Sunday, January 29, 2017

TEST:\> ADD_AND_SUBTRACT_DATA.EXE
Although, these incomplete copies are completed with mistakes and inaccuracies that occur in the process of making copies. They still have a long way to go. These new incomplete copies are not inert. Therefore, they start to build a new identity with the use of traditions, other objects, miracles, and legends. However, these incomplete copies are still similar to the partial mimicry in the sense that still depends on the first source. Their reliance on the original has not diminished yet. In order to break the link with the original, the incomplete copy needs to copy its incomplete copies more. This will erode and add new qualities to the new incomplete copy. The continuous repetition of this tedious process will break the link with the original. Once they disconnect from the power of the original, these incomplete copies can’t return to their original form anymore. Deleuze explains this aspect using the Catholic Church narrative. “God made man in his image and resemblance. Through sin, however, man lost his resemblance while maintaining the image. We have become simulacra. We have forsaken moral existence in order to enter into aesthetic existence.”[1] In other words, the incomplete copy is the result of this sin. Therefore, the copy cannot be traced back to its original source. Because they are not copies anymore. They are simulacrums of simulacrums. “The copy is an image endowed with resemblance, the simulacrum is an image without resemblance”[2]. Although, the original still forces the copy to look back at its own image, the copy does not do it with nostalgia. Instead it is looking at the original more as a way to see how far away they are from each other, how much the original has been eroded, and how much the copy has increased.[3]  



[1] Nelson, Robert S., and Richard Shiff. 1996. Critical terms for art history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 33.
[2] Ibid.
[3] During the beginnings of the 20th century silent films were very popular in the US. However, in a research conducted by the library of congress many of these movies did not survived, they calculate that 70% of these films are completely lost. But thanks to the historian and composer Ben Modell, Some of the old films were saved due to what he calls ‘Accidentally Preserved.” He explains that companies in the 30s made copies for the people who wanted to watch it at home. The irony is that those copies had managed to survive the pass of time while the originals have not. Perhaps this is the evidence of how the history of western cultures was built.
Matheson, Whitney. "'Accidentally Preserved': Rare silent films come to DVD." USA Today. January 22, 2014. Accessed February 14, 2017. http://www.usatoday.com/story/popcandy/2014/01/21/silent-films-dvd/4721515/.








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