AustLit

'In a post-appropriative or remix culture, what is at stake in ‘borrowing’ from historical images that have at their core an outrage at an injustice being perpetrated on a people? What are the implications of such acts of borrowing for rethinking an ethics of appropriation? This essay draws on an analysis of the dynamics of the image to argue that the ‘effect’ or ‘empathic suffering’ that we may experience when viewing an appropriation do not merely arise from representation alone, but more significantly emerge through the forces and ghosts that lie beneath and structure representation. Through this approach it argues that the work of art may enable the ghosts to speak. In giving voice to these ghosts, the work may just do justice to the histories to which the work in indebted.' (Publication abstract)