A question of originality...

Q. Does originality exist? Or is it only possible to rework things that have been done before? Has anything new been invented since 1950?


A. Wow, what a debate...and a lot of big words. I'm not going to try and argue a case or use all these fancy big words. I'll just let my thoughts flow as they come. I do think it's a pretty interesting debate purely because everyone has their own opinions on this, and I like reading how people think so differently about these things.

Personally I think that origonality does and can still exist, but it is very rare! In general I believe that work tends to get rehashed and recycled and then creates something new.

I have talked to a couple of people about this and got 2 totally different thoughts back...

My brother (who is doing a course like this one at uni but in 2nd year) has always said to me that he doesn't think anything is original anymore. He says that everyone's rips someone off and steals ideas. I am very inclined to agree with this. But I do think that just because you get your inspiration from other work, well it can still be original in a sense because you have not copied work. You have just used old work as creative inspiration.

My friend thinks that originality still exists.She says that new things still appear every now and then. We talked about it from a more philosophy point of view. We said that whilst people and the world is always changing (as it always does) then our way of thinking and working will change. Therefore ideas, concepts and work will always change with the times and create new and original things.

I think this is quite a hopeful and positive way of thinking about it. It would be very sad to say that originality no longer exists I think.

In terms of things being created since the 50's...well id say hell yeah! After much research into 1950's design and style I would say that we have come a hell of a long way since then! So so much has been created that hadn't before. And this is mainly because of the software now available on the computer. And im sure that at some point there will be a new program or version of something out and suddenly we will all be able to create new things we didn't realise we could before...and all of a sudden there is scope to do something new and fresh and someone, somewhere out there will create something original.