-Jim Jarmusch
How much of invention falls under the umbrella of influence? Is there really nothing new under the sun? Should we just give up our pursuit of originality? Yes, taking responsibility for influence, legible or not, is an important bit of maturity, but I find it hard to swallow that ‘nothing is original’. Something tells me that as our ancestors before us pioneer or pillage the intellectual foreground; the same will apply to us as our descendents look back on us through history. What I mean by that is this: Art is still evolving. I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater - It is true that we should be urged to take more responsibility for where from we draw our influence, or ‘thefts’. But Jarmusch’s argument moves into the realm of fallacy when he assumes that ‘nothing is original’. I have large reason to contend that ‘originality is non-existent.’
Dynamic plays a huge role in art. By my own definition, dynamic in the artistic sense is the overall balance between the many qualities of the whole. Without getting too heavily into semantics - if a ‘quality’ is a descriptive term that applies to the artwork – then the quality is actually a collective of units, which individually hold positions between two poles. For example, if we address the ‘lightness’ (quality – or descriptive term) we can then choose to address the bits of information that contribute to, or diminish lightness. The two polarities of that quality are ‘white’ and ‘black’, and there is a linear spectrum spanning between the two. A visual work of art exhibits many different units, which contribute to the quality of lightness. So while a section of a painting may be very black, it can be balanced out by another section that is very white. Dynamic is a complicated subject. It’s hard to explain even at the simplest qualities, like hue, value, scale etc. So when you get into something like the quality of originality, the subject becomes hyper-complex. However, originality is a quality of dynamic just like lightness. It is only that as you zoom out of your initial view of basic quality relationships, more intricate quality relationships come in to view (such as quality versus quality relationships, and so on). Understanding how these relationships work requires more and more understanding as our perspective takes into account more and more possible relationships. First, to get a better grip on units of dynamic, we might want to analyze a different kind of unit, for evidence.
Genetic reproduction has noticeable similarities to the artistic process. The pieces of dynamic qualities from which we assemble works of art are very much similar to genes. The dictionary definition for ‘gene’ is “a unit of heredity that is transferred from a parent to offspring and is held to determine some characteristic of the offspring”, but the very definition of the word ‘gene’ is disputed amongst biologists. Disputed, I think, because of the meaning the word ‘unit’. What a unit really is, is any section of the genes being addressing or observed. The units of quality work in the same subjective way. As I’ve stated early, zooming out we notice more and more relationships. From a zoomed-out enough perspective, units can rank against each other on the spectrum of originality vs. unoriginality, based on their resemblances to units within external works of art. So you can see there is a vague kind of science to art, which helps us to understand how influence causes the artist to attempt a resemblance of a unit or group of units to an external unit or group of units.
This is central to dismounting Jarmusch’s statement. Jarmusch says that ultimately every bit of art can be traced back to a parent unit. I am arguing that if we approach it scientifically, we might find that not all units have a parent. I am arguing for the acknowledgement of a phenomenon that brought us art in the first place – mutation.
In genetic reproduction there are a pair of events called mitosis and meiosis. Contrary to mitosis, which is the process where the cells undergo a single cell division, resulting in two ‘diploid’ cells, meiosis is unique in that it happens only in the production of gametes [or sex cells - male sperm or female eggs]. During meiosis the genes ‘cross over’ and combine random segments with each other, before splitting in half twice, to form four haploid cells (23 chromosomes each). Basically, this is how your parents genes combine, resulting in new combinations of chromosomes, making you a perfectly random mixture of fifty percent of the genes of both of your parents. During ‘crossing over’, the locations where they are spliced (I think – I should probably check my sources) are totally random. So although your entire being is an utterly new combination of genes derived from your parents, you are not truly ‘original’ like a work of art is original. You are simply a new assemblage of their parts (unless you have a mutant gene). What makes us seem original though, is our new assortment of phenotypic, or 'visible' traits (somaybe we are original, only on a superficial level).
Anyway, simple rules of probability state that a large genetic unit is more likely to be divided more than a small unit. So smaller units of genes have a greater tendency to survive through the generations. If you pick a certain unit of your own genes, it’s possible that you’ve picked a unit so large that it has not been inherited from just one of your immediate parents, and will not be received even by your immediate offspring. It’s also possible that you’ve picked a unit so small, it precedes you by thousands of generations, and will be passed on for thousands of generations to come. The smaller the gene, the more likely it is to survive. This is why it’s possible for you to share genes with your dog, or the plants outside your house. And on an even smaller scale, you are guaranteed to share with every organism on the planet the four letters of the genetic code that your genes are written in.
Art works with influence in the same way that genes work with reproduction. When you create art, you access your ‘genetic code’ of influence, choosing the pieces you see fit. An accessible parallel between art and genetics would between the four letters of the genetic alphabet and the music note. Music makes for great analogies because it’s the most definitive and intuitive art form. In music, there is an underlying grid (notation), which the whole of the art form is built upon. You’ll find it rare to discover anything that breaks out of the ‘notation grid’ in music.
The equivalent of the grid in music is the genetic alphabet. Genes of varying sizes are the equivalent of meters of different sizes, speeds, and lengths. A large section of genes would be proportionate to measure of music with larger, slower notation. A gene of smaller size could be represented by a measure in say, 64th notes – everything is occurring at swifter speeds, making changes or accents more intricate and very vivid. Now the analogy becomes strained as we get down to the smallest genetic units – the genetic alphabet. The tenuous parallel for this in music would be the smallest notes perceptible to humans, which might be about 256th notes (just a guess). The margin in the size of music notes, however, is very small compared to the margin in gene-size (again just a guess; the true parallel to the letters of genetic alphabet in music notes would maybe be 1,000,000th notes or even less).
It doesn’t matter whether or not the artist is accessing his brain’s reserve of known compositional combinations, or if he is creating a truly original mutation, both methods are found to occur naturally in genetic reproduction. This is where we throw in the idea of genetic mutations. Mutations draw the parallel between unprecedented genetic reproduction and original artistic conception. Mutations are what I think of as pure artistic originality. Here is how mutations work; due to DNA’s imperfect method of self-replication you inevitably get instances of genetic mutation. These mutations are basically errors in replication. Most mutations are harmful to the individual who receives them. As Richard Dawkins puts it in ‘The Selfish Gene’, it’s like ‘stabbing a television set with a screwdriver; most of the time you’ll destroy it, but every once in a long time, you’ll improve it’s performance.’ Over the course of geological time, brand new, even more successful sets of genes will be produced via genetic mutation. Mutation is the most important mechanism in the process of evolution. It is the only way which species advance in efficiency. Similarly, ‘mutations’ in creativity, are one of the few ways which a species can advance it’s art.
[Many artists have invented new languages and phrases of art – and I’m sure you can think of a few on your own. I only want to mention one artist here because it’s the strongest example I can come up with. Meshuggah is a band that has sort of burned their bridge of influence behind them, and found them in a very unique place. Meshuggah was formed in the late 80’s, and in that time period, their music was largely influence by Metallica. Since, Meshuggah has really pushed the envelope of their sound, to something dramatically different than any of their influences - and instead of relying on new ways to articulate the phrases of their influences - they focus on filling a void untouched by art. Many artists have touched on this, without necessarily knowing what they were getting at. (Liam Wilson of the Dillinger Escape Plan once said, about their own writing process, that they "write in a vacuum". In the same interview, he described the band's struggle not to listen to any of their contemporaries while busy working in the studio, purposely avoiding, in particular, Converge's 'Axe to Fall'.) What this says is that influence takes you to a point where, based on your knowledge of the art form, and what has and has not been accomplished within it, you can choose to break away from influence fill a void - not just a void between two domains, but outside of the boundary of all domains. Take a few minutes to literally imagine what new art might look, sound, taste, or feel like... While many bands have adopted a similar sound to Meshuggah (A Life Once Lost, Animals As Leaders) – It’s hard to say where Meshuggah developed their heavily polyrhythmic, monophonic and detuned sound, other than through rigorous invention.]
Approaching the artistic process scientifically, we are inclined not to see originality as a possibility. Based on the fact that humans advanced intellectually, due to evolution, to a point where we became the first species with the capacity for art, philosophy, and science, and that we continue to advance further in that direction, it is unreasonable and is unsupported by evidence to assume that nothing is original. Even if the intellectual capacity of our species stood still, we could still work out ways to think of original artistic endeavors. Not to mention, the factor of our ever-evolving brains, which will continue to transform what we are artistically capable of. There are two methods of achieving originality – through diligent searching for intensely refined compositions, and through mutations within our brains that will lead to unprecedented comprehension of utterly new methods of art. This leaves us with the possibility to advance on two fronts at once – a shot at exponential artistic growth. (Saltation?)
So what is the point of all this? It’s important for all artists to consider, and hopefully understand, because accepting that ‘originality is dead’ will send us in to a downward spiral of artistic oblivion – and it’s already begun (Lady Gaga). We have to understand what it means to willingly swallow unoriginality and accept it’s flawed justification - making it slightly easier to shrug off artistic integrity. It’s an unhealthy habit, and if you understand co-evolution and co-evolutionary arms races, you’ll understand that to feed it is a dangerous game. How many years until art reaches a place untouched by human hands, and reasoned with simultaneously by the illogical and overly-logical-logic-choppers who write off the importance of quality as indefinable, and use subjectivity to worm their way out of truths nearly too complex to be defined by humans, yet too innate not to be harped-on by our subconscious? If we rest on our laurels that we’ve beaten the creative game, we allow formula to take control.
