Creative Evolution

What role do clones play in the creative world? Do they simply feed off of another’s hard work? What value can the end product be if it is simply a facsimile of what has already been created? What can be gained by simply cloning another’s work?

As an Artist and someone who makes video games - and have a push/pull emotion when I see clones being created. But a great deal can be learned by simply copying a master’s work.

As a youngster just opening up to the field of Art I copied artwork directly out of comic books. Soon after, (in Art school), I made copies of renaissance Artists’ and Post Impressionist works – emulating their style and technique.

I found that even when I could reproduce the image with success, it was kind of empty. Although I had learned something, there was no real statement being made with the pieces.

In a true clone, the creative process will stop here – A direct copy of the original. This occurs sometimes in the game development world: Tetris clones, Chess clones, etc. Even when executed superbly, there is nothing new being added to the creative community.

But in the majority of cases the creators will add something unique in the second generation. Maybe the technique is refined. Sometimes a new element is added. Perhaps the context has changed giving it new meaning.

Even if the core idea is the same, each generation has an opportunity to add something significant.

Example from the video game world:

• Space Invaders
• Galaxian
• Galaga
• Raiden
• Ikaruga
  

[We could also many, many others but I like the above example because you can clearly see how each one has built on the framework of the previous]

This is part of the natural evolution of creative media.

Of course, there are plenty of times where an attempt to clone or innovate on an existing idea fails miserably. Often this is a result of poor execution - there are many reasons for this, many of which are out of the creator’s hands (too little time, too little budget, imposing publisher, etc).

There is another part of the evolution that I would like to mention, and that is the cross pollination of genres. This is innovating on an old idea specifically by fusing it with another old idea.

This can have some interesting results. For some reason this kind of methodology tends to have much more volatility in quality. It seems to breed both the most inspiring pieces of Art as well as the biggest turkeys. There is less precedent. It involves more risk.

But then again, why not be risky? No one’s life is hanging on the quality of a piece of Art (career maybe, but not life).