nanoramas

A wide view of small things, with a focus on database cinema, internet culture, creativity, and good ol' fashioned filmmaking. I'm a filmmaker currently living in Ann Arbor, MI. More at jenniferproctor.com.
~ Thursday, November 17 ~
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Jonathan Lethem on the "fetish of perfect originality"

austinkleon:

There’s an consistent argument here that the pristine and heroic originality that many people expect from artists is an illusion…a fetish of perfect originality.

[It’s] a great fetish except when it causes us to feel unnecessarily betrayed if we see the little man behind the curtain. It’s a mistake to ask our cultural creations to be immaculate, perfect and greater than our human selves because actually they’re made by our human selves, which are wonderful without being immaculate, and without a Promethean independence from anything else. People are social animals and our artworks are social animals, too. In a conversation. That’s actually what gives them their life.

Lethem’s new book is The Ecstacy of Influence.


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