same same

Susan and I had an interesting discussion about Hole In Space and the idea of "original" and "new" artworks and how I would approach the fact that a similar work to mine had already been produced 25 years ago.

I thought about this a lot in the spring at RISD and found one of our lecturers, Erkki Huhtamo to be insightful and have a refreshing perspective on the matter. What I took away from his discussion is that it is not so important that we come up with new and "groundbreaking" ideas. Ideas or works of art are not better because they are "new", and that many times what we perceive as new is often a restatement of an old idea. (which he labels as "Topoi" ) But capitalism and consumerism is driven by this idea of coming up with the latest hottest thing.

Just the fact that a completely different group of people will be seeing it and that it is executed in a different context, and at a different time makes it worthwhile. Errki did a personal crit with me and urged me to do Symphony of a City again in a different City.

It does seem very useful to be in contact with the artists and try to learn from their experience. So thinking of it as a cooperation rather than a competition. I should probably go back and read some more.