Susana Campos

The purpose of this essay is to address the action of copy/paste as a potentially creative operation, on account of its intrinsic alterity, and to propose that remixing through copy/paste is not only a legitimate creative strategy but also an appropriate culture dissemination tool. In drawing, and in the disciplines intrinsically related to its means, an object resulting from copying is necessarily different from the original, due to idiosyncrasies and inevitable interpretation. Cut/paste and copy/paste are traditional strategies for creative production and when pushed to the limit can pose the problem of plagiarism. With widespread access to technology they are turning into a mode of appropriation and learning, whose validity is put into question despite not threatening disciplinary integrity, including in design's domains.