perhaps phenomena such as those discussed by Rivergirl etc, the following story is a popular one, though it may be untrue but even so, similar results have been obtained from reportedly careful scientific experiments…

from The Hundredth Monkey by Ken Keyes Jr

Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes.

Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them.

The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice.

A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea—

Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.

(and the book is apparently allowed by the author for copying, if you can find a copy ;)

not sure how to link something here on the Bubble, but here is the photo

grrr….http://www.redbubble.com/people/mychaelalchemy/art/1351801-1-the-similarity-ends-here

PS Here’s another source for the Hundredth Monkey extract, which links to a copy of the book that’s still online.

the picture doesn’t show up…between what of “these?”

I did that

see, it won’t show up

hmmm, I dunno either….

hmmm?

ummmmm ok mychael, well it worked that time,...lol!

your one comment says--
link>?
then nothing there
now, you got the photo?

anyway, the pose is one I have seen many times, and,even though the setting isn’t spectacular, it is different…but, the focus is all on her mostly…

in the series I call “variations” they are original as far as I know, I’ve not seen the poses before

You grabbed the url of the whole page not the image. Image urls will end with .jpg

You’re welcome!!

maybe I’m a bit late into this thread, I just wanted to add to the “nothing new under the sun” concept; I’ve been working on a painting for a while, had it as a pencil sketch for ages before doing something in photoshop (turned into a t-shirt and my image Ocean of the mind here on RB). Initally I was inspired by the Cirque de Soliel dancers swinging from their silky curtains from the ceiling, and I wanted to paint that but couldn;t decide on a colour scheme until I saw a photo here on RB in the Photo-shoot group. [need to check on the artist here] had this gorgeous photo of a girl with brilliant red dreadlocks swinging in bright red fabric-trapeeze (selective coloring) and I decided that’s the colours I was going to use. This painting is now halfway finished and yesterday i saw another painting here at RB with the exact colours I am using and a very similar subject matter. It’s going to look like this painter inspired me, but it waas still Cirqeu de Soleil and the photographer (who I will give mention for colour-inspiration when I upload). We’re all monkeys washing spuds in the end…. ;-)

regarding my post above, the RB artist whose photo in the photo-shoot gallery inspired me for colour choice for my painting in progress is Missy Miss with the photo hanging around 2

I will post the painting when it’s finished although it may still be a while ;-)
for a tease, check out my digital versions

Oh, and please tell your model that she looks wonderful and I wish I was in Melbourne so I could come and take my own photos of her for painting ;-)

I wonder why we get hung up on dissecting everything, instead of just appreciating what we like, and walking away from that we don’t like.

I think nothing in life is bad so long as you are honest with yourself.