Already in the process of starting this project I’ve been hopping about from topic to topic. Always circling the same area - writing as a method and an outcome, films, genres. At first I thought I cared about the idea of emulating artist essays. That being said, I think its the emulation in general I care about rather than the essay itself. An adoption of style to garner a particular type of status, or reading. It can be, or has been something that I have been self conscious of - my magpie approach to topics and methods. A jack of all trades. But rather than worry about it too much now, and worry that I’ll lose interest and wander off, I’m going to try and stay with that idea of moving and attempt to see what’s interesting about it.
I’m interested in understanding what the appeal is of using certain tropes, or memes, or rhetorical devices to emulate another person’s style, or the style of a genre. It’s something I occasionally do as part of my practice, where I have an idea I want to express, and so choose the voice I want to use to express that. I am tool and medium agnostic in that way, and this can make my practice hard to define. This has felt uncomfortable at times, when it can be useful and marketable to be easily defined and understood. Short, snappy and easily digested.
Why use another’s voice? Is it less authentic than developing something distinct? Is there anything distinct anyway? (see hauntology). For me there is an invitation in choosing a genre to emulate which invites the audience to read what I am giving them in a certain way. I’ve told you this is horror, read it as horror. In that way it feels more authentic, more in keeping. Is there something interesting in being un-markatably inconsistent, or emulating so closely you start to infringe on copywrite?
I would like to develop a methodology for this hopping from topic to topic, from style to style. What can be generative about inconsistency? Am I interested in the shifting between genres, or the genres themselves?
Why do we want to copy style, and what is there in a refusal to be the author in that way, a ghost writer.
Could it be a form of drag? I have no house style - would it be possible for someone to copy me. It would be interesting to find out from people who know me and my work decently well (who? In-grid?) to try and understand what I make?
What are the cadences of this moving through different genres or methods. Is it that a question has been answered? Am I just bored? What are the entrances and exits from a particular genre, or a particular question I want answered.
Sampling, remixing, infringing on copyright.
I’m repeating myself.