To be authentic to myself, means to be the original, accurate or reliable when based on facts. It seems impossible to be truly authentic in the 21^st century with the accessibility granted by the internet that shows hundreds of copies of a famous piece of artwork when searched. All are obviously the same painting, but it could have a slight variation or have been recreated by another person which makes us question if it is an image of the original painting.

The internet also allows for individuals to post their work and ideas anywhere which can be seen by anyone. As such, others can take that individuals work and ideas for their own use without the original person ever knowing or receiving recognition for it. But this can question how original our ideas actually are because that second person could have had that idea all along but the first person could claim that their ideas had been stolen.  But some ideas can be common and have been recreated thousands of time by different people meaning that the idea isn’t original. This is why it is difficult to judge what is authentic because many things have been created before when prior they had been seen as new or shocking.

 However, the main principles of modernism do still exist in contemporary practice as work is being “modernised” and made new to try and not recreate similar pieces of work although it is difficult to judge what is actually ‘authentic’.

Bibliography:

[1] Cambridge English Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/authentic

[Accessed 11/11/17]