Part 2 Project Mapping and Other Technologies - Exercise 2.4: Is appropriation appropriate?
Interestingly Geoff Dyer's article on photographers using Google Street View mentions the 1960's board game Formula 1.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-street-view-new-
photography?intcmp=239
I was born in the 1960's but as a teenager I recall playing this game with friends and my brothers. Dyer compares the difference of enjoying the thrills and spills in your own front room the Formula 1 game advertises it to be as a similar contrast to the stay at home photography to photographers such as Michael Wolf blowing up images taken by Google as part of their street view and calling it photography. The similarity being both are stay at home and arguably bear little resemblance to the activities both are supposed to represent
Formula 1 board game playing pieces
A Michael Wolf Google Street View image
Whilst the board cannot really be considered misappropriation, the game has used a sport, a theme, even an idea and translated it into something different. I'm not sure that Michael Wolf has done this. Had he used the general approach and gone out with his camera and created similar images himself then I feel he could say he used an idea and created something himself e.g looking for something in his images he had not originally intended to capture, something exploratory also for him. In this instance I feel its misappropriation; arguably by doing something controversial he has created a response which has resulted in an increased profile of himself, this work and perhaps other works he has done. However it has led him on to develop his own individual approach and I think this is what we all do and take influence and adapt it to our design.
Ultimately this can lead to what we may call a personal voice and start creating our own unique work that perhaps others might use to influence their own work. Engineers have done this since the wheel was first invented and as a result progress is made. Whilst photography is not as practical and world changing in the way engineering is, its still a progressive way of moving something forward. When something becomes static it could be considered dull eventually. This is something that can interpreted in a similar way to our careers and us as individuals. progression motivates and inspires us and others around us in what we do. Garry Winogrand did this with his images and the link below shows his own interpretation, a narrative, of elements within an image, elements I feel he discovered in retrospect after taking the image rather than intentionally capturing it, just like Wolf:
Photography should be about discovery, both for the viewers and the artists themselves. To have work influenced by others is something we should all do as this can be a stepping stone to developing our own ideas; its something that is common in photography since it forst began. Personally blatant appropriation of the work of others is unethical but its just my view
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