Appropriation

I was insulted last week to think my art was appropriation art. I have done some thinking and now some more reading. Appropriation is at the heart of our culture.
According to M. Cameron Boyd's Theory Now Blog (please pardon me as I appropriate this text), guest writer Rebecca Jones remarks..."Appropriation in art has become so widely used today that the once radical and overt political tones of collage have come to be commonplace in the lexicon of American culture...Plato’s assertion is that art is an imitation of an imitation, and so three times removed from real (the real being the “forms” themselves: perfect, permanent, ideas of objects)..."
More can be read here.
I really felt this drive into my brain..."Eduardo Kac once commented that if the art object and the artist are eliminated (taking off from Duchamp’s questioning the art object) then the art comes to be about relationships and interactions within a network.(8) It’s very evident that it is these interactions between members of or pieces of a network that are the main focus of works being created today in response to the cultural condition of the western world. "

Lately I shun the collaborative work. I am such an isolationist for now. However, I do realize that collab work is en vogue at this moment. Perhaps I need to re-evaluate my feelings on networked art. I don't want to be jumping on bandwagons and joining the crowd...I don't want to do anything just because others are doing it. That's why lately I have chosen to stay out of Round Robins and collaborative projects for a short while. I do enjoy seeing and feeling other peoples work, and combining creative work with someone else really changes the message of the piece--and seems to be quite a thought provoking process. But I was doing so much collaborative work and zine work, that I had no time for my own individual expression. Indeed, my work on others' art became so time consuming that I felt I was losing my own identity, my own message, my own creativity. This is more a product of my lack of art time, then a lack of interest however. I work full time and art is my out of work full time passion. I just feel sometimes there isn't enough time to explore it all.