When I was at CSU, in my photography class, we were doing a project of photograms, where one exposes photo paper with objects on it, to create images from the silhouettes and shadows. I was initially taken with a fellow student’s work, the image was layered and seemed to have a dragon head or something, I hardly recall now all these years later. Then, he was talking later about his piece and stated that it was from a Photoshopped, digitally manipulated image that he had exposed through, I said that I didn’t like that. I felt that it violated the spirit of the task.
I remember after the assignment critique overhearing him talking to someone else about how he had spent so much time working on the image. I did feel a modicum of guilt over raining on his parade. It was also a time before digital was really a common art form, the early days of Photoshop and digital imagery, 1998. And I am sure that it was a lot of work to create, still, I felt that the spirit of the assignment was to create an image with objects, not to create an image in another medium and expose that for the image. That to me was just another way of taking a picture.
Does the spirit of the thing matter? Why did I feel cheated that he presented that work for the assignment? I was reflecting on this memory recently, on the idea of the spirit of the thing and what does it matter and if it matters. Is it simply personal preference. I wondered, what would Man Ray have thought of it? Would he have been able to appreciate it? Probably, maybe, depends on their interpretation of the spirit of the thing I suppose. I think that I felt cheated in that instance because of the image, when I thought that it was created using the technique of putting stuff on the paper and exposing light through it to create this fascinating image, that was cool to me. Then later when I found out that it had been an created, manipulated, designed image, not just designed through experimentation of technique, rather designed through manipulation of making the image that would then be exposed, felt like the violation of the spirit of the idea. Sitting there and making a drawing, whether by pencil on paper, or digitally on a screen and then printed out, it just didn’t feel right. A violation of the spirit of the idea.
I think of the spirit of the thing, like a common jacket, that I have seen many places. I like jackets and am always searching for the right look in one. I have seen several really great jackets, that are then ruined, to me, by both violation of the spirit and more than that. The jacket may be a leather jacket or a canvas jacket, with a great look. Then the person who thought up the design adds a knit hoodie hood and maybe cuffs. Not an actual hoodie beneath the coat, just the elements of the hoodie that would be seen if one were wearing the coat with a hoodie beneath. Because the idea is that the two together make the look, and my feeling is that the designer thought the look was the thing itself. So they added the visible elements, thus in my mind destroying a great jacket and reducing the whole thing to an interpretation of a look. They think, to my mind, that by having the visible elements they have achieved the thing itself. Again, a violation of the spirit of the thing.

To me it is a hollow thing. It did not fulfill the spirit of the thing, it is just a look as if it had. That is the violation of the spirit for me. It would be a great looking canvas jacket. It would make sense to layer it with a hoodie. It creates a certain look to do that. It falls flat for me to piece it together and get neither from it. It is not a synergy, it is the opposite.
I perhaps feel like it is vegan bacon, if you are vegan, why do you need to eat something that is a fake of the thing that you are choosing to not eat?