Oh man, I was just so psyched up for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, that I completely forgot to blog on Friday, but in honor of the big guy himself, I got to spit my thoughts out here about Werner Herzog. The reading "Herzog on Herzog," was really just an interview, that I found pretty entertaining. I like a lot of what Herzog had to say, but specifically I found his comments on anonymity particularly appealing. Herzog says, "To remain anonymous behind what you have created means that your work has an even stronger life of its own." I've all ways been a bit confused by the obsession with credits, and signatures on ones own work, and I never understood why I needed to do it. To me, it seems like you're debasing the work in some sort manner for the sole purpose of crediting yourself--why do we care about that so much? I guess credit is all that some people can hope for. But for others, myself included, what I hope for, is to produce something that stimulates me (and perhaps others ), once it is created I do not care that I made it, I care that it exists. Ideally everyone's art would be available to everyone else (technology is making this increasingly impossible) and one would not need to name-drop in order to like something. All a signature really does is put a very small (if not very large) filter on how someone might view the work. To me, the work itself is a signature, if it garners success and someone else is somehow able to take credit for it, I'll give them some credit (thats seems like it might be pretty tough to do). If I make something I know I made it, and generally when I do create something, whether video or drawing, I do not envision a little signature in the corner (it would make no sense to me) or a list of names and titles rolling at the of my film instead of some sort of climatic last moment (once again, no sense). Although credits and signatures might seem normal, or even fitting, they are not, and we have been conditioned to use them, and some how find meaning in them.
Are you talking about the death of the author? Mass culture kept moving toward the idea of "branding" and the feeling one is familiar with the works of a specific author. All things are happening at the same time.
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