Kenneth Goldsmith's discussion of patch writing, or stringing together the works of others to create a vaguely new work, resonated with me. Most of the research-based writing I've done has felt plagiaristic in essence; i.e., lacking any sort of novelty or utility that the original sources didn't already possess.
How much more can there be to say? Certainly the context of our experience is in flux, but has the essence of being human really changed? Certainly there is still something left unimagined, but our age of information abundance is frightening: originality is elusive.
Goldsmith's new aesthetic makes sense in this new context. Creating is now secondary to pointing. His reading of a traffic report in the poetic voice was provocative -- captivating yet dispassionate and mechanical. A chilling depiction of a new reality, a world in which we say too much.
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