  | A literacy of appropriationAugust 16th, 2006 |
A couple of responses to the Harper’s Forum have popped up on the blogosphere, one at The Aspidistra and another at ideant. This latter one prompts a reply, as it comments,
the group wonders about the changing definition of literacy, and what current technologies are doing to our literacy practices:
KOSTER: …To me, there’s a question hanging over our conversation, which is: What kind of writing do we hope to teach? We might like to teach kids to write like Proust, but no one writes like Proust anymore. Appropriation and annotation are becoming our new forms of literacy. Think of blogs, for example: most blog posts are reblogs, they’re parasitic on things other people have written. It’s a democratized writing, a democratized literacy. (p.39)
Not sure I see the connection between democracy and literacy as appropriation.
The “parasitic” phrase was actually Bill Wasik’s editorially pithy way of summarizing a lengthy digression of mine that had to be edited out. But I think I stand by the overall concept.
Creation is hard. Really hard. Everyone is creative in some fashion, but few people are able to move their creativity across a broad spectrum of media and of tasks. And even if you have a knack for it, creation is still hard work, and takes dedication and craftsmanship to do well.
Given that everyone has a creative impulse, the question is how to permit people to feel creative and to create work in a wider array of fields. And one of the classic ways this is done is via the training wheels of imitative, derivative, and appropriated work. Young writers start out with fanfic that gives them ready-made characters. Artists learn by copying the styles of famous works. Musicians work within genres and learn to play the songs of others before they learn to write their own. Businessmen read business books, advertisers copy ads, directors steal camera angles.
The easier it is to appropriate and annotate upon the creation of others, the easier it is to access the act of creation, because requiring creation ex nihilo is a high barrier to entry.
Orson Scott Card’s classic 1979 short story “Unaccompanied Sonata” describes the life of a composer and musician, Christian Haroldsen, who is kept isolate from any other music precisely because he is a genius, and they want him to express himself free of the stain of any influences. Eventually, a listener slips him a recorder with some Bach on it…
“Fugues and harpsichords, the two things you noticed first — and the only things you didn’t absorb into your music. All your other songs for these last weeks have been tinted and colored and influenced by Bach. Except that there was no fugue, and there was no harpsichord. You have broken the law. You were put here because you were a genius, creating new things with only nature for your inspiration. Now, of course, you’re derivative, and truly new creation is impossible fo ryou. You’ll have to leave.”
This is, of course, total balderdash. It’s no spoiler to reveal that Christian goes out into the world, banned from creating music, continues to make it — and, as you might guess, creates his best, most enduring work (and suffers for it, naturally; just go read the story).
Everyone builds on something; shoulders of giants and all that. But it used to be harder to make the climb onto those shoulders; the giants were few and far between, their work was poorly distributed, and the minimum threshold for copying or even understanding their work was fairly high. One of the most profound effects of the historical trend towards the greater distribution of creative work of all kinds is that more people are getting to see a wider range of work: simpler stuff, tougher stuff, weirder stuff, conservative stuff. Now you can hop from the shoulders of pygmies to the shoulders of basketball players and make your way to the giants step by step.
The literacy of appropriation and annotation is a literacy wherein someone can make a solid musical contribution to the world without knowing very much about music, via mashups or loop construction. It’s one where fictional worlds grow deeper with each fan-created concordance. It isn’t new — as many have pointed out even here on this blog, Elizabethan theater was built out of appropriation and commentary on previous stagings of given tales, and today’s Broadway operates in similar fashion.
It is nonetheless a seismic change; the push towards microchannels of content wherein everyone can be a producer also means there’s lots more to copy, lots more to steal from, lots more to learn from. In the long run, this means there’s lots more good work. This is democratized creativity.
I do happen to disagree with Thomas de Zengotita, who gets the last word in the Forum when he says
Everyone in the overdeveloped world will have the tools they need to create this amazing stuff, whether it be blogs or films or games. None of it will rise to the peaks that we associate with names like Joyce or Proust, but a great deal of it will be fantastic … Everyone will be an artist, but the price is that no one will be a great artist.
I don’t see any reason why this easier staircase means that no one will be a great artist; perhaps the fear is that people will stop on the staircase where they can do so more easily. My own personal take is that this is a rising tide and that all boats will go up. Perhaps no one will be a truly great artist only because there will be so many of them that “great” will cease to have the same meaning, as creative content becomes more and more a commodity to be found everywhere.
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[IMG Gta][UPDATE: Raph Koster has replied to this post over at his blog.] The September 2006 issue of Harper’s Magazine (not online yet) has a piece titled Grand Theft Education: Literacy in the Age of Video Games. It is a conversation between Jane Avrich (author and English teacher), Steven
has a roundtable on videogames and literacy, including some discussion with Raph Koster. I haven’t picked up the issue yet (and Harper’s Website doesn’t appear to mention it, unless I’m missing something), but Koster’s weblog has a quote and then some interesting followup. To me, there’s a question hanging over our conversation, which is: What kind of writing do we hope to teach? We might like to teach kids to write like Proust, but no one writes like Proust anymore. Appropriation and annotation are becoming our new
discussion on video games, literacy, and education… and guess who doesn’t appear in the discussion at all. Despite this oversight, the article has sparked some very lively blog interlinkage among various people whose opinions I respect, among them Raph Koster and my classmate Ulises Mejias. The following is my response to the article, and to comments that appear on Ulises’s site. MORE… Tue. Aug. 29, ’06 11:25 PM | Re: 0
in video games and/or writing: the September issue of Harper’s Magazine has an article which is getting some buzz, though it is not posted online. You can read more about the article, including some quotes which also touch upon fan fic and blogs, here http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/08/16/a-literacy-of-appropriation/
a response from one of the principals (I was meaning to see if Koster had a blog). Both posts elaborate on some of the elements I found most intriguing in the original piece. Other worthy takes here and here.
Personally I really like the idea of embedding games within seemingly “regular” web sites. Imagine setting up, essentially, a fake web network with clues … Hm. Gotta ponder that a bit. UPDATE: Interesting follow up is right here. What’s fascinating is the idea of the “literacy of appropriation.” Snip: To me, there’s a question hanging over our conversation, which is: What kind of writing do we hope to teach? We might like to teach kids to write like Proust, but no one
Only have a few moments, but I wanted to link to Ulises’s characteristically thoughtful post concerning the Harper’s discussion I pointed to yesterday, one which prompts a response from one of the principals (I was meaning to see if Koster had a blog). Both posts elaborate on some of the elements I found most intriguing in the original piece. Other worthy takes here and here.
[...] Raph Koster has an excellent post up right now discussing the notion of democratized literacy that is well worth the time to read. I’d have to say that I largely agree with him, and feel that he makes an important implicit point: the entire notion of literacy and literature is constantly evolving, and should not be assumed as a static and limited definition. The structure and limits of a definition can change and expand, as long as the idea remains. [...]
[...] The September issue of Harper’s Magazine has a roundtable on videogames and literacy, including some discussion with Raph Koster. I haven’t picked up the issue yet (and Harper’s Website doesn’t appear to mention it, unless I’m missing something), but Koster’s weblog has a quote and then some interesting followup. To me, there’s a question hanging over our conversation, which is: What kind of writing do we hope to teach? We might like to teach kids to write like Proust, but no one writes like Proust anymore. Appropriation and annotation are becoming our new forms of literacy. Think of blogs, for example: most blog posts are reblogs, they’re parasitic on things other people have written. It’s a democratized writing, a democratized literacy. [...]
[...] i d e a n t: Video Games, Authority, and Problem-based Thinking (Via Mr. Belshaw.) Here is a great thread of posts pointed out by Mr. Belshaw. Ulises Ali Mejias at Ideant responds to a Hapers Magazine article, which documented a conversation including game designer Raph Koster, who then responded to Mejias’ post. [...]
[...] From SL Creativity Jump to: navigation, search A literacy of appropriation Raph Koster Teaching literacy has always been the central business of schools. School literacy teaching had tended to focus on written literacy rather than on oral literacy, which is mainly learnt outside school. Literacy has never been a fixed body of skills but has evolved with the development of technology, such as pens and paper, and the needs of society as in the Industrial Revolution. For example, handwriting was a major focus of schooling during the 19th Century as the demand for clerks grew rapidly. Then the invention of the typewriter made neat handwriting a less important business skill. However, important literacy technologies such as the newspaper, the typewriter and the telegraph took decades to spread throughout society, giving schools time to adapt. Schools today are struggling to cope with the teaching of new literacies that are often less than five years old but are widespread in society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_literacy The marketing people nightmare is coming true: People are no longer content to express individuality through mass produced goods. Turning of TVs Producing our own culture A literacy that is more inclusive – relate to Davis Other ways to convey meaning & Taking notes with spaces and images Expanding the Concept of Literacy We need to recognize that writing words is the Latin of our modern times. Video and sound are the vulgar languages of the common people, tools for speaking with power – a new potential to speak, learn, a new literacy that’s reviving the read-write culture. Lessig at Wikimania http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2006/08/larry_lessig_fightin.html [...]
[...] kestrell @ 03:06 pm: Media and literacy A heads up to anyone interested in video games and/or writing: the September issue of Harper’s Magazine has an article which is getting some buzz, though it is not posted online. You can read more about the article, including some quotes which also touch upon fan fic and blogs, herehttp://www.raphkoster.com/2006/08/16/a-literacy-of-appropriation/[...]
[...] Context: This post started out as a comment in response to Ralph Koster’s insightful and thought-provoking comment on Brian Lamb’s discussion of the recent article in Harper’s Weekly “Grand Theft Education.” After I finished the first three paragraphs I promoted it to post! [...]
[...] Fascinating dialogue between Ulises Ali Mejias and Raph Koster following from a multi-person discussion piece in Harpers about video games and literacy. [...]
[...] 1. Last month’s Harpers has a fun roundtable discussion on video games and education that I participated in a few months ago. (It also included the excellent Ralph Koster, whose book A Theory Of Fun is a must-read for anyone interested in the gaming culture.) Annoyingly, the forum is not online, but Ralph’s got a few followup responses on his blog. [...]
[...] Raph Koster has replied to this post over at his blog, and Gus offers some interesting thoughts as [...]