{"id":1445,"date":"2016-04-21T13:09:33","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T13:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=1445"},"modified":"2018-06-16T10:34:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-16T09:34:42","slug":"the-remix-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/the-remix-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"The Remix Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those working in the creative sector of any industry have some of the biggest egos, as well as the biggest anxieties, over their work. A lot of this is because we hold onto the concept of originality. We simultaneously believe that it can be achieved, but question whether or not we<\/em> can achieve it. Well, the simple answer is that originality doesn\u2019t exist: it\u2019s a fallacy. What\u2019s worse is that it stunts us from being creative. Originality is a loaded concept that permeates everyday thinking, but is inherently empty.<\/p>\n

No person, idea, or thing is an island. The stuff we produce exists in the constellation of other people and ideas. When we create, we do it to communicate something to the world. There is no such thing as a private language<\/a>, so in order to bring something into this world with the intention of communication, it can't be original.<\/p>\n

We are not self-made. Life itself is an appropriation, and the best thing we can do for our creativity is to disillusion ourselves from the myth of originality. Some of the greatest artists got to where they are because they managed to liberate themselves from this myth: Picasso, T.S Eliot, Duchamp. Steve Jobs once said that \u201ccreativity is just connecting things\u201d<\/a>, which sounds deceptively simple, and it is to an extent, but requires a broad understanding of the human experience, and how we learn and connect things.<\/p>\n

A lot of creative work is to do with memory; it\u2019s about having a conversation with the past. There\u2019s a chapter in the book Moonwalking with Einstein<\/em> by Joshua Foer, where Tony Buzan, the educational consultant who popularised the idea of the mind-map, talks about creativity. Buzan states that:<\/p>\n

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\u201dCreativity is the ability to form similar connections between disparate images and to create something new and hurl it into the future so it becomes a poem, or a building, or a dance or a novel. Creativity is, in a sense, a future memory.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

In order to invent new ideas, we need existing ones to call into play. Creativity is a drawing of the past and hurling into the future. Founder of Brain Pickings, Maria Popova, also touches on this notion of creativity in her feature<\/a> for the Smithsonian:<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo create is to combine existing bits of insight, knowledge, ideas, and memories into new material and new interpretations of the world, to connect the seemingly dissociated, to see patterns where others see chaos.\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

What she calls \u2018combinatorial creativity\u2019 is what filmmaker Kirby Ferguson calls a \u2018remix\u2019. His popular video<\/a> encourages us to rethink our modern attitudes towards originality, creativity and copyright, and how terms like 'intellectual property' can stifle rather than nurture growth on both a personal and cultural level.<\/p>\n