Authorship Presentation

Author Theory

The author is a portal through which a written or developed creation becomes reality via a multitude of outside influences.

According to Foucault, the creation takes on its own life once the author or portal is removed.

Then, according to Barthes, the creation cannot be deciphered according to the author’s mood or background for deeper meaning. The creation stands alone.

Plus, once this creation is standing alone or becomes common knowledge, it can be taken up by other authors and used to create something completely new.

So, the author loses his or her relevancy. The author is just a portal through which a combination of influences flow to create a final product that adds to a forever growing pool of ideas. One idea is built upon another. Therefore, the emphasis changes from the author to the line of works being created that are establishing new and better ways of expression of an idea. Ultimately, the trend involves always building upon a previous thought for the sake of continuing to develop in culture and society.

Topic Proposal

Topic: A Natural Author

There are many different facets through which creativity is expressed, and the product of this creativity is often in some way influenced by the natural environment. There are products being advertised using bears, puppies, bees, and tigers. There is clothing that possesses the markings of animals such as cheetah, zebra, and leopard. There are home decorations that have nature inspired designs such as floral patterns in bedding, butterfly covered shower curtains, frog shaped dehumidifiers, tomato shaped timers, and turtle shaped iPod speakers. All of these things together have the same influence i.e. nature. However, not every artist's work will represent these inspirations, but each means of expression (writing, photography, miscellaneous artistic ventures) has at least a number of artists who portray natural influences in their work.

Nature is also represented across a spectrum of multimedia writing and art portals, and a single element of nature may also be carried across the spectrum. For example, a willow tree can be described in a writing forum, a photographer can portray the same type of tree suspended in time in a photograph and post it online, and an artist can sketch the flowing leaves in pastels and scan it into a computer. Plus, the artist drawing the flowing leaves may have been influenced by the writer's description of the tree, because this information was readily available to the artist via the web. Therefore, by looking at the influences on artists across a spectrum of forms of expression in multimedia and by looking at the influences carried on from artists by others (all with a focus on the natural environment), a trend should appear showing a great deal of interconnection.

Therefore, this topic has three elements; two have already been brought to light. The first element concerns looking into different forms of creative expression on the web and providing examples of nature's involvement for each creative portal. The second element is seeking out connections amongst these portals, both direct and indirect. The direct connections will be observed as one artist's work being recognized by another and transformed into something anew via that recognized artist's influences. The indirect connections will be observed through common themes seen across the various portals such as the willow tree mentioned in the first paragraph. These two elements thus take on the bulk of the topic and closely pertain to the objectives of the course. The final element is of importance to me alone. I want to ultimately provide an answer (just one, hopefully there will be more answers) to the question of why we need this natural environment. Monetary value for timber and agricultural purposes are a given, but I think there needs to be an inherent value before various habitats that don't provide monetary value will be recognized for what they are worth: inspiration.

These links bring you to just a few of the portals that I want to use. I will undoubtedly need more in order to provide enough insight into certain elements of this topic such as the direct influences amongst artists. This element may prove difficult to research, but I hope to come to a result proving or disproving my hypothesis: There is interconnectedness amongst artist on the web. In any case, all findings provide welcome insight - hypothesis supported or falsified.

Musarium: Media Lab

FM Forums

Elfwood

10,000 Birds

Lethem and Tenner and Authorship

These articles have finally given my brain enough fuel to realize and understand what this research topic needs to be about. For me, it will have a focus in nature as always. My task will be a difficult one. I have found forums associated with wildlife used by the public to answer questions and communicate, but I haven't been able to find something that would bring up the question of authorship other than a Website concerning nature photography and the postings therein. I may need to look into nature writing and its presentation to the masses along with its past influences in order to meet the goals of this topic. Lethem has certainly inspired me when it comes to authorship, and I hope to utilize this new insight to possibly throw another stepping stone in for the nature writing and nature oriented community.

To begin, Jonathan Lethem has provided me with the most inspiration in his examples, imagery, and explanation of the problems with copyright and common knowledge. One thought with which I strongly agree is the idea that through artistic works, other works live on due to their influences on the artist. The artist in turn is not stealing the works that influenced him or her, he or she is utilizing these often life long influences to create a new idea, a new gift to society as Lethem might say.

A photographer may photograph nature, an enormous influence often owned by no one and every one, and make this image his or her own to portray a feeling, a mood, or an influential portrayal of human destruction of a common natural resource. The photographer is not stealing from nature any more than a writer is stealing from previous writers to write.

I think that a big part of the problem with copyright and common knowledge is a need for some morals, morals associated with creativity and artists. As Lethem has mentioned, the mindset should be to gift new creative ventures to society, and society should accept this gift graciously by letting the creator make a living i.e. "Don't pirate my editions; do plunder my visions." The concept makes perfect sense. There is a lyric from a country song running through my head. I can't remember the author at this time as I've only heard the song on the radio without a name ever being mentioned, but the singer says, "you never see a hearse with a luggage rack." This I interpret as a call to do something for the greater good, the common knowledge, and less for personal gain.

However, there is still a fear of this plagiospheric monster in creating or gifting new ideas to the public and common knowledge. Tenner mentioned a development in the making going on at MIT, a non verbatim plagiarism detection system of sorts. If this works, I would suggest using this tool to rule out those who are truly dishonest by using this tool and then having a human evaluation of the document, the human posing the question of, "Is this really plagiarism?" Thus, giving people the tools to police, while also keeping in mind that many artists and writers truly do want to commit their work to the greater good of common knowledge and furthering of a culture or cultures around the world.