Ghostly Familiarities: The Concealment of Strategic Appropriation in Recombinant Production Methodologies

Although the strategy of appropriation was central to much art criticism of the 1980s, with the development of more advanced digital technologies, the rejection of 1980s-styled critical theory, and the threat of copyright infringement, artists have inherited myriad incentives for ‘concealing’ digitally appropriated material. Formerly an iconoclastic strategy, appropriation has become a default, yet tacit, means of extending qualities. ‘Subliminal appropriation’, a methodology developed in the production of electronic rock bands Def FX (1990-97), and Celebrity Drug Disasters, employs a database in which thousands of Top 40 songs are categorised in terms of matching key and tempo properties. Data-matches are then digitally sampled, distorted and re-sequenced to produce ‘new’ songs – albeit with a ‘ghostly’ sense of familiarity. A similar approach is used to generate visual works using prototypes sourced from mass circulated corporate logos (as opposed to the relatively lower circulation of art historical references). Documentation of this methodology has formed the basis of a PhD dissertation and a series of related exhibitions. This production methodology is therefore tested and developed across a range of media and in relationship to both critical and commercial markets.