Reality Hunger

 
 

Reality Hunger
A Manifesto

by David Shields

Knopf

2010

 

 

Reality Hunger made a bit of splash when it was published because Shields assembled it as much as he wrote it. Most of the text consists of hundreds of quotations from other authors, often modified by Shields, without indicating which parts are quotes, without attributing the original authors, and without indicating whether or how they've been modified.

 
The manifesto Shields assembles argues in favor of an aesthetic where artists mix reality with their own creativity. He cites collage, sampling within rap, various metafictional devices, and hoax-authors like (in their own, opposite ways) James Frey and JT LeRoy as examples of the aesthetic he wants to promote and encourage others to make more of. 

 
Shields defends this style of art against the usual criticisms of plagiarism and deception by arguing that all art builds on what came before, and all art mixes truth and lies - he claims that what he is promoting is sort of one extreme end of a spectrum that every artwork and every artists falls somewhere along.