All transmission is recreation
Heyo, just like copyright, the notion of faithful reproduction is a very modern notion. And I’m gonna add Western industrialized notion—surely many if not all indigenous cultures still see the transmission of stories as re-creation.
A storyteller is a spinner of yarns, and the internet’s founding metaphor is of a web. If we go far enough back, before printing presses and cameras and photocopiers introduced the notion of faithful reproduction, all transmission is re-creation. —Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet
That hyphen can give it double meaning too. Re-creation. Recreation. Play. Fun.
- previously: all fiction is fanfiction — recreating (recreation) is basically the point
- on copyright: we’ve had the right to adapt longer than we’ve had the right to prevent copying
- see also: the internet is a rhizome — the founding metaphor may be a web, but now the internet has no beginning or no end
- see also: play gives meaning to life — do not forget to have fun
- tangent: on the subject of indigenous storytelling, when animism is a dynamic, relational structure, surely that gives rise to the notion that healthy stories are fluid not fixed
Related reading ⚭
- Always Coming Home, Ursula K. Le Guin — an entire book that constructs itself as a re-creation and collaboration, and indeed, even as the “solo author” Le Guin collaborated with other artists and media to bring it to life
- Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology — this is fresh in my mind but it’s a good example of indigenous authors remaking the stories to pass them along