posted
As a writer I try to create things that haven't been done before, with minimal success. (Heck, maybe even this topic. ) We live in a day and age where ideas are as plentiful as pebbles, and everything that is considered "new" or "original" is, often, a rehash of something that's been done before.
(Just the other day I saw the 80s comedy-horror D-grade flick "Troll" with a boy named Harry Potter who asked a witch how he could become a magician. So that's already been done.)
So...is there anything you've encountered that is entirely "original"? Is it even possible? Does it need to have some kind of link to preexisting material to have resonance? Or does "pure" originality become gibberish?
Posts: 325 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
The Key is, I think, to breathe new life into old things instead of just repeating the same dull cliches all the time. Out of that new life comes something original because it's an act of alchemy.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Is originality possible? I'd like to believe so, but sadly, you are right. It is hard to accomplish. There is a reason cliches are used so often: it's because they work. This topic is not dumb, by the way. Don't mind Reticulum.
Posts: 530 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Anti-Chris: There is a reason cliches are used so often: it's because they work.
Which then begs the question, is total originality even desirable? One of the things that makes poetry, songs, stories, and even visual art so powerful is the enormous amount of contextual, and even subconscious information being conveyed. And you can only tap into that by using things like archetypes.
posted
Everybody builds on previous work and experience.
But this always leads to a different viewpoint and a different way of arriving there, so if you write something from your viewpoint, it will be more often than not "original". Unfortunately, it may not be interesting to others...that is probably why most people compromise on originality.
As for an example of an original work see "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter.
Posts: 107 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Why is it that I check out Godel, Escher, Bach and start reading it, and then someone else mentions it on Hatrack? I'd never even heard of the book until a few weeks ago. Now I'm reading it and somebody else is talking about it.
And I found mention of Myspace when you're a teenager and Facebook if you're in college in someone's column in the newspaper today. We just talked about that here a few days ago. Previously I'd never heard of either service.
Either it never rains but it pours, or my fellow Hatrackers are more tied to my IRL life than I think.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
afr, that's a common phenomenon. I think it's best explained like this: The book Godel, Escher, Bach has been around for years, and people have mentioned it even here. You didn't notice because it wasn't important to you at the time. However, now that it has come under your notice and been reinforced and personalized by your obtaining the book and reading it, you start to notice the places it pops up at its normal frequency. In other words, if you weren't reading it at the time, you might not have noticed it when it was mentioned recently. You certainly didn't notice when it was mentioned in the past.
quote:more tied to my IRL life than I think
Is there a redundancy in this phrase? Is this like getting money from an ATM machine? Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Regarding the original topic, I think true originality isn't nearly as important as innovation, when it comes to artistic endeavors. In art, if you're too original, you run the risk of having no context in which your art can be understood. Art that speaks to the widest audience usually takes familiar themes and shows them in new (i.e. innovative) ways. Additionally, true originality is almost always overlooked at first, often only becoming noticed through subsequent generation copies. Not that that's a bad thing. It all depends on what you want to accomplish. I just think originality as you seem to be defining it, is overrated.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I agree with KarlEd. To hearken back to a previous discussion on the 'rack, there are such things as mythic archetypes and they are prevalent in our cultures for a good reason. They appeal to us in a way, so that the same story can be told over and over again and we'll still love it. Forbidden love, the reluctant hero, the mythical quest, all these are elementst that can be found in countless stories and yet they could be used in countless more and will still reach the audience, and connect with them.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I think it depends on how you define "original."
To look at something in a completely new way or to see a connection between two seemingly unrelated things can and does happen. Although, you could probably argue that what I just described is actually innovation, not originality.
However, if you want to define "original" as an idea that is not constructed on previous ideas or perspectives, then I would say no, originality does not truly exist.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:I have wanted to read Goedel, Escher, Bach, for some time now... is it everything I'm hoping for?
It's a really interesting book so far. Pretty much over my head, but lots of nice pictures.
quote:afr, that's a common phenomenon. I think it's best explained like this: The book Godel, Escher, Bach has been around for years, and people have mentioned it even here. You didn't notice because it wasn't important to you at the time. However, now that it has come under your notice and been reinforced and personalized by your obtaining the book and reading it, you start to notice the places it pops up at its normal frequency. In other words, if you weren't reading it at the time, you might not have noticed it when it was mentioned recently. You certainly didn't notice when it was mentioned in the past.
You're right, of course. But it's still a weird phemonenon.
As for the Myspace/Facebook mention in the paper, it seemed it was almost word-for-word with what somebody said here a couple of days ago, leading me to wonder if some jatraquero isn't a columnist for the Daily Herald.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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As for originality, I subscribe to the "it's turtles all the way down" outlook, unless a stork dropped your newborn self on a desert island with no other life forms. In which case you might had a few days of being utterly original before you starved to death.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I wonder then if originality (as in something totally new, not innovative) is even possible? Do all ideas have a pedigree of a chain of events, from idea to idea to idea, all the way to existence? Or is it possible for someone to create something that has no basis in anything?
I've been trying to think of something totally unique. Maybe "Teletubbies" or "Boobah," especially, though I imagine those were insipred by LSD flashbacks.
Could we, as Hatrackers, create something totally original on this thread? Here's my stab at it:
"Turtles get mutated, become ninjas." or "Demon manifests on Earth, spends life fighting the supernatural." or "Historian unearths consipracy hidden in DaVinci's art."
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