A close reading of a Muscovy Earspool and myself

A few weeks ago, I put this text on the “about” page of my blog:

“When I was maybe 11 years old, I found this image in an issue of National Geographic Magazine and decided it looked like a jeweled platypus. I cut it out and pasted it in my binder, and it has stuck with me ever since. I lost the original when I was 14 or so. You can interpret this blog title as a symbol of art, science, and following whatever catches my eye, or you can say “that’s not a platypus”, and you’d be right.”

I’ve learned about its origins since then (and written a blog post about it), and I figured out that I had appropriated this image from a magazine that had appropriated the object from a grave. I had made a copy of the image, and it took on a life of its own—part of mine. The following explanation and analysis is part of the process of understanding my appropriation.

My platypus is a tenuous copy of a copy—a small scan of a photo—made stable by the many backups I’ve made while using it as my own; this series of technological reproductions has stripped the aura of the original art. The represented object has been taken out of its place and history, and I think I’ve lost a sense of awe—it may be delicate and more than a thousand years old, but more importantly, it’s mine. But the image of the platypus is not inferior to the duck object (it’s more useful) and it adds value to the original by bringing attention to it. It’s now a piece of propaganda promoting myself, but it’s also newly appreciated and publicized. “Repetition makes reputation”, said Elizabeth Arden, “and reputation makes customers.” The platypus image has forgotten its heredity; its connection to the object is not its defining property anymore. The original was forgotten—and now it’s been re-absorbed and de-authorized. My copy reproduces itself.

I invest in my individuality by using this obscure but readymade image—which even had a twin object, as I’ve learned. I’ve snatched the authenticity of a pre-literate, non-digital civilization and incorporated it into something “cool”. There is still the danger of discovering somebody else who cares about this image, which would disrupt my metaphysical investment in singularity. My platypus is both plagiarism and ownership, which is both good and bad. (To turn that plagiarism into ownership, I would like to make the platypus like Pierre Menard made the Quixote, but I haven’t figured out how.)

The Muscovy earspool really belongs to the ancient Moche people who made it, the archaeologists who dug it up, the museum that takes care of it, the photographer who captured the image of it, and the magazine that published the image. My scan of the image from that magazine belongs to me, and researching the object’s history only deepens my ownership of that scan. (It even led me to scan and appropriate more from the Moche: the new little banner below the platypus on my blog.) However, I believe the photographer owns the legal copyright to this image, and I don’t know whether she’d mind me using it. I’d rather not ask her, in case she orders me not to.

Cleverness in an age of copying is in selecting the right quote, but by going beyond the simple moments of selection and duplication, the image becomes more deeply mine—even as I reveal who made it—by my study of it, my processing of it, and my publishing of my work. History and aura are structures of confinement telling me what the duck means (that it’s not a platypus), yet they’re a source of authenticity: my brand is a piece of art that wasn’t subject to written language or postmodernism.

In the moments after learning what my platypus represented, I wondered what I’d rename my blog. I could call it Muscovy Earspool now, but I’ve realized that I can’t change it—I’ve used Jeweled Platypus for years, and it’s part of me. In my blog post, I called my scanned image a “platypus”, while calling the actual object and other images of it a “duck”. I like the platypus animal itself, which confused taxonomists, while many varieties of ducks are domesticated (and my boyfriend kills and eats wild ones). The duck earspool may represent food as a symbol of the wealth of a dead man, but the platypus logo is the digital symbol of me, connoting art, evolution, and a little weirdness. I’ve constructed its identity as part of mine: it serves as the title, domain name, header image, and favicon of the website that is my public face. I link to it from my user page on every web service I use, calling it “Jeweled Platypus” or “my blog” or “Britta’s website” interchangeably.

About a year ago, I imitated the scanned platypus image to create a more conventional “logo” (in outline and filled versions):

I gave it a left foot in place of my image’s odd squarish leg and appropriated the golden eyeball from a different source, which may be enough to make this a derivative work that I legally own under a forgiving interpretation of fair use. However, it’s still not a “new” symbol, so it contains the same plagiarism of presenting the platypus as my own without overtly explaining its origins and story.

People design identities online by selecting from available options, and I choose to use a brand to reinforce mine: the platypus, which dominates the website that is the center of my online identity. This website, as my public face, helps me develop my self-defined career in working with the web by teaching me things hands-on and connecting me to interesting people—and the clear statement of a brand aids these processes. But working on this raises the possibility of alienation of online self from offline self. My public representation (with the platypus logo) may diverge from my private being (with no centralized branding yet)—I continually edit my online presence, concerned that it reveals my private weaknesses, and I may edit it more often than I change my real self, but I’m modifying that “real” self in the process.

I’m working on a few derivative works of the derivative work that is my platypus, which would project the representation of my public/online self onto my physical/private self, reinforcing my identity and brand (and possibly hiding my real self more deeply). I’m making cards with the platypus image and my contact information (including my URL), to give to friends and acquaintances to help them remember both of my selves—hopefully integrated into one. I may also make some stickers so I can place a platypus in my binder, on the spot where I put the first one in middle school. I also want to make a neatly symbolic necklace: an outer string of little spherical golden beads, a middle string of flat turquoise beads, and an inner string of flat golden beads—so that my head would be the center of the circle, in the place of the platypus.

Like any copy, this project challenges investment in the individual/unique but also offers the fantasy of relation and sympathy. This platypus has been part of me since I saw it—and in a pair of nice coincidences, the object was photographed around the time I was born, and ten miles away from me during my childhood—and it’s only working its way deeper as I learn more about it and see it again and again. I hinted at this explanation in my blog: “It’s the right combination of unusual and beautiful, its mysteriousness allowed me to make it my own, and now it has introduced me to a whole civilization of awesomeness (with Ask Metafilter’s help).” I’m going to keep my “about” text like that, but with a link at the end to this project, which only reinforces my jeweled platypus and my brand and identity to some unknown visitor.