The readings for today by Jenkins, Lethem, and Boyle all deal with remix culture in a variety of ways—making new works from raw cultural ingredients of others. How does this form of cultural production fit within your understanding of originality, creativity, and art? Is the remix an artform? And what media seem particularly well-suited to remix culture?
Also, please post links to examples of remix culture you find particularly successful or interesting.
In 1917, Fountain Duchamp shook up the art world by taking a urinal, turning it upside down, and putting it on display.
…And while it made an impression, it pissed the Impressionists off. In the early 20th century–and even today–we tend to associate the value of art with creation: how well it was crafted, its realism, it workmanship. Art is still associated with a type of a skill: a skill that stems from one’s own creativity and hands.
Duchamp said, “no.” He said “art” (he would never actually use that word) was not about mere representation, but about making people view their world differently and in a more truthful manner. It had to make you think.
Is there value in that? Well there must be some: In 2004 Duchamp’s urinal was named the most influential piece of modern art.
And we can still see that influence today in the remix culture. Whether it’s the Star Wars videos that Jenkins mentions or music videos to a fan’s favorite anime on Youtube, the remix is about taking something that was representational and allowing us to view it in a different way.
And a major example of this just hit the Middlebury Campus: Girl Talk.
The Mash-up. To use a Wikipedia definition, a mash-up is “a song created out of pieces of two or more songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the music track of another…Mash-ups are incredible fun and a fascinating way to reexperience some of your favorite tunes.” And I have to admit that in the beginning I was a huge skeptic of the mash-up: I thought it was disrespectful to the original intimacy and intricacy of the songs–it wasn’t how the artist meant it to be listened to. I mean, people were getting paid–PEOPLE WERE RELEASING WHOLE ALBUMS–of all other artist’s works that they just sort of fiddled around with. But that was before I heard some genuine mash-up ARTISTS, such as Girl Talk. They understand not only the technical aspects of the music to make it match-up seamlessly, but they often pair songs together to convey a message: ironic, humoruos, political.
And while. I still have issues with some mash-ups, art is also supposed to be controversial. Good art removes us from our comfort zone: and that is what remix culture does. It takes something in which we are familiar, and literally, mixes it up.
Link to Girl Talk “Friday Night”
http://www.zshare.net/audio/6219331f174550/
While Brian and I were putting together our podcast, we spent some quality time watching the video that was the source for the final song in our project (sorry for swiping this, Brian). The song itself is a kind of audio parody: the lyrics are the same, but nothing else is. Even before one sees the video, one can picture a kid in a Hollister shirt crooning like a creature out of Dashboard Confessional as he shakes his leather wrist cuffs into the most comfortable position (maybe I made that last part up). The video, however, adds a twist that launches the entire enterprise so deeply into parody’s territory that commentary and criticism are implied and thereby imbibed, not merely decanted on our waiting heads. The video is a mash-up of our Hollister-wearing songbird (and his accompanist) and clips from the original Soulja Boy video. Right Side of the Tree’s project yanks away the musical context of “Crank Dat,” but then reminds us of crunk roots through a series of cannily-selected images of a couple of saucy young things in short-shorts dancing somewhere in public. I daresay that our two young friends knew what they were about when they finished recording and announced, “Now that’s how you crank dat shit.” I don’t think you can mix the relatively disparate forms of acoustic rock ballad and crunk anthem without awareness of the kind of comment being made on both.
Is it art? I’m not sure, but I’m also not sure that I am inclined to worry about that. It is creative, original, and intelligent – dare I say literate?
The readings for today by Jenkins, Lethem, and Boyle all deal with remix culture in a variety of ways—making new works from raw cultural ingredients of others. How does this form of cultural production fit within your understanding of originality, creativity, and art? Is the remix an artform? And what media seem particularly well-suited to remix culture?
In anime (Japanese animation) fan culture there is are a plethora of videos known as AMVs–Animated Music Videos. I assume they could be made from cartoons shown in America, but certainly the better part of these videos are rooted in anime. The better part of them are horrible; they’re just clips from the show timed (and even that’s not a guarantee) to some bad music. The good ones however, have been able to receive awards at various conventions and are distributed to hundreds of thousands of fans. So how does this apply to the reading question? Let me explain.
In terms of originality and creativity, I think AMVs are some of the most original and creative forms of remix media out there. To be able to take various clips from sometimes more than 26 20-minute episodes of a single anime and cut that into a cohesive video is impressive. It takes time and thought to be able to do it well, not to mention skill to be able to use a program like Final Cut Pro for this kind of thing. But is it “art”? That’s hard to say. I was interested in Melissa’s response because she mentioned that one definition of art is something that makes people think differently about what they’re seeing. An AMV aims to do just that. Whether is promoting a coupling or trying to express the humor in a situation, each video is trying to show us some different aspect of the anime that perhaps other fans had not thought of before. So yes, I’m going to say it is an artform in the same way that a political cartoon and Weird Al songs are art.
So, here are some links to various AMVs that have won awards at the Anime Boston convention:
Hold Me Now
Roydor
And those are just a few.
A great parody site is Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged.
This internet phenomenon was started by a British man who goes by the name of “Little Kuriboh”. He takes footage from the popular kid’s series “Yu-Gi-Oh!” and re-dubs and remixes them, successfully parodying the American dub. Check it out if you want a laugh.
My understanding of remixing is that it is most definitely an art form. Nowadays I feel like most of the media that we do listen to or see has been remixed in some way or form. There are those who do still stick with originality but within media culture there has always been a factor of taking an idea of a previous author and shaping into something that is your own. I don’t feel that there is anything wrong with this just as people give credit when it is due. The Johnathan Lethem article describes how appropriation has be apart of such prominent figures as Bob Dylan. Lethem also wrote that the idea of remixing that we so often hear today originated in Jamaica. But no one can copyright the idea of remixing like they can copyright the idea of a cartoon. Thus I think that the result is that we see movies and shows that are often similar but different in one way or another. The problem seems to be when people try and use specific characters from a medium they did not create. Remixing has been a part of media since I can remember which is why I have always considered it to be an art form.
I was really intrigued by Jenkins’ chapter titled “Spoiling Survivor” in his book “Convergence of Culture”. I had no idea that there was any sort of game behind the show, or any show for that matter. I couldn’t believe that people devoted their time to blogging and trying to guess the final outcome of a show. It is something I never would have thought to do and I think it takes a special, creative person to want to participate in a hobby like this. Before this remix culture was popular and emerging, art was something that was untouched and predetermined. People other than the artist just had to accept it for what it was. In today’s culture however, people are looking for inspiration from other artists to create their own unique art.
One example I have would be DJ DangerMouse’s remix album titled “The Grey Album” of the Beatles and Jay-Z songs combined. Although it isn’t copyrighted and the artist probably didn’t have permission to create the mash-ups, he was inspired by two completely different genres and wanted to find a way to make them sound good together.
Listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zJqihkLcGc
I believe that remixes are a creative art form and that the creator of the remix should maintain the rights of the newly created product. But I do not believe that they should be able to sell it. I think mash-up songs are wonderful and they obviously take talent and effort to create, but I still think that the original artists are the ones who should be able to profit from them. (To be clear, I don’t think the artist of song should have the rights to make a profit off a fan’s remix).
I’m not sure what the rules for sampling are, because I think that remixing is very similar (when it comes to music). I think artist should work with remixers to reach some sort of agreement where the remixer can pay a licensing fee or something to compensate the original artist if the remixer wants to see the remix. It’s a touchy subject since the remixer would obviously not have any material without the original artist making the song, but sometimes it can work out even better for the artist if the remix increases the original song’s popularity (kind of like the fan videos and Star Wars in that the fan films were viewed positively by the Lucus, as long as he could control what was being parodied/ inspired).
Much like Anime Music Videos, there are also video game music videos, and MV’s about a great deal of films, or shows with similar content. All of these seem to set a certain type of tone designed to make the viewer feel a certain way. In this way, these certainly function as art. They are creative in the sense that in order to make one of quality, you must have not only a deep understanding of the source material, but you must also have the abilities to use the complicated programs necessary. Many Music Videos make use of Final Cut, After Effects, Photoshop, and even Maya at times. The worst of these videos are just arbitrary mashes of random clips set to music. The best of them have specific themes in mind, with cuts matched to the beat of the song. In that sense, originality is a necessity in order for the quality to remain high.
I mean, as far as I’m concerned remixing is most definitely an art form. And like all art forms, you have work of quality, and work that clearly does nothing new and is below average.
I’ll just start by addressing this issue of music mix-ups that people are talking about. I’ll agree that the creative potential of combining two distinct genres of music is significant. As Lethem and the surrealists believe, “simply placing objects in an unexpected context” can reinvigorate them. We often only understand something in relation to the other. The only problem is that we tend to view say a song by the beatles only in relation to songs in similar categories (i.e. the era of the 60s, pop-rock, etc). It isn’t really until someone breaks this “categorization” or this conventional way of understanding media that media can begin to evolve into something more. For example, by mashing-up two very different songs, an artist might lead to the creation of a new genre like dance-able classical music. As George Carlin says, “Here are some things no one has ever heard…ever. ‘Honey, let’s sell the kids, move to zanzabar, and begin taking opium rectally.” Okay, so he clearly made that remark (and a fairly jarring one at that) in jest. But he said something afterwards, as he often does, that was extremely intelligent: “You’ve never heard that because no one ever said that. And to me that’s the more amazing thing – I am the first person in the world to put those words together in that particular order.” He didn’t come up with any of these just like a mash up artist didn’t create the songs he is combining, but in selecting which words to use and in what order he was able to generate something that any individual word couldn’t achieve: humor. Combining things that no one else has thought to combine before to yield something greater than the sum of the parts is artistic, creative, and original.
Now “things” in this case could refer to exact reproductions of certain beats as in mash-ups or the various influences that an artist uses to create original songs. While heavy metal and classical flamenco guitar might seem like strange bedfellows, Rodrigo Y Gabriela have managed to create an incredibly rhythmic and exciting style of classical guitar. Here’s a link to them playing their song Tamacun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8dPso79Z9I.
However, I was struck by a form of remixing this weekend that I didn’t find to be nearly as creative or original. During the Blue Scholars (a seattle based hip-hop group) concert in McCullough, the MC began to spit an original rap over the completely unchanged, original beat from the now popular M.I.A. song “Paper Planes.” Don’t get me wrong, that beat is hot and I enjoyed hearing it. But was that song original? In my opinion no, precisely because of the motive behind the remix. He didn’t combine his original lyrics to someone else’s beat in order to say something about the MIA song, the new direction of Euro/dancehall influence hip-hop, etc. He “stole” a beat that wasn’t his simply to increase his own personal gain – to give the crowd something he knew we wanted so that we will buy his albums, go to more shows, etc. I have the same problem with so called “cover” or “tribute” bands like the Dark Star Orchestra. While I respect their musical skill and their dedication to the Grateful Dead, I don’t really see this kind of sampling as creative. Their sole purpose is faithful reproduction of creative works that have proven succesful in the past – they aren’t trying to change the music or advance the artform in any way (which to me is a tragic waste of musical talent, which this band certainly has). Thus, I would only classify remixes as artform when they demonstrate a desire to advance the media in some way and express something that the original did not.
That being said, I think remixing and immitation can be great tools. Take for example this remix of the wicker man into a comedic trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_mW8mBzmHo). While the creator of this piece was more concerned with critiquing the wickerman, he (or she) probably learned something about the way trailers are made, different relationships between shots, and other basic principles of editing. Thus, even if a remix is not original (that is to say it doesn’t say something that the original doesn’t), they can still be useful for learning about the form of a particular media and how to manipulate that form using the technology available.
I’ll leave you with this mitch hedberg quote: “I remixed a remix and it was back to normal.”
While remix art in and of itself certainly has the potential for originality, creativity and art; in practice it generally does not meet those standards. Sure, there are many sterling examples of remix art–will.i.am’s remix of Barack Obama’s speeches was pretty amazing–I have found the vast majority of remix videos are uninspiring and largely similar.
This is in no greater evidence than in the “YouTube tribute video”. I can’t count the number of times I have searched YouTube for a favorite clip for television or a movie only to be faced with a gazillion (by most estimates) “tribute” videos to what I was trying to find. They can be for specific actors (deceased ones are especially popular) or even characters. Out of the 20 first YouTube results for “Ross and Rachel” only 2 are unremixed clips. Sure, NBC had a bunch removed no doubt, but that still doesn’t make up for the fact that every remix looks exactly the same and features similarly horrible music. After doing a bit of research, I’ve come up with the ideal recipe for a YouTube tribute video.
1. Find clips of the person doing their thing. In the case of actors or comedians, its probably of them talking.
2. Remove the audio from the clip. There’s no need to hear what made these people worth having a tribute film about them. We’ll trust that whatever they were saying was awesome.
3. Find suitable background music. Anything classier than Celine Dion is not permitted. The singer should be female, but talent is not of great importance.
4. Edit the clips together. For best results, watch all the other tribute films you can find and copy them as closely as possible. Long dissolves are encouraged, but not necessary.
5. Upload to YouTube.
But I digress. It seems that the best fodder for remix art is content that carries its own meaning\identity with the general public. This allows the artist to easily contrast the “standard” view of the art with the new context being created for it. All mediums are open to remix art, though in different ways. In text, fan fiction is a sort of remix art, as Jenkins talked about in Convergence Culture. For music, there is always the “techno-remix” of a song as well as mixing several songs together to create something new. In the weeks after 9/11, there was a song that was remixed with first hand accounts of the attacks, as well as our wise president reassuring the American people that the evildoers who attacked us (and that tricksy Saddam) would pay. In film\tv, there is the dreaded tribute video, as well as imaginative re-edits of scenes or even entire films.
Some examples:
The dreaded YouTube tribute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY6jm0RzlpA
A techno-remix that makes me want to die: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12J-zDqgf0
God Bless The USA remix (with video now): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12J-zDqgf0
I think Lethem’s argument that remixing/influence/”plagiarism” is in some sense fundamental to cultural works makes a strong case for remixing as an art form. One of the powers of remixing is that it allows artistic expression purely through contrast and juxtaposition; an artist need not necessarily be familiar with the grammar and conventions of the remixed art form (be it film, television, music, etc.) in order to make an expressive statement about some aspect or particular example of that form. While the “content” of a remix may not be original in the sense that it comes from another work, the particular form of a certain remix (editing, sequence, juxtaposition, contrast, and the like) is invariable original, and that fact is the absolute least that can be said about the remix. Questions about whether a remix can be “art,” I think, are subject to the same kinds of questions we ask about literature, film, and visual art, and these forms are likewise dependent in some way or another on the content and ideas of other artists.
With regard to the question of “intellectual property”: while I personally believe that in a purely philosophical sense, an individual creator (not a corporation) has the right to any work they produce until the day they die (and not a day after that), in a practical sense they are doing their work a great disservice if they do not release it to the public for consumption and “remixing” after a reasonable period of time. Boyle makes this point fairly well in his lecture; music corporations alienate their consumers through the RIAA, and software designers stifle the potential success of their products by not allowing modification of source code. Businesses scream about their right to a “free market,” but more often than not, they control that market for their own benefit.
Also, a slight side note: I loved Jenkins’s book, but those “side-columns” (see pp 38-41) in the margins were extremely annoying. I don’t know if Jenkins was going for some kind of intertextual/hypertext thing, but it absolutely didn’t work in the medium of the book. I found myself really irked that I couldn’t simply read the book page-to-page and cover-to-cover as I had to constantly go back a few pages to get what I had missed. I suppose that says something about how we have been trained to consume certain media.
The remix can most assuredly be an art form. I have come to accept a definition of art as the act of framing. By this I mean art is at its most basic form the action of the artists saying it is art. Melissa’s example of the 1917 urinal serves as a good illustration of this phenomenon.
But where to classify the remix? Is it a genre in and of itself or is it part of the genre it samples from? For the most part, remixes fall into the category of a new genre. When hip-hop producers sample frrom R & B songs they are creating a different kind of music: hip-hop. Similarly when Will.I.Am remixed Barack Obama’s speech he was creating something new and different: a music video.
This is not to say that all remixes create the same genre. There are huge differences between Girl Talk and the “No” video someone posted to this blog.
In my opinion, remixes (at least successful ones) are very creative. The way hip-hop producers sample beats can be absolute genious. I think of how Blue Scholars sampled Modest Mouse’s “Float On” as an example of this. That being said, there is definitely something lacking in many remixes: material is being appropriated so it is by no means an inidividualized form of art. There is a reason amateur hip-hop artists sample from other songs: I doubt they could compose or record this music.
The media that are best suited for remixes are digital music and digital video. Free technology (that we are using in this class) makes it very easy to remix this mediums.
I firmly believe that creativity is as deeply rooted in experience as these authors suggest, if not always in the creative works of others. The intellectual gene pool, as it were, consists of actual events as much as wording or expression used by precedent creators. The issue seems to lie in where ownership stands in all this, that fundamental nine-tenths of the sometimes-law that determines creative rights and privileges. Each of our readings preaches our growing ineptitude at controlling creative media effectively and fairly, with ‘balance’ as the answer.
I seem to have a lot of experience with a limited scope of remix media, which would probably bore you all to tears. Most of this is in the realm of fanfiction and fanart; fictional stories and art based on an existing work by other authors and artists. In general, it is considered poor form not to disclaim your work at the beginning of each chapter, that is do say, for example, “I do not own the rights to Transformers nor do I profit from this work in any way.” On the largest fanfiction archive I am aware of, fanfiction.net, you may receive warnings or have stories removed if, not usually for failing to disclaim, but if you imply that your work is original or you solicit payment of some kind.
I recently observed an interesting event concerning creative rights in this medium, and while I find it riveting it probably won’t be very interesting for many of you. Too bad, I suppose. A fan-artist on an art-sharing website, http://shylight.deviantart.com/, creates funny little flash animations based on the old Transformers cartoon. She invented a small character of her own who went through a series of extremely unfortunate, original scenarios in these animations. She later found a fanfiction on the site I post on which was exactly and in elaborate detail, her animation put to keyboard. She spoke with the author and they agreed to remove it without a fuss, but it leaves some interesting questions. In this instance I would not hesitate to support her claim of ownership of this material, but where do we draw the line? What if someone created a song based on the animation, or, heaven forbid, an interpretive dance? These translations of media are somewhat ill-conceived and far-fetched, but the questions still remain.
…If you actually /want/ to take a look at fanfiction, be careful. A lot of it is really, as we say on the web, O_O. Mine is here; http://www.fanfiction.net/~obliviondragon and is pretty darn tame.
And since we’re on the topic of robots, why don’t I give you an AMV? Animated Music Videos are a pretty common form of remix media, I think. This one is pure silliness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kc2hIXCREk
I love remixes, and remixing, and anything to do with a remix. I believe that this world, our world, is so fuct up and that anything created, whether original or remixed/remade/recreated, is to be considered art. For example, take the word that I created in the past sentence (fuct) and consider how I remixed it from the original word, “fucked” (excuse my french)… now that’s what makes me a present day artist.
So, to discuss the example that Melissa brought up, Girl Talk, I have to say that I disagree with her claim that mash-ups are “disrespectful” to the original work. I love his work and every single song that he makes, and I believe that remixing brings people back to the original works and teaches them something new that he/she never knew before, like we discussed in class about The Grey Album by Dj Danger Mouse. Girl Talk’s work brings people together from all different backgrounds of music just because of the wide variety of music that he uses.
According to Jenkins, “Convergence… occurs when people take media in their own hands. Entertainment content isn’t the only thing that flows across multiple media platforms. Our lives, relationships, memories, fantasies, desires also flow across media channels.” I agree with this quote from Jenkins and feel that media convergence can also be the outcome of remixes. Since media convergence is the change of media through different mediums, a remix may help accomplish that by remixing an original work in one medium and portraying it in another. Also, a remix of a certain work within the same medium can be created, like a video remix posted on Youtube of a previously posted video on Youtube.
An example that appeals to me, like The Grey Album by Dj Danger Mouse, is the remix of the song “Day N Night” by the artist Kid Cudi, with the remix done by Crookers.
What happens here is that an original hip-hop song (by Kid Cudi) was used and remixed into an electronic song (by Crookers)…
Here’s the link for download: http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Kid_Cudi/download/Day_N_Nite_Crookers_Remix