Under the Influence

Tonight is the first of our film screenings. and I've been interested in addressing the question of influence for some time now. It seems that now is time.

The Oxford American Dictionary, in defining influence, offers the following word history:

ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French, or from medieval Latin influential| ‘inflow,’ from Latin influere, from in- ‘into’ + fluere ‘to flow.’ The word originally had the general sense [an influx, flowing matter,] also specifically (in astrology) [the flowing in of ethereal fluid (affecting human destiny).] The sense [imperceptible or indirect action exerted to cause changes] was established in Scholastic Latin by the 13th cent., but not recorded in English until the late 16th cent.

The operative word in the definition since the 16th century seems to be imperceptible or indirect, that the influence of one thing on another is observed by a third party, more than recognized by the changed subject. Somehow or another, that connotation of mysterious or imperceptible action still resides in the word, which perhaps explains why it feels so much like someone is dragging his finger nails across a blackboard when he names his “influences” in a critique or statement.


Influence is, I assert, being too narrowly understood and converted to a neutral, almost clinical term in such instances. When citing their influences, artists often sound more like bibliographers than introspective critics of their practice. In almost all cases, it would be more apt to say “I admire so and so’s work…” or “I have tried to steal this or that property of so and so’s paintings…” (a valuable attempt to re-think this problem came from Keith Gruber in his March 10 post on this blog.) Using the word influence generally allows the artist to behave like an infected person, one who cannot take responsibility for the reference to other art or ideas in his or her work (the word, influenza actually entered the English language from Italian in the mid 1700's by way of the root that influentia, a medieval forerunner of influence).

But artworks are not sneezes, scabs, or otherwise to be confused with the results of infection. They are, if anything, discursive objects and most of them are made with the intent to act in this capacity (those that are not made to do this but instead are selected from all the other objects in the word to function like this are called “found objects”…but that’s another essay). Disregarding the responsibility to intent diminished the force of a work. This doesn’t mean unconscious or spontaneous allusions are impermissible, it means that they should be rigorously and thoroughly understood by the artist as soon as they are identified so their power can be harnessed and directed where the artist wants to employ it.

I’m especially keen to hear form the artists who responded to the call for participation – Jane Irosh, Joe Nanashe, Isaac Resnikoff and Paul Falzone - because they have been thoughtful and deliberate in our correspondence and have indulged me by trying to understand how talking about movies might be a roundabout way of talking about their work.

It doesn’t seem that we’re going to get over the essentially pathological discourse of art practice that dominates contemporary art any time (more obsessive drawings, anyone?) but perhaps we start to be more specific about our relation to the world around us, what enters our making processes through which doors, and how it is greeted.