Is art just recontextualising our influences?

By Jasmine Jafari , October 2, 2020

Read time: 1 Min

Is art just recontextualising our influences? Image

Sometimes I wonder whether originality in the subject matter in creative practices is achievable… it seems as though everything we make is a recreation of the things we like and the things which influence us. We pull out the parts we like and use them to recreate our own work… though is it really original if we’ve just recontextualised our influences? 

We each have our idiosyncratic styles, which alter the look of our influence. This seems to be how we create this illusion of originality, though in reality it’s all the same at the core. 

What do we do in order to create something original, something different? Or is originality just overrated? 

Are we just focussed on developing our styles? 

Maybe I should hibernate for a month, no technology, just me and my thoughts…To discover uncharted lands in my psyche. I don’t know if that would make a difference because of pre-existing influences, or maybe after a week my mind will be refreshed.

Or maybe after all of this madness I’ll travel to antarctica…or Iceland… or india. 

Or maybe I’ll just stop overthinking all of this.

Let’s see… 

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