Schwerinblicke - Künstlersichten

Exhibition curation and catalogue text by Claudia Schönfeld.

Deluge (the 5 backlit images)

Waterfalls Fireflies III

(Rising thermals from 3 candles animate the projected image reflected from a mirror)

The Rules of Composition

Edward Weston, "Shell", 1927

“To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection.” -Edward Weston

If you do a internet search for the “rules of composition” you’ll find that most of the listings are concerned with photography whereas if you do a search for “pictorial composition” the majority of links will be about painting. This is a revealing disparity which suggests that with photography at least, composition is perceived to have determinate rules, which if followed correctly will lead to images of greater power or articulacy. In the case of painting, despite the fact that numerous principles of composition have been studied, expounded and contested over the centuries, there remains a comparatively relaxed attitude towards the potential of composition. Presumably this difference in attitude stems from painting’s long established position as a Fine Art medium.

Certainly there are many artists over the years who have paid a great deal of attention to the orchestration of spatial relationships within their images and there is also no doubt that an inappropriate structuring of visual information within an image can do a great deal to undermine or ruin what might otherwise constitute a strong picture. However, the function, interpretation and meaning of different compositional structures has been repeatedly shown to be so culturally and historically contingent that there is very little faith amongst artists in the idea of a universal language of composition let alone a set of immutable rules. If there were such as a set of rules then we’d all have something like H.R Poore’s tiresome "Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures" as our bible and the pictorial arts would be so much the worse for it.

Strictly speaking photographic images, unlike drawings or paintings, are rarely “composed” in the sense that we have come to understand the word. Unless the subject has been deliberately staged or arranged, photographs would be better understood to have been “framed” in the sense that the boundaries of the photographic image have been definitively positioned with respect to the subject. The choices of tilt, pitch, and swivel of the camera, the focal length of the lens, the proximity to the subject, and point-of-view are all variable to an extraordinary degree.

“At bottom, it is a matter of surrounding with a frame a portion of one's cone of vision, while standing in the right place at the right time. Like chess, or writing, it is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but infinite.” John Szarkowski

Viewed through the camera, the four edges of the photographic frame rigidly maintain their relation with one another and changing a single aspect in the frame therefore alters all aspects of the resulting image. In contrast, drawn or painted compositions allow both the arrangement, addition and removal of elements within the image. Before the advent of digital photography, this mutability was often claimed as a unique strength of drawing and painting over photography. I’m not going to argue the pros and cons of photography over drawing and painting here. Opinion has been divided since the very invention of photography and will, no doubt, continue so long as practitioners, champions and other stakeholders feel threatened or provoked by the apparent strengths or weaknesses of rival media. But the differences do provide us with a way to further our understanding of the qualities and character of each, and these are thus, on occasion, worth examining in closer detail.

Drawing, by its very nature, takes time to carry out and therefore encourages consideration of composition as the work progresses. Photographs by contrast, often being instantaneous, provide relatively scant opportunity for consideration in the moment of production, or worse still, they tend to encourage conventional and unadventurous attitudes or approaches toward composition.

It is plainly evident that the massive rise in the popularity and ubiquity of photography, whilst it has in many ways democratised photography and photographic composition, has also encouraged many inherited and unquestioned habits amongst its users. Horizons are kept level, straight edges are aligned with the edges of the frame, heads tend to be kept in the centre or at least fully in the frame and cropped features are most frequently avoided. These are the conventions of contemporary vernacular photography and for the most part they are sufficient because they echo the most frequently repeated conventions of pictorial representation seen in painting, film and TV.

Everyone has occasionally either made or seen those accidental or naïve images with tilted, cropped or awkwardly positioned features or with a figure sitting beneath a potted plant which seems to grow from the top of their head. With digital photography these mistakes are easily deleted but is there not a danger that we may also loose those rare gems that on second or third glance reveal something extraordinary?

One of the strengths of any medium is it’s ability to conceal it’s artificiality and to create a convincing illusion. A medium’s role is to mediate after all, not to draw attention to itself. Artifice has it’s uses of course, and images which draw attention to their form or the conventions of representation are often instructive and very occasionally worthy of further critical attention. Such instances make ‘form’ (the “medium” if we follow Marshal McLuhan) the very content (“message”) of the work and whilst formalism has its place, most users of media prefer not to be reminded of the flaws, faults or artificiality of communication and expression. This is why most of us prefer to spell correctly and to speak fluently. We tend to prefer our media transparent because this allows us to focus our attention on the content. Most people choose conventional compositional structures for the same reason. But in our desire to avoid making an issue of composition, might we be perpetuating and consolidating an orthodoxy which limits our creative capacity and as a consequence forms an unspoken but increasingly rigid set of aesthetic rules which subtly govern our pictorial choices?

“…rules are not intended as a set of fetters to cripple those who use them, and it is not intended that the student should absolutely abide by them. The object is to train his mind so that he may select with ease, and, when he does select, know why one aspect of a subject is better than another."

Henry Peach Robinson, “Pictorial Effect in Photography”, 1881

Revolution in a Schoolbook

The Little Red Schoolbook, written by two Danish teachers (Soren Hansen and Jesper Jensen), was originally published in Denmark in 1969 and in the UK in 1971. This book caused quite a controversy (see YouTube links below) when it was published in the UK since it was perceived to threaten many of the dominant (puritanical) religious and moral values of the time. Indeed, there were several court cases and the publishers were raided by the police under the auspices of the Obscene Publications Act and many copies of the book were seized. It was later allowed to be published in edited form.

Fortunately for me, my parents were open-minded and curious enough to buy (at the grand sum of thirty pence) one of the original unedited copies when it was first published in the UK. It manages to squeeze a great deal of information into its 208 pages all with the laudable aim of empowering schoolchildren and informing them about many of the issues which really concern young people but from which adults feel they should be "protected". The Little Red Schoolbook continues to be in many ways revolutionary in its frankness and it covers a range of subjects including teacher's authority, punishment, drugs, sex, contraceptives, abortion, and organising demonstrations. In many ways it's a shame there's not an updated version still in print or at least a pdf available for download.

A few days ago I was sent this book by my parents since it had come up in a recent discussion. I'm amazed at just how radical it still seems and to be reminded of just what a powerful influence it had over me as a young teenager. I still remember the first time my brother showed me this book. Inevitably this was to read the sexual content eg:

"The usual word for a boys sexual organ is cock or prick. The usual word for a girl's sexual organ is pussy or cunt. Many grown-ups don't like these words because they say they're "rude". They prefer words like penis and vagina.
When boys get sexually excited, their prick goes stiff. This is called having an erection or "getting a hard on". If a boy rubs his stiff prick it starts feeling good and this leads to what is called orgasm. This is called masturbation or wanking. Girls masturbate by rubbing their clitoris, and this may lead to orgasm too."

I remember taking this book to school and showing it to my friends who were astonished that something so matter-of-fact, honest and sensible could be aimed at them and it couldn't have come to our attention at a more appropriate time in our developing awareness (both intellectual and carnal). No doubt the information about sex was the major source of our interest in this book at this time but there is also a great deal of additional information, which I know I also avidly consumed, and which I'm sure has had a significant influence on my development as an individual and my beliefs about life and teaching. It is only since seeing this book again that I've realised just how profound this influence has really been.

"Teachers and their authority
Most bad and authoritarian teachers are tied up in knots or afraid of something or other. They are often afraid of their pupils and think they have to appear strict and unapproachable. They're afraid that their pupils may be right and that that they may be wrong. They're afraid that there'll be chaos if they give up their power and authority.


This fear arises because they don't believe in other people's ability to organise themselves and find their own solutions to problems. This lack of faith in others may be due to a lack of belief in themselves. They're insecure and have to rely on their authority all the time."

I particularly liked the following:

"Punishment: what is allowed?
The best way of teaching is to use encouragement and rewards, not punishments. Psychologists discovered this a long time ago. But not all teachers and parents have discovered it yet. There are many kinds of punishment. There's caning, detention, telling off, ridicule and sending people out of the class. Some punishments are allowed in school. Others are forbidden. For example it is forbidden for teachers to take things away from you and keep them. If a teacher has confiscated something of yours he has to give it back. (This applies to The Little Red Schoolbook too!)"

I remember openly carrying the book around school in the hope that one of the teachers would dare to confiscate it.

"Marks are a means of power
...If marks are only used as a guide for the pupil, and the teacher explains to each pupil why he's given him a particular mark, this is acceptable. (Although you might well ask what is the point of giving a mark at all in this case.) But marks aren't usually explained to pupils. Instead they're used to compare different pupils, and may even end up on a noticeboard, without any explanation. In this case marks are meaningless.

Don't accept marks as the be all and end all. And remember that there are many teachers who are fed up with the whole business of marks too. They realise that marks in themselves don't mean a thing. Talk to your teachers and try to find out what they think of marks."

And finally from the concluding words:

"Sometimes you have to fight against people who don't have much power, people who are afraid of change and afraid of having to make an effort themselves. This won't last long. In the long run teachers and pupils are on the same side in the struggle against the forces which control their lives.
You can't separate school from society. You have to change one to be able to improve the other. But don't let this put you off.
Every little thing you change in school may have results in society. Every little thing you change in society may have consequences in school.
Work to change always starts with you. The struggle is carried on by many different people in many different places. But it's the same struggle."

Robert Cumming

A few weeks ago I was sent a link to the work of Caleb Charland who produces black-and-white photographs of pseudo-experiments and strange Heath Robinsonesque constructions using light, magnets, water and various other objects and materials. I was immediately struck by the similarities between Charland's work and the work of Robert Cumming who was very active in the 1970s West Coast American conceptual art scene.

I was lucky enough to see an exhibition of Robert Cumming's work at MoMA in New York in 1996 and whilst there I also bought a copy of the exhibition catalogue. Unfortunately Cummings work is fairly poorly represented in history books and monographs on his work are very rare so I often find myself lending my catalogue to students.

Lending books to people is a risky business at the best of times but when it's a book that you're particularly fond of there's a real disincentive to let it out of your sight. I've lost numerous books and DVDs in this way over the years, so I'm now in the habit of looking artists up on the Internet and sending students web links rather than lending out my precious book collection. It's not an ideal situation because the materiality, structure and precision of books is inevitably lost when they're translated into a crude set of online images. However, when the choice is between a pale simulacrum or nothing at all, I think most of us would prefer the former.

When I looked up Robert Cumming online I was both surprised and disappointed to find that there's barely anything available at all. As a student I remember seeing several images of Cumming's work in different books and exhibitions and being really inspired by the inventive and quirky charm of his images. Hopefully the following may go some way to at least giving a vague impression of what a remarkable image maker Robert Cumming was in the prime of his engagement with photography.

Preconceived Ideas

There’s a common belief, especially amongst new art students, that the creation of art is simply a process of coming up with a good idea and then producing it - the major challenge being the technical realization of this initial idea. The source of this conception of the creative process is not entirely clear but it certainly has a tendency to seriously restrict one of the most important aspects of all art forms which is that the process has the potential to reveal things which could never have been imagined beforehand. This is such a crucial thing to understand about art. As I've written before: "If artists end up where they expected to be, they’ll have only confirmed what they already knew and they’ll have discovered nothing."

So, whilst it may well be necessary to have some kind of initial idea or starting point, it’s also vitally important to give it breathing space and allow it to evolve – even if this means that the initial idea becomes completely lost. The measure of a great work is not what was intended but what was created; not where it came from, but where it arrived. This is one of the greatest challenges when working with deeply personal subject matter because there’s such a tendency to feel beholden to the original intention and the feelings which initiated it. As artists become more confident and familiar with this subtle process, they also become more able to loosen their grip in the certain knowledge that things which run deep come through whether you like it or not and the worst thing you can do is attempt to force them into existence.

Invisible Teaching

Is it advisable for an art teacher to walk into a degree show, exhibition space or studio where a student is hanging their work and, after a cursory glance, to say to the student that they need to change the work?

Last June I wrote on this blog:

"This is why teachers and the distance that their role confers upon them are so important. Such distance gives teachers the liberty to speak their minds but with it comes the significant responsibility to always modulate frankness with an appropriate quantum of tact."

Throughout all Universities, staff are increasingly under pressure of time and this often leaves little opportunity to respond to students with the generosity and open-mindedness which is so frequently necessary. Due to their lack of proximity to the experience of being a student - with all its attendant vulnerabilities - many teachers ignore student anxieties or brush them aside as trivial or inconsequential. It’s an attitude which helps no one and can sometimes cause genuine harm. All students are understandably sensitive about many aspects of their studies and even seemingly confident students need reassurance sometimes. More significantly, there’s a subset of committed students who can occasionally appear to be bullish, demanding or self centered and it’s vital not to assume that these students are just “difficult”, but instead to engage them and, if possible, to provide an opportunity for them to explain the cause of their behavior. This takes time and sensitivity, even from highly talented teachers.

“Criticism, especially, is irremediably social in character, since we are ordinarily as blind to our own failings as we are attentive to those of others. Social interaction is therefore as crucial to the prosperity of critical rationalism as are the individual qualities of imagination, resourcefulness, courage, determination, and willingness to learn.”
David Miller on Karl Popper in "A Pocket Popper"

It’s important to realize that teaching is a discursive process which requires teachers to engage students meaningfully and generously wherever possible. Whilst it’s often very easy to spot the flaws in students work, this shouldn’t lead one to the temptation to immediately suggest a change. Artworks often take a great deal of time and investment (both emotional and financial) to produce so it’s hardly surprising that students are resistant, at the best of times, to altering their creations. But there’s a more important issue here. Such critical circumstances offer a vital opportunity for teaching and learning at the deepest level because, if the student is genuinely engaged - as they are most likely to be if they’ve made a real investment in the work - then they are also likely to be highly receptive to any opportunities for making the work stronger. However, blunt statements and criticism are definitely not the way to proceed. What is needed is a caring but thorough discussion about the benefits of changing the work. It’s essential in this situation to acknowledge the possibility (as slim as it may seem) that the student is, in fact, correct in their decision. It is only through this acknowledgement that the necessary rapport may be engendered such that an equal discussion can evolve. Students know that they are in these situations to learn, but it is essential that they also feel that the teacher is willing to be persuaded. They need to know that the teacher is interested and most importantly, they need to know that the teacher understands what they are trying to achieve. Once these preliminaries have been established it’s usually a straightforward matter of fulfilling what both parties desire: an improved work of art.

So what's my advice? I think it's vital that every effort is made by each party to understand the motivations and perception of the other, and it therefore seems only fair that the student should be able to seek clarification for any suggested change. It is nothing short of hubris on the part of the teacher to assume that the student will instantly recognise the sheer logic of the suggested improvement like some kind of revelation from on high. For this reason it's far wiser to withhold the suggestion and to introduce it tactfully into the natural flow of discussion. If the advice holds water then there’s no need for persuasion. What the student needs most urgently, is to be able to fully appropriate and internalise the rationale for changing the work. They also need to be able to claim authorship for this change, otherwise it will be no more than a compromise made under an all too familiar but subtle form of academic coercion. For the teacher, the imperative is therefore opposite and complementary. Here the emphasis is on transferring authorship for the suggested change to its rightful owner. In the most agreeable situations, this is done in such a way that the student makes the decision without even realising that the suggestion has been made in the first place.

'Tis not enough your Counsel still be true
Blunt Truths more Mischief than nice Falsehood do
Men must be taught as if you taught them not

And Things unknown propos'd as Things forgot"

-Alexander Pope, May 1711

Deluge (3 of 5)

Underwater Photography

Preparing for "Schwerinblicke - Künstlersichten", Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Germany, April 2010

Ground Rules or Guidelines?

There are two mainstream films that contain similar phrases about rules and guidelines. The first is the 1984 film Ghostbusters where the character played by Bill Murray is on the verge of being seduced by a possessed Sigourney Weaver. He says: “I make it a rule never to sleep with possessed people…They're really more guidelines than actual rules”. The second is Pirates of the Caribbean where a ghostly Capt Barbossa explains the subtleties of the pirates code: “the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules”. Interestingly, both uses of the phrase are employed during a verbal exchange between the "normal" and the paranormal; between a world whose physical rules govern everything we do and a realm where rules and reality itself evaporate into meaninglessness.

In our world of gravity, time, dimension and light we’ve created countless measures to gauge and quantify both limits and extent. We’ve explored and discovered many of the underlying principles of a multitude of physical processes and phenomena. We’ve mapped the heavens to infinitesimal detail and subdivided atoms to ever diminishing fractions of existence, all with the laudable aim of establishing the fundamental laws of reality and gaining a deeper understanding of this contingent moment which we so precariously inhabit. In our certitude of the value and applicability of these truths we’ve reproduced our conceptions of fact and codified them in social laws, rules and codes of conduct such that there’s barely a facet of human endeavour which isn't regulated, modified or influenced by our perceptions. But despite the breadth and dimension of our wisdom there is still much that is not dreamt of in our philosophy, or as Wittgenstein wrote: “We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.” And yet we persist in using our understanding of the ubiquity and value of rules as a closely woven net to catch and ensnare all kinds of intangible creatures, both forbidding and innocent. My question is this: what rare life are we suffocating into the bargain - what gentle, unassuming and fragile creatures are we casting out as useless flotsam in our desire for control and mastery?

Civility, propriety, courtesy, common decency - call it what you will - few would disagree that such things are being eroded in contemporary society. For some people the solution is to put up walls and to create boundaries and rules which protect themselves and the people they care for from perceived danger and harm. For others, such things are just an inevitability, a consequence of social change and human progress. But we shouldn't submit to such reactionary or deterministic conclusions, especially since the solution is part of what makes us who we are: the ways we treat people and the way we wish to be treated.

"The knowledge of courtesy is a very necessary study; like grace and beauty, it breeds mutual liking." Montaigne

The 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that man, in a state of nature, was ruled by the most primitive and aggressive instincts. The solution therefore, for Hobbs, was that man requires the authority of law to attain civil society:"law is established only by artificial Power, and Reason enfranchised only by Authority."

In his inspiring book “The Gift” the poet and writer Lewis Hyde examines this naïve but still widespread notion and contrasts it with his own research on gift exchange and, in this example, an anarchist perspective:

"The anarchist begins his politics on a different note and comes to a different resolution. Anarchist theory is like an aqua regia applied to the state and its machinery to see how much might be stripped away before people begin to suffer more than they do under law and authority. The anarchist begins with the assumption of man's good nature, contending that law itself is a "cause" of crime."

Hyde quotes James Joll’s 1979 essay on the anarchist movement which discusses anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s ethnographic work which contradicts Hobbes unfounded claims from an empirical standpoint:

“The primitive tribes he observed seemed to have customs and instincts which regulated their social life without the need of government or laws. For Kropotkin, primitive society, so far from providing an example of Hobbesian conflict and of the war of all against all, showed rather that cooperation and 'mutual aid' were the natural state of man if left uncorrupted by government and by laws which result from the 'desire of the ruling class to give permanence to customs imposed by themselves for their own advantage', whereas all that is necessary for harmonious living are 'those customs useful for society. . . which have no need of law to insure respect'.”

Hyde concludes the chapter opposing Hobbes

once again

:

“It is this double conceit – first, that passion will undo social life and, second, that coercion will preserve it – that anarchist philosophy and the traditions of gift exchange call into question. The former imagines and the latter stand witness to a social life motivated by feeling and nonetheless marked by structure, durability, and cohesion. There are many connections between anarchist theory and gift exchange as an economy – both assume that man is generous, or at least cooperative, “in nature”; both shun centralised power; both are best fitted to small groups and loose federations; both rely on contracts of the heart over codified contract, and so on. But, above all, it seems correct to speak of the gift as anarchist property because both anarchism and gift exchange share the assumption that it is not when part of the self is inhibited and restrained, but when a part of the self is given away, that community appears.”

In recent times Anarchy has become synonymous with chaos and civil disorder and much of it's insight has therefore been obscured, but the discerning belief that human beings are essentially good is one from which we have a great deal to learn. Whereas, if we continue to propagate the Hobbesian view, that the only way to manage our social relations is by extending the rule of law into every quarter, then George Orwell's bleak vision is even closer than we had ever dared to believe. Certainly rules are necessary in many instances to protect people from injury and danger; the Highway Code for instance or Health and Safety measures (though these can also be raised to ridiculous levels of absurdity), but there are many walks of life where an over emphasis on rules simply infringes freedom, debilitates creativity and smothers the delicate value of what I have called The Social Gift.

We need as few rules in the educational context as possible - especially in an art school. The belief that it's important to institute conspicuous regulatory measures, no matter how nuanced, seems to me to be both retrogressive and antithetical to the true nature of high-quality education. Education should aim to instil the very best in people, which means that education itself should uphold the very best principles, including genuine trust and mutual respect. If we choose to employ impoverished ad-hoc solutions like ground rules then what underlying message are we really promoting? But if we must regulate our fellow citizens (students) in our higher institutions of learning, let's use guidelines instead and leave ground rules to the ghosts of meaninglessness or cast them adrift on the sea of unnecessary, humorless and ill-conceived errors.

In Defence of Plagiarism

Ian Hamilton Finlay • Gary Hincks

"Originality is the art of concealing your sources."

Albert Einstein *1

I'm not at all convinced that plagiarism is an entirely bad or avoidable thing. However, if you're a student reading this in the hope of discovering a handy excuse to steal someone else's work I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you.

Artists, musicians and writers etc have always copied each other. The list of rip-offs, cribs, copies, samples, purloined fragments, pilfered references, and stolen ideas is probably longer than history itself. People have always been influenced and inspired by one another and they have always copied, emulated, mimicked and borrowed. In turn they have helped disseminate ideas and provided materials, tools and techniques which enable new ways of being, understanding and communicating. Language itself is a battleground of plagiarism. Practically every word we speak or write has been invented or evolved by generations before us. We quite naturally build upon other people's work and this human tendency to recycle the energy and invention of others allows us to improve our environment and, in turn, to provide new foundations upon which others may continue to construct and invent. In this context, to believe that anything is truly original is surely delusional.

"By sharing of ideas, animals, and most especially humans, pool the ability of their group. The pinnacles of intelligence are exploited by the entire society. In human culture, this has led to the emergence of a kind of communal intellect the Collective Mind of man - that has pushed forward his biological progress at a prodigious rate" (Blakemore, C. (1977). Mechanics of, Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., p. 117).

There are frequent occasions when we simply assimilate new information, ideas and beliefs because they closely approximate or elaborate our own. Likewise, our memories are so porous that we often adopt other peoples' ideas without ever taking note of our sources. In everyday experience we’re rarely, if ever, tested with reference to our sources of information and opinion, and we’re often blithely unaware and unconcerned whether some idea is of our own invention or a notion subtly acquired from someone else. We read books, journals and newspapers, watch TV and films, listen to the radio, surf the web and engage in multitudes of conversation. In the process we unwittingly appropriate and assimilate all kinds of information, ideas and attitudes with barely a regard to the extent that these dilute or embellish who we are. We are each a complex “tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture”. You might even ask to what extent a well-informed person is really anything other than a multi-sourced encyclopaedia.

“Oliver Wendell Holmes mentions how someone at the breakfast table sparkled greatly in conversation on certain topics. And seemed quite ignorant on others. Presently it was noticed that all the subjects he understood began with the letter A; then it was discovered that he was taking in an encyclopaedia in weekly numbers and the mystery was explained.” The London Globe, August 20, 1900 P.8 Direct Link here.

But we’re not robots, we don't simply absorb everything which is presented to us. We select, analyse, contrast, speculate, synthesise, conceptualise and all too frequently disregard or forget. This shifting pattern of absorption and reconstruction is a fundamental aspect of conscious thought. Sophisticated thought, far from being a tissue of quotations, is a multi- threaded tapestry who’s origins are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to unravel. This process of reconstruction, or more accurately - independent creative thinking - is what conventional attitudes towards plagiarism seek to elevate. But without absorption, appropriation and assimilation, what rudimentary, inarticulate, underdeveloped and uninformed things our thoughts would be. And how absurd would it be if we had to constantly reference every aspect of everything we said, made or did? Fortunately there’s no requirement upon us to do so, but in academia the situation is not quite so simple.

Students and staff who steal other people's ideas and claim these as their own, reap rewards which do not befit the meagre effort or achievement of these unworthy magpies. Indeed there is something particularly parasitic about such forms of plagiarism since they are not conducted in order to advance knowledge and understanding but to deceive in the hope of self aggrandizement or the avoidance of genuine effort and application. Parasites like thieves, are a natural consequence of environmental circumstance and opportunity. Wherever there is an advantage to be easily gained, someone or something will inevitably exploit it and it is therefore necessary, in such circumstances, to create boundaries or procedures to militate against abuse.

In academia the standard solution to plagiarism is a "zero tolerance" attitude where punishments are severe and the rules are narrowly defined and explicitly stated. The requirement is that all references be clearly cited and sources fully attributed according to "Vancouver" or "Harvard" or whatever referencing system is in favour. Deviation from these rules can have severe consequences and even minor mistakes often result in penalties. Such rules are necessary to ensure that all new and original thoughts and ideas are fairly encouraged and rewarded. However, as with all systems of regulation and constraint, it simply forces abusers to be more cunning and the gatekeepers to be more obsessive about correct procedure. James Atherton has discussed this very problem on his blog “On the shibboleth of Harvard referencing”. In particular he raises the tendency among examiners to overemphasise correct referencing. Fortunately, professor Atherton shrewdly recognises the real issue at hand:

“…in the final analysis it does not matter whether or not they [students] can attribute an idea to Bernstein, Bloom or Bruner, Pavlov, Piaget or Poppleton, any more than it matters whether a gardener can say who made his/her spade. It does matter what they do with it; whether they can use the essence of that idea to inform their practice.”Atherton, J. 2009 Blog: On the shibboleth of Harvard referencing, 3 April Direct link here. accessed 25 October 2009.

There's a software application often used by academic institutions to detect plagiarism called Turnitin. You simply paste a section of the suspect text into a box and Turnitin searches through a vast catalogue of scholarly information, references and online essays etc in a manner very similar to Google. As a method of detecting plagiarism it's an extremely useful tool and a powerful deterrent to would-be plagiarists. But this is in many ways typical of the wrong-headed attitude of academia: regulating students rather than supporting them. Far better than a plagiarism detector would be a reference organiser/maker: a software application that takes an essay and accurately attributes each quotation to its original source. I'll wager that this will happen in the not too distant future but, for the moment, the best students have access to is Bibme.

The issue which is all too often missed or subtly ignored in cases of plagiarism is whether the material stolen is in any way substantive in relation to its new context (ie: does the plagiarized material bring about an improvement which would be otherwise unlikely?). If it does, then the accusation of deception is hard, if not impossible, to counter. However if the plagiarism is trivial then, I believe, we should be gracious enough to ignore it. This is why we can easily forgive William Shakespeare or Robert Burns or Bob Dylan for the many acts of plagiarism they perpetrated. For the most part, these acts were insignificant in comparison with the vast quantity and/or quality of their output. This demonstrates the often concealed ambiguity at the heart of plagiarism. Generally speaking, plagiarism is condoned so long as its extent or quality is not in any way substantive. Or, as my mum said to me when I was a child “It’s okay to copy other people, so long as you do it better!”

But academia can’t deal with such ambiguities. If cheating is not seen to be regulated and disciplined at every level then the floodgates would surely open to all manner of abuse. And so the argument goes. Unfortunately, as with every regulation instituted in order to deter the abuse of opportunity - whether it's checking-in at an airport, watching an avant-garde film, working with children, taking photos at the swimming pool or writing an academic essay - we all have to be careful that our intentions are clear and, if necessary, prove that our age, qualifications or agenda are appropriate. Such are the insidious consequences of social regulation.

If such academic constraints were extended to fine art education, this would certainly make a mockery of the freedoms we expect of fine art practice. As it is, academia could learn a lot from the ways that the art of the past century has transformed our understanding of appropriation, recombination and contextual transformation. Despite this, art students - like all other students - must still follow the same rules of attribution when it comes to the writing of essays and dissertations etc. Even I, as a Masters student in the 1990s, had to carefully reference the tissue of quotations I compiled as part of my master's thesis on the subject of appropriation. If I'd had more confidence at the time, I’d have strung together the entire essay with as few of my own words as possible. In 2007 Jonathan Lethem did exactly this (here), with supreme skill and authority, which just goes to show how powerful plagiarism can be, when done with intelligence, comprehensive research and the confidence to know that there’s a genuine and important point to be made.

Recently I had another idea on the on the subject of plagiarism, which is to re-attribute fragments of Roland Barthes' entire essay "The Death of the Author" through HTML thus:

“We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single "theological" meaning (the "message" of the Author-God), but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.” etc.

Hover your mouse over the text. Each hypertext link takes you to a webpage where the identical linked phrase can be found, but in an entirely different context. It's a simple idea, but a big job, and I could do with a hand to complete it. So if you like the idea, feel free to collaborate or, if you prefer, to steal!

Homage to RM and IHF, Jim Hamlyn, 2006. Pastel on Ingres paper

*1: "Originality is the art of concealing your sources." This quote, which is often falsely attributed to Einstein (as I have done above), was actually coined by Benjamin Franklin.

Postscript:

Since writing the above I've come across several excellent resources on the same subject which you can find below:

"Cut-and Paste Is a Skill, Too" By Jason Johnson The Washington Post, Sunday, March 25, 2007

Larry Lessig on "Laws that Choke Creativity" Video on Ted.com

"If I Was a Master Thief" by Imaginary Boundaries, 2010. This is the final part of a group of 3 brilliant essays on the subject which reference much that I have also referred to, and much besides.

Brian Pickings also posted a great extract of a letter by Mark Twain to Helen Keller on the subject of plagiarism that echoes some of the points that I have made above.