User:Teemicail/Remix culture

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Intertwining of media cultures[edit]

An Apple laptop computer decorated with Creative Commons stickers and the phrase "culture is not a crime." A small black and white CC sticker is placed on the upper left back of the computer that reads "Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved."

For remix culture to survive, it must be shared and created by others. This is where participatory culture comes into play, because consumers start participating by becoming contributors, especially the many teens growing up with these media cultures. A book was published in 2013 by Henry Jenkins called "Reading in a Participatory Culture" which focuses on his technique of remixing the original story Moby-Dick to make it a new and fresh experience for students. This form of teaching enforces the correlation between participatory and remix culture while highlighting its importance in evolving literature. Remix culture can be an integral part of education. Arguably, scholars are constantly remixing when they are analyzing and reporting on the work of others. One study examined the use of remixing among students when presenting learned information. For example, students will pull images, text, and other information from various original sources and place those elements in a presentable format, such as a slide presentation, in order to demonstrate understanding of material reviewed. Media culture consumers start to look at art and content as something that can be repurposed or recreated, therefore they can become the producer. According to an article from Popular Music and Society, the idea of remix culture has become a defining characteristic of modern day technology which has incorporated all forms of digital media where the consumers are also the producers.

Effects on artists[edit]

Artists participating in remix culture can potentially suffer consequences for violating copywrite or intellectual property law. English rock band The Verve were sued over their song "Bittersweet Symphony" sampling an arraignment of The Rolling Stones' "The Last Time." The Verve were court-ordered to pay 100% of the song's royalties to The Rolling Stones' publishers and to give writing credit to Jagger and Richards.

Remix culture has created an environment that is nearly impossible for artists to have or own "original work". Media and the internet have made art so public that it leaves the work up for other interpretation and, in return, remixing. A major example of this in the 21st century is the idea of memes. Once a meme is put into cyberspace it is automatically assumed that someone else can come along and remix the picture. For example, the 1964 self-portrait created by artist René Magritte, "Le Fils De L'Homme", was remixed and recreated by street artist Ron English in his piece "Stereo Magritte". (See Memes in "Reception and Impact")

Meanwhile, despite the legal complexities of copywrite protections, remixed works continue to be popular in the mainstream. Rapper Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road," released in 2018, includes a sample by the industrial metal band Nine Inch Nails, while also blending the genres of hip-hop and country music. "Old Town Road" was a smash hit, setting a record of 19 weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. Four official remixes of "Old Town Road" were released, the first of which featured country singer Billy Ray Cyrus. This formula for genre-hybridization inspired countless unofficial remixes of the track, appropriated for various uses.

Domains of remixing

Music[edit]

• DJing is the act of live rearranging and remixing of pre-recorded music material to new compositions. From this music, the term remix spread to other domains.
• Sampling in music making is an example of reuse and remix to produce a new work. Sampling is widely popular within hip-hop culture. Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa were some of the earliest hip-hop artists to employ the practice of sampling. This practice can also be traced to artists such as Led Zeppelin, who interpolated substantial portions of music by many acts including Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Jake Holmes, and Spirit. By taking a small clip of an existing song, changing different parameters such as pitch, and incorporating it into a new piece, the artist can make it their own.
• Music mashups are blends of existing music tracks. The 2004 album dj BC presents The Beastles received acclaim and was featured in Newsweek and Rolling Stone. A second album named Let It Beast with cover art by cartoonist Josh Neufeld was produced in 2006. Mashup DJ Gregg Gillis, who performs as Girl Talk, crafts entire albums out of remixed material, and cites Fair Use privileges to sample copyrighted works. Other notable mashup DJs include Danger Mouse, Dean Gray, and DJ Earworm.

Graphic arts[edit]

• Remixing in the graphical arts is long known as appropriation. An example for appropriation in graphics is the never-ending remix of Leonardo da Vinci's piece Mona Lisa (see Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations and Derivative works of Mona Lisa). This painting has been reproduced innumerable times with different faces and Photoshop effects, such as Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. Some remixed images include Photoshopped images of the Mona Lisa mixed with Mr. Bean and an alien-like version.

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  Illustration of Shepard Fairey by David Owen Morgan, critiquing Fairey's claims of Fair Use.

  Graffiti is an example of read/write culture where the participants interact with their surroundings and environment. In much the same way that advertisements decorate walls, graffiti allows the public to choose the images to have displayed on their buildings. By using spray paint, or other mediums, the artists essentially remix and change the wall or other surface to display their twist or critique. Street art is a sub-genre of graffiti, distinguished by emphasizing artistic elements other than text, and utilizing a variety of mediums, including paint, stenciling, collage, and the incorporation of physical surfaces and objects, while often providing critical social commentary. Street artist Shepard Fairey built their personal brand on a remixed image of professional wrestler Andre the Giant, done in a Pop Art style, with the term OBEY printed beneath the portrait. Fairey applied a similar technique when designing the popular HOPE campaign poster in support of then 2008 U.S. Presidential Candidate Barack Obama. Fairey's HOPE image was also similar in composition to the iconic posterized image of Che Guevara, adapted from the photograph Guerrillero Heroico. That same image of Guevara has also been remixed by notable contemporary English graffiti artist Banksy, who adapted the pastiche in their work Haight Street Rat which depicts a rat wearing Guevara's red beret, and holding a red marker next to the words "This is where I draw the line."