An investigation into experimental writing and the inadequacy of authorship by Nichol Keene by Nichol Keene

'We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need a new sentence; the old sentence reframed is good enough'1 (Kenneth Goldsmith). Is the production of new works of literature now irrelevant? And if so has the re-examination and information management of already existing sources become the key issue?'

Written by Nichol Keene

Arguably, our society has become so saturated with language that, in regards to traditional authorship, the production of new work may have become pointless and irrelevant. It seems as if ideas of conventional authorship and creativity have become entirely redundant and that appropriation or re-examination of existing literature is a new kind of authorship, dubbed uncreative or conceptual writing. However, this type of authorship is currently unaccepted and marginalised by the majority of the literary world and has created much debate. It would be extremely naive in the current artistic climate to continue believing in the pre-modernist idealist approach to originality and authorship, but it is also somewhat unsettling to accept that everything is up for grabs if you’re willing to take the risk and stick your name on it. As Christian Bök explains ‘modern social trends in computing…have so thoroughly ensconced piracy and parody as sovereign aesthetic values that not only do the economy edifices of copyright seem ready to collapse but so also do the romantic bastions of both sublime creativity and eminent authorship seem ready to dissolve’2. Kenneth Goldsmith is a prominent figure in current day conceptual writing; his work highlights many of the important issues surrounding conceptual or uncreative writing. To discuss some of these issues I will use Goldsmiths book Day3 and his practice in general as an example. Kenneth Goldsmith is an American poet, a teacher of poetics at The University of Pennsylvanian and the founder of Ubuweb. He was born in 1961 and originally trained as a sculptor at the Rhode Island School of Design; he was a practicing fine artist before deciding to move into poetry, in around 1994. He has described himself as an ‘extreme writer’4 and his work is based around ideas of authorship, process, appropriation and transcription. Goldsmith takes an abstract approach to literature which has been described as ‘uncreative writing’5 or conceptual writing, where ‘writers don’t need to write anymore’6 and now ‘they just need to manage the language that already exists’7. Day8 is a 900 page book in which Goldsmith transcribed single every word in the 01.09.2000 copy of the New York Times, including all adverts, small print, titles and page numbers etcetera. Goldsmith states that this book and most of his other works are not designed to be read; in fact he describes them as ‘impossible to read’9. He does not expect anyone to read his work from ‘start to finish’10 because his ‘work demands a thinkership, not a readership’11. This idea of making art not to be seen but to be thought about isn’t new. Andy Warhol stated a similar thing about his own films; he believed that they acted as a catalyst for reactions in the cinema and the resulting thoughts.12 In fact Goldsmith has made a direct comparison between his own work and Warhol’s, claiming that he is ‘more interested in

Bök, C. two dots over a vowel (Canada, No Press, 2008) Goldsmith, K. DAY (2003, The Figures, Great Barrington) 4 Goldsmith K. (04.11.04) University of Pennsylvania Lunchtime Poets Series (MP3), Q&A, Recorded at Kelly Writers House http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Goldsmith/LunchtimePoets/Goldsmith-Kenneth_Lunch-Poets-11-04-04-Question-AndAnswer_K.mp3 Accessed: 07.04.10 5 Goldsmith, K. in Jones, R. (June/July/Aug 2008) ‘Uncreative Writing’ http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_02/2462 Accessed: 20.03.10 6 ibid. 7 ibid. 8 Goldsmith, K. (2003). DAY 9 Goldsmith, Kenneth (2000) ‘6799’ zingmagazine: New York p ii 10 ibid. 11 Goldsmith, Kenneth in Sanders, Katherine ‘So what exactly is conceptual writing?’ (02.10.09) Bomblog: New York http://bombsite.powweb.com/?p=4653 Accessed: 14.02.10 12 Goldsmith, Kenneth (2007) pg. 365 ‘Being boring’ in Sewell, L. And Rankine, C.(1992) American Poets in the 21st century Wesleyan University Press: Middletown, CT 3

knowing language better in the way Warhol was knowing image better by simply turning the camera on to it and letting it run.’13 Goldsmith rejects the Romantic ideals of creativity for plagiarism and piracy. He encourages the students of his ‘uncreative writing’ class to; plagiarise, steal, download and copy freely, through his rewritten code of ethics, the code of unethics. This kind of writing activity has been dubbed conceptual or uncreative writing. Some may suggest that this type of work is not new but if fact, that it is just irrelevant and pointless, but this suggests an assumption that it is ultimately uncreative to re-present something that already exists. It seems that revolutionary artists such as Duchamp14 have refuted this already. By continuing to believe said assumption, we are just conforming to outdated principles about individuality and originality. The important question is not whether Goldsmith claim over existing literature as his own is accepted, it is whether his way of working is the future of literature. Goldsmith has stated that ‘copyright law doesn’t apply to non-lucrative situations’15 consequentially he does not copyright his works, leaving them open for the taking, so at least we know he is fully committed to his beliefs. Day16 is arguably an act of plagiarism but it is also an insightful act of appropriation, although it could be argued that the text has not changed, it is in fact entirely different, it is reframed and has been reformatted for a new audience. Goldsmith has answered any queries about the credibility of Day17 by stating ‘context makes for an art work... A newspaper is not literature until someone frames it as such’18. When examining Day19 the language looks almost naked, it is denuded of its comfortable graphics, varying fonts, well placed pictures and colours left only with plain 9-point Bookman Old Style font. It is stripped of everything that is supposed to make it interesting in our language and image obsessed society. Even though it was a ‘a slow news day’20 Day has been described as ‘a really great novel, filled with stories of love, jealously, murder, competition, sex, passion and so forth’21. By stripping the text and making it a novel Goldsmith has made something which is ‘old news’ into something new and intriguing. Something that would be discarded and forgotten is made into something that is fascinating and discussed. Another example of this is Goldsmith’s singing, he regularly turns the work of philosophers and critics into song and although the ‘lyrics’ may not be originally written by him, the songs are. It appears that in a language saturated culture this kind of work is authorship, it is literature. In 1959 the pioneering artist and writer Brion Gysin stated ‘writing is fifty years behind painting’22 and it seems that this is still true today. Literature is one of the only artistic fields left which still has Romantic ideals about authorship and creativity; it is time that literature caught up with the rest of artistic expression. It is perfectly acceptable for artists to use ready-mades and already existing art work with their work and call it their own i.e. 13

Goldsmith, K. In Grey, Dr. sucking on words: Kenneth Goldsmith - a film by Simon Morris November 4, 2007 Accessed: 03.05.10 http://www.greylodge.org/gpc/?p=1211 14 Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1969), revolutionary artist associated with Dada and Surrealism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp Accessed: 30.04.10 15 Goldsmith Kenneth, (04.11.04) University of Pennsylvania Lunchtime Poets Series (MP3), Q&A, Recorded at Kelly Writers House 16 Goldsmith, K. (2003). DAY 17 ibid. 18 Keene, N. & Goldsmith, K. (23 April 2010). Nichol Questions [e-mail to K. Goldsmith], [Online]. Available e-mail: nicholkeene@hotmail.co.uk 19 Goldsmith, K. (2003). DAY 20 Goldsmith, Kenneth (2007) pg. 364 ‘Being boring’ in Sewell, L. And Rankine, C.(1992) American Poets in the 21st century Wesleyan University Press: Middletown, CT 21 ibid. 22 Brion Gysin, ('Cut-Ups Self-Explained' in Brion Gysin Let the Mice In) http://www.briongysin.com/BG/Quotes.html Accessed: 08.04.10 © Nichol Keene 2010. All Rights Reserved. 3

appropriation. As with Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain23 or Michael Craig-Martin’s An Oak Tree24 in which both artists took an existing object, renamed it and claimed it as their own. However, this exact act is not acceptable within literature; to claim another author’s work as your own is an act of plagiarism and you could be labelled a criminal. So it seems that literature is indeed set on archaic pre-modernistic ideals which need updating. Goldsmith states that ‘mainstream literary movements are all still as if modernism.... hadn’t happened’25. When asked if people were to believe Goldsmiths work was his, even though he didn’t pen the words originally he replied authorship is simply a ‘matter of framing...I’m shocked ... it’s taken our culture so long to legitimise framing or “brushing” content as a valid artistic practice...we have a culture built entirely on sampling and recycled material’26. In the current cultural climate, in which there is a constant production of new work and an audience which is getting bored with it, would it be practical to suggest that instead of producing traditionally new work we should instead be ‘framing’27 already exiting literature. That we should be re-presenting works that have been overlooked or forgotten. Considering that there is an estimated ‘quarter of a million distinct English words’28 and an estimated ‘500 million–1.8 billion’29 individual English language speaker’s, traditional authorship seems completely inadequate, as we will inevitably repeat ourselves and copy others. If we look at the top end of the scale (1.8 billion), we are left with 0.000138 of a word per English speaking individual. Even if we look at the lower end of scale (500 million), we are still only left with 0.0005 of a word for each individual English speaker. ‘There is just too much shared common language out in the world to ever assume that we are solely possessive of it’30 and it is this assumption that proliferates the fear of copying someone else and thus impedes the production of work. Students are scared to speak up in case it has already been said, but the fact that a question has been asked doesn’t negate asking it again, the re-examination of something may yield a fresh or more thought out response. The constant worry that your ideas may be some pre-assimilated information from a book you read last year makes it difficult to comfortably and honestly write. As Goldsmith explains, ‘Every thought I’ve ever had I’ve probably read or heard elsewhere, while wading through this thick bank of language which surrounds us daily’.31 The focus should not be the struggle to produce something wholly new and original but to instead produce something of interest. When discussing Kenneth Goldsmith’s work in relation to the field of conceptual writing specifically there is one comparison which it is necessary to examine, the Oulipo, particularly in relation to notions of so called new work. The Oulipo, Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle, which when translated from French to English means Workshop for Potential Literature, are a literary group founded the mid 1960-70’s. They firmly align themselves specifically with 23

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917 Michael Craig-Martin, An Oak Tree, 1973 Goldsmith, Kenneth (interviewee)/ Jourden, John (interviewer), UbuWeb Vu: Kenneth Goldsmith, Archinect http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=59857_0_23_0_C, 26/06/07, Accessed 08.04.10 26 Goldsmith, Kenneth in Belgum, Erik (spring/summer 2001) ‘Kenneth Goldsmith Interview’ Read Me, Issue 4, http://home.jps.net/~nada/kennyg.htm Accessed: 14.02.10 27 ibid. 28 Oxford University Press (2010) ‘How many words are there in the English language?’ Electronic Available from: http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/numberwords?view=uk (Accessed: 30.02.10) 29 Wikipedia (2010) ‘English Language’ Electronic Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language (Accessed: 30.02.10) 30 Goldsmith, Kenneth in Belgum, Erik (spring/summer 2001) ‘Kenneth Goldsmith Interview’ Read Me, Issue 4 31 ibid. 24 25

literature with the aim of ‘renewing and re-establishing literature that has’ they say ‘deteriorated to an appalling low level’32. The Oulipo devise theories and algorithms for potential literature, based on constraints and conceptual writing and to date they are still an extreme group sitting on the fringe of the literary world. They also acknowledge that ‘many of the constraints’ they are using ‘predate the foundation of the Oulipo: they are to be found scattered across the world and ages...we describe them as phenomenon as anticipatory plagiary’33 Kenneth Goldsmith raises many problems with the Oulipo but specifically he mentions issues with their idea of ‘narrativity’ stating ‘they always manage to mangle something ... potentially fascinating into something that makes perfect sense... they can never let go of sense... the other problem that I really have... is the name itself... institute set up for potential literature...’34. Goldsmith claims that he is ‘not interested in potential literature’ but rather that he is ‘interested in realised literature’35. Further to this he claims that he is part of the ‘new extreme... the generation of writers that I am affiliated with... somebody like Christian Bok are interested in realising literature... going through the torturous process of writing this book and through that comes some sort of quality in the text of having gone through that process’36. However, by re-realising literature Goldsmith is force to produce something new, although it is a re-realisation of for instance, a copy of the New York Times ‘context makes for an art work... A newspaper is not literature until someone frames it as such’37. As evidence, by his own omission, he is not making ‘realised’38 literature, he has turned a newspaper into literature and he has produced something new. The question is now whether merely transcribing a text is a viable algorithm in relation to Oulipo. Kenneth Goldsmith denies similarities between his own work and the work of the Oulipo, stating that their methods of working are ‘all too creative’39 for him and his aim of ultimate uncreativity. However, as an anonymous audience member at his question and answer session at the Kelly Writers House Pennsylvania, pointed out ‘it is still an algorithm to simply take every word and leave it the same, the process of just transferring the text over and not making any changes is itself one of the many possible things you could do’40. Goldsmiths response was simply that such an algorithm was ‘never proposed by Oulipo’41; this seems a rather feeble response, considering that their whole existence was based on creating these type of algorithms. Further to this, another similarity between Goldsmith’s work and the work of the Oulipo is that neither believes that the production of new work is particularly relevant. The Ouilpo never counted the ‘creation of literary works among its primary aims’42 and neither does Goldsmith. Also similarities crop up when looking at the Oulipo’s definition of themselves:

Compiled by Mathews , H. & Brotchie, A. ‘Oulipo compendium’ London : Atlas Press ; Los Angeles : Make Now Press, 2005. Pp. 37 ibid., Pp. 40 34 Goldsmith Kenneth, (04.11.04) University of Pennsylvania Lunchtime Poets Series (MP3), Q&A, Recorded at Kelly Writers House 35 ibid. 36 ibid. 37 Keene, N. & Goldsmith, K. (23 April 2010). Nichol Questions [e-mail to K. Goldsmith], [Online]. Available e-mail: nicholkeene@hotmail.co.uk 38 Goldsmith Kenneth, (04.11.04) University of Pennsylvania Lunchtime Poets Series (MP3), Q&A, Recorded at Kelly Writers House 39 ibid. 40 ibid. 41 ibid. 42 Compiled by Mathews , H. & Brotchie, A. ‘Oulipo compendium’ Pp. 39 33

‘It goes without saying that the Oulipo is anything but imperialist. It proposes an artistic and aesthetic point of view that has its means of justification, it’s arguments, it’s illustrations. It makes no claim to be the depository of truth. Oulipian writing that is, writing with constraints – endeavours to rediscover another way in which to practice artistic freedom, one that is at work in all (or nearly all) the literatures and poetic enterprises of the past; the freedom of difficulty mastered. Like a marathon runner, Oulipian thus sometimes discovers the intoxication of a “second wind” – Life A User’s Manual, no doubt the finest Oulipian novel written thus far, is an example of this. A definition: An Oulipian author is a rat who himself builds the maze from which he sets out to escape.’ 43 Goldsmith is exactly that, he creates his own torturous mazes of transcription and arduous tasks, for instance recording every movement his body made in a day, in his book Fidget44. His writing fits the definition of what makes Oulipian writing i.e. he writes with constraints, even if the constraint is to copy exactly, as he did in Day45, it is still a constraint. He also regularly states that he thinks of himself as an extreme writer and in the same way the Oulipo compare themselves to the extreme nature of marathon runners. Although as shown above, Goldsmith is quick to deny the relationship that his work has to the work of the Oulipo, I have discovered one interview in which he admitted the connections. He states that uncreative writing ‘achieves a balance between Cagean chance operative writing and Oulipian ideals. It allows for a certain amount of control and a certain amount of surprise’46. In 1969 Douglas Huebler wrote, ‘the world is full of objects more or less interesting; I do not wish to add anymore’47. Goldsmith has re-coined this statement into his own sort of manifesto, as it were, ‘The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more’48. He claims that this is an ‘appropriate response to a new condition in writing today: faced with an unprecedented amount of available text, the problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists’49. Goldsmith appears to make a good argument but when examining the consequences of his opinion it seems to be an extreme generalisation. It begs the question: is it actually worth our time to produce more works of fiction that will inevitably get eaten up by Hollywood and spat out as a feature film? Or produce poetry which will be marginalised and only known by a few. Does this honestly seem worth it? This leaves us in unfamiliar and unsettling territory, where we all traditional creativity within literature has become pointless and irrelevant. If we discuss what creativity has become, another box to tick as it were, courses in creative writing, learning to be creative by copying those who are creative etcetera, it seems that creativity has become a wholly sterile activity. A teacher prescribes the task of writing a short story based on a given theme, for example anguish, is

ibid., Pp. 41 Goldsmith, K. (2000). Fidget, Fourth Printing, Canda 45 Goldsmith, K. (2003). DAY 46 Goldsmith, Kenneth in Belgum, Erik (spring/summer 2001) ‘Kenneth Goldsmith Interview’ Read Me, Issue 4 47 Gysin, Brion (unknown) 'quotes’ Electronic Available from: http://www.briongysin.com/BG/Quotes.html Accessed: 08.04.10 48 Goldsmith, K. ‘Being Boring’ November, 2004 Kelly Writer's House, University of Pennsylvania, Poet's Lunch http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/goldsmith_boring.html Accessed: 30.04.10 49 Ibid. 44

this creative? I think not. This is spoon feeding; creativity has become so unfit for its purpose that there is now a whole conceptual movement based on being uncreative. Conceptual or uncreative writing borrows ideas from a whole range of sources including thoughts about being boring from artists such as Jackson Mac Low50, ideas about the redefinition of the purpose of language from the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, and ideas about creating work which does not add to the world from conceptual artists such as Douglas Huebler51. Creative writing is no longer interesting, so in steps the un-creative, but the idea that it is now ok to steal, copy, transcribe, lift, bootled and plagiarise is somewhat unsettling. Forget referencing, their ideas are my ideas and my ideas are everyone’s. Goldsmith once said, ‘I have never had an original thought in my life’52, it seems that this is true for almost a whole generation, how is it possible to have original thoughts when we are constantly influenced by a culture full to the brim with language? With students and the general public now ‘trained to skim’53 read, wanting only to get what they need from literature and not what it has to offer, it seems pointless to keep producing traditional creative work for a culture that doesn’t pay any attention to it. So now instead of having your own ideas you could just take some else’s. There is an unparallel process in un-creative writing which Goldsmith feels validates this kind of thinking. Goldsmith describes this as an ‘idea of craftsmanship... the process’54 transforms the ‘language into something very credible’55. If you steal a work of language, you are forced to know it inside and out and to understand it from every angle. You must immerse yourself in it completely, to be confident in it, rather than just dipping a toe in at the edge, you have to dive right in. By becoming this knowledgeable, you are learning and developing your own opinions and ideas, pushing the original work around, making judgements, choosing to believe or not believe in it. At the end of this process it is likely that you will have changed the work or the ideas in the work somehow, improving it or making it worse, but at the end of the day making it your own. So, in some ways uncreative writing is completely creative, or rather it is the antithesis of what being creative has become. If literature accepted the uncreative conceptual attitude then it could be miles ahead of where it is now; ‘fifty years behind painting’56. This essay has given the current lay of the land with regards to conceptual and uncreative writing. Conceptual writing is in fact authoring new work, although it may pain a few to admit it, they are adding something to the world. Be it a new look at an old text; it is new none the less. The age of Warhol57 and the cherry popping of plagiarism within the visual arts has been and gone, the literary world must accept that this is a valid way of working. The re-examination of existing works produces something new; therefore it is not pointless but rather invaluable insight. Literature needs to accept that new ways of working are useful and inevitable. Although as Goldsmith states copyright is not relevant to works of uncreative writing because they are not lucrative, this comes at a price the work is largely 50

Jackson Mac Low (1922 - 2004), American poet, artist and composer http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/maclow/ Accessed: 30.04.10 Douglas Huebler (1924 - 1997), conceptual artist http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/17/arts/douglas-huebler-72-conceptualartist.html?pagewanted=1?pagewanted=1 Accessed: 30.04.10 52 Goldsmith Kenneth, (04.11.04) University of Pennsylvania Lunchtime Poets Series (MP3), Q&A, Recorded at Kelly Writers House 53 Goldsmith, K. Exchanging e-mail with Kenneth Goldsmith, Zingmagazine, New York, 2000 http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing11/bessa/index.html 54 Goldsmith Kenneth, (04.11.04) University of Pennsylvania Lunchtime Poets Series (MP3), Q&A, Recorded at Kelly Writers House 55 ibid. 56 Gysin, Brion (unknown) 'quotes’ 57 Andy Warhol (1928-1987) American painter, printmaker, film maker and leading figure in Pop Art http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol 51

marginalised by the majority of the literary world. It is indeed worth questioning the premodernist idealist approach to originality and authorship which has become almost irrelevant. However, it is not clear whether it should be completely disregarded and piracy embraced in its place.

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