We live in a culture of the copy. The proliferation of repetitious imagery in the digital age is dismantling notions of authorship, changing society as we know it, and leading to new ways of working together. At the same time it has brought with it a great deal of anxiety. Uniqueness and originality are upheld as signifiers of true value, while copying is viewed with suspicion and punished as plagiary. But copying is an innate part of human nature: culture is behaviour duplicated. Language is copying, writing is copying, and learning is copying. Copying is learning.
 
This talk will investigate some of these issues around the cultures of copying, as considered in the work of contemporary artist Gareth Long. It will touch on copying in contemporary art and culture, but also look to certain instances and precedents of copying through history, including twentieth-century film, 17th and 19th-century literature, and the visual and literary cultures of the Classical world.
 
Gareth Long (b.1979, Toronto) holds a BA in Visual Studies and Classical Civilizations from the University of Toronto and an MFA from Yale University. Long has held solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Wien, Austria; Kate Werble Gallery, New York; Michael Benevento, Los Angeles; TORRI, Paris; SpazioA, Pistoia; Oakville Galleries, Toronto; Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto; the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Galerie Bernhard, Zürich. His work has been shown at galleries and institutions such as MoMA PS1, Long Island City; Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Denver; The Power Plant, Toronto; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal; Artists Space, New York; Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York; Flat Time House, London; Drawing Room, London; Spike Island, Bristol; Wiels, Brussels; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; and Witte de With, Rotterdam.

Underlying Gareth Long's diverse artistic practice is an interest in questioning and dismantling notions of authorship. The themes of copying, seriality, amateurism, translation and collaboration recur throughout his practice, both as a central thematic concern and as a method in the production of the work.