Issue 1
In the age of hyperreality and subjective realism, we find ourselves engaged by the question of who is entitled to use which symbols and who claims the copyright for them. Is there a limitation with regard to appropriation in terms of cultural eligibility? Or is philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah right by stating that "the real problem isn't that it's difficult to decide who owns culture; it's that the very idea of ownership is the wrong model"?
The focus of the first issue is on (re)appropriation, the ironic, and fandoms with respect to simulation, copying, quoting, repeating or decontextualization as creative methods and artistic practices in transnational pop cultures. Questions pertaining to authenticity, realness and fakeness have been a trademark of approaches to postmodern pop cultures from early on. After an era of admiration for the detached genius, it has become obvious that nothing comes from nothing, that every cultural act is, to some extent, an act of borrowing and appropriation – or, as Belgian indierock band Dead Man Ray put it in 1998 to further complicate the issue: "We are all copies / But the originals are fake."
Editors
Annekathrin KOHOUT, Judith MAIR, Takuro MIZUTA LIPPIT (aka DJ Sniff), Jörg SCHELLER, Masahiro YASUDA
Contributors
Journal:
Yasuharu AKIYOSHI, Alvaro CASSINELLI, Chris INGRIS, Liao JIAMING, Heiko SCHMID
Magazine:
Rada LEU, Maren LICKHARDT, Katherine MAZZEI, Takuro KOTAKA, Yusuke WAJIMA, Diana WEISS, Tina YEUNG
Insights:
Xiaotai CAO, Gaia Del SANTO