Originality

I don't think anyone really still believes in Originality though people still expect it.

What he said.

I pity the original, for to be original is to have your work co-opted by thee advertising industry, w/o recompense.

Sorry folx, I'm knacked, and that's the best I can do this evening.

x0x0

If no-one believes in it, why do people expect it?

because people are stewpeed.

I expect it. And believe in it.

i believe in it and simultaneously don't believe in it. i think that new and interesting things can be created from stuff that isn't purely original. sure, stuff isn't necessarily original but it can fuse with other ideas and mutate to create fresh things.

my life as a "musician" depends on this, cos i know that what i do in my band isn't original in itself. But my guitar parts don't exist by themselves, they come as a part of a whole band, and what each band member brings to our music melds together to create something "new".

what do you mean "believe" in it? (what do you mean "mean" by it?)

Originality died with elliot and pound. The twentith cenury has been a curitorial century. It is about going thru the slag heap of history and finding things to recontextaulize

'Twas ever thus

I believe one can still be original, but I probably have a different concept of originality to those who have posted above. (Eliot & Pound = last word in originality means nothing to me). I think maybe those who say you can't be original anymore focus on the art work something of itself and forget about context. And Dre.

Nick is OTM: just as criticism of artwork is utterly dependent on personal context, so creation of art is also dependent. Frankly if I am writing something, my concern is to express it in a way that is new to me - to have a dialogue with myself, I suppose. Conscious plagiarism or recontextualisation doesn't come into it, nor does a concern as to whether people think it 'original' or not.

Are Werther's Originals original?

Surely only the first one was original. All the others are mere imitations of the original Werthers Original.

But perhaps each one is original and lots of time and money is poured into its creation

But maybe the very first one was a rip-off of some other tasty 'butter candy' and not at all original?

If that's true then I shall sue the blighters. I want to get the old man from the commercial on child abuse claims too.

He's just an actor, you know. He knows nowt about it.

if ti was truly original, we'd never be able to understand it.

Perhaps each one is rather like a snowflake. Not a Snow Flake, though.

I believe in originality. Even if you say something which has been said before, it's never been said by you before. Hence it is original and unique.

I pity the original, for to be original is to have your work co- opted by thee advertising industry, w/o recompense.

An advertising producer caught one of my shows as the Earl of Amiga, a time-travelling 18th century libertine, wit and fop. He later wrote a campaign for a dot com company based around this idea. I was screentested to play the lead role, failed the second audition, and was then sent off to score music for the campaign for $11,000. I think my story proves that, yes, your ideas will be ripped off, but no, it's not always without recompense.

I insist on believing in it whether it exists or not because thinking that this century is a slag heap of recontextualizations is just too depressing. I don't know if it does exist, but that might be only because I'm uncreative.

1. Ewing has a nice point - which is also Cookie's point, I think, kind of.

2. Di is correct that originality could be about new combinations, rather than utterly new things.

3. Eliot (sp!) and Pound are good names to drop, yes; but so much culture since. (Why not mention Joyce, anyway, if you're talking modernism-puts-seal-on originality?)

4. Pastiche = unoriginal seems convincing - but then, Ulysses and The Waste Land do feel original (and they feel NEW, even now); and more to the point, I recall Steady Mike's comment re. Merritt: despite borrowing from everyone else, he finally sounds like no-one but himself.

5. How about melodies? Is it still possible to write an original melody? (Let's define as, for instance: "a combination of melody & chords that has not been used in pop before".)