Culture today is such a yawn...

... or so says this critic from The Age:

Don't get me wrong, I'm a child of appropriation, sampling, collage and pastiche. It doesn't bother me that artists such as Sam Leach and thousands of others are out there appropriating a range of different contexts to make works... However, I am concerned about originality. Artists that appeal to me aspire to do that, and I find myself agreeing with those who argue that we've institutionalised lazy adaptation and elevated them to the highest echelons of our cultural priorities and hierarchies.

So if I'm reading this in the spirit in which it was intended, culture has essentially swallowed its own tail in the endless cycle of 'remixing'.

I wonder about that, too. The copyright issues around remixing is a profound symbol around all of remixing, anyway. Is the work original? Who's to say? Jaron Lanier has plenty to say about this. He strongly vetoes a culture of collaborative production, recycling, etc.

Though might it be true, too, that a). there's plenty of bad remixes in the world, just like there are plenty of bad oil paintings, poetry, and the like? and b). we are so tone deaf to all media now -- there's just too much of it -- that any mediated work of art has an uphill battle?