Since the late 1990s, Michael Riedel has advanced a self-sustaining artistic production whereby new work is generated from existing material in seemingly endless loops and permutations. While his practice—which incorporates painting, text, audio, video, photography, publishing, architecture, and performance—may at first glance seem to share a conceptual affinity with Pop and appropriation art, it represents a departure from the issues of mechanical reproduction and simulacra that preoccupied these earlier generations. More specifically, it engages with the aesthetic possibilities derived from the basic principles of recording, labeling, and playback, and uses the idea of the transfer as new content in its own right.
