As Nicolas Bourriaud points out in Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay, the question is no longer what you can create new, but what you can do with what already exists. In this context, appropriation becomes a creative act that questions the notions of authorship and originality. Drawing on this idea, this project explores how contemporary artists take pre-existing materials from the Internet and re-contextualize them, giving them new meanings.
The project is divided into two parts. Finders Keepers, presents reflections by Bourriaud, Michalis Pichler, Kenneth Goldsmith and Paul Soulellis on appropriation as an artistic practice. It evokes artists such as Penelope Umbrico, Michael Wolf and Christopher Clary, who apply this approach to the reuse and recontextualization of content available online. In turn, Losers Weepers, is a creative exploration of appropriation, through the collection and aggregation of images documenting chaotic or poorly executed interventions in domestic and public spaces, according to the categories Landlord Special, Municipal Patchwork, Evil Kintsugi, Cursed DIY and Home Disimprovement.
The project aims to reflect on artistic practice in the post-internet age, where authorship is fluid and creativity manifests itself through the appropriation, recontextualization and remixing of pre-existing content, challenging notions of originality in the hyperconnected world.
Academic Project by Camila Mignon
Masters in Communication Design, 2024-25
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon.