I thoroughly enjoyed Jonathan Lethem’s The Ecstasy of Influence because of how directly pertinent his theories and assertions are to all of my various creative processes. I particularly appreciated his specific tracings of re-interpretation/re-appropriation across genre and medium over time, and how various forms of artistry (verbal, visual, aural) had their meanings changed and transformed by new and emerging artists. I also found Lethem’s constant self-awareness – he himself being an artist – to be refreshing, as it demonstrated that this reflective essay had personal significance for him, as well as academic and intellectual merit.

Lethem’s writing was particularly relevant to my process in our remix/re-appropriation project this semester. After becoming so steeped in contextual knowledge of the Flanders Collection’s original intent at cultural reclamation/assertion, it was difficult to pick a contemporary song whose meaning could fuse with this intent in a way that created something greater than the sum of their two parts. Although I found Lethem’s opinions to be at times polarizing, his explicit terming of such things as the “usemonopoly” were elegantly helpful for me to use to find my own voice in the combination of two other voices. In fact, this element lasted into my Final Project composition as well – I felt, in many ways, as though the harmonics and pitch variations of my Final were reminiscent of other aural compositions that I have heard and appreciated. In finding this, however, I was not disappointed at my subconscious, but rather I was able to appreciate the originality of this accidental appropriation in the greater context of artistic “plagiarism” in all of history.