Remix Studies

Since the 1980s, it's hard to think about pop music without considering the «cut-and-paste» method of sampling. Without a recognisable loss of quality, the digital technology of samplers enabled to copy fragments out of existing media material such as music, film and tv, or out of (pre-recorded) field recordings. Taking this cultural technique, hip hop, drum'n'bass, and various genres of electronic pop music emerged as new forms of musical expression. And with them new styles of producing, and new strategies of citing and referring to other people's works, musical eras, cultural contexts, and spatial configurations have arisen. Mash-ups, remixes, edits, dj-mixes, cut-ups, collages and others can be seen as specific forms of this culture. Through sampling as an intertextual practice, musicians and producers are commenting, deconstructing, and reframing meaning. Thus, we consider sampling as a double-sided phenomenon in both music production and methodological knowledge production. Today, the technology of sampling is not only accessible to professionals but also to a wide range of people with amateurish backgrounds. With platforms such as YouTube, Soundcloud, and others it is quite easy both to gain new musical material to sample from and to publish new tracks reaching audiences distributed across the globe. On the level of production, music production software is available to many individuals globally at – at least in the case of cracked software – almost no charge. Finally, DIY approaches in music production and the practice of so called «bedroom producing» are widely spread. We also observe that the dissemination of sample-based pop music caused new practices with heterogenous actors, for instance the practice of clearing samples with attorneys. It also heated discourses centred around legal and economic problems as well as ethical debates around musical creativity, the problem of individual authorship and the appropriation of other people's intellectual property or cultural codes, meaning and traditions. Today, producing, performing, publishing and exploiting of sample-based pop music are framed by these different cultural, technological, legal, and economic conditions that shape the aesthetics of sample-based pop music and vice versa. With these developments in mind, we seek to organize a multidisciplinary workshop that focuses the analysis of sampling practices. The aim is to discuss the musical structures of sample-based tracks with special regard to their embeddedness into specific social conditions and cultural contexts. For this purpose the workshop is ought to address the following questions:

ABSTRACT
Problem, research strategy, and findings: When Arnstein created the ladder of participation, local
gov-
ernments engaged predominately urban African-American neighborhoods through federally funded pro-
grams. Fifty years later, preservationists and heritage conservationists pursuing participatory
engagement
models in these communities find sustaining interest difficult. Absent from planning literature is
guidance
on how to ensure grassroots preservationists of color retain control during engagement. In this
study we
ask practitioners and scholars to consider the optimum approach to researching or preservation
planning
in this context. Through participatory action and ethnographic research, one of us (Roberts) helped
design a hybrid forum-style symposium dedicated to preserving historic Black settlement heritage.
As a
researcher and symposium co-planner, I documented local preservation knowledge using questionnaires
and performative storytelling while helping descendants of historic African-American settlements
identify
shared priorities and challenges. Findings suggest action researchers and preservationists must
“remix”
roles and the rungs of Arnstein’s ladder of participation to sustain and center stakeholder
involvement
when planning with marginalized communities. Remixing consists of strategically sampling, looping,
and
layering promising local knowledge with that of experts to support citizen-centered preservation
plan-
ning. By centering culturally informed planning approaches and negotiating with stakeholders,
professio-
nals can create the conditions for participation that support sustained involvement. Symposium co-
organizing and data collection catalyzed the ethical coproduction of knowledge and fostered ongoing
research and collaborative projects after study completion.
Takeaway for practice: Remixing as praxis offers a framework for engaged preservation and heritage
conservation that reinforces citizen empowerment through identification and application of
innovative
practices rooted in local knowledge. Identifying local practices that foster attachment and break
down
the hierarchy between expert and grassroots practitioners is essential to achieving praxis.

#Musica_Dispersa
Rubén López Cano
Editorial: Musikeon Books (Barcelona)
Año de publicación. 2018
ISBN:  978-84-945117-1-4
http://rlopezcano.blogspot.com.es/2018/04/musica-dispersa-apropiacion-influencias.html

Palabras clave:
Identidad y modos de existencia de las piezas musicales. Apropiación. Reciclaje musical. Intertextualidad. Préstamos e influencia. Reutilización. Plagio. Música grabada. Autenticidad y discursos de legitimación. Covers y versiones. Remix. Sampleo. Mashup. Memes musicales. Escucha digital. Pacto perceptual.

Citas, alusiones, paráfrasis, apropiaciones, collages, arreglos, adaptaciones, covers, versiones, sampleos, remixes y memes; son formas de revisitar músicas preexistentes, apropiarse de algunos de sus elementos y reutilizarlos legítimamente o no, para producir más música. De Hildegard von Bingen a Dj Danger Mouse, todas las culturas musicales de todas las épocas han empleado estos recursos. Pero mientras sus procedimientos son unos cuantos y no han cambiado mucho a lo largo de la historia, su valoración y relación con ideales estéticos, principios legales y discursos de autenticidad y legitimidad artística, se han transformado radicalmente. Si para los compositores de las cortes de Aviñón o Milán del siglo XIV y XV citar ingeniosamente una y otra vez las canciones de los grandes maestros del pasado era un valor estético en sí mismo que les reportaba reconocimiento y prestigio, con las leyes de propiedad intelectual actuales, Beethoven, Schubert o Brahms no serían más que delincuentes comunes.

La escucha digital no se limita a la portabilidad, ubicuidad y recuperación inmediata de nuestros contenidos privados. Es también el acceso súbito, nunca antes visto, a una inconmensurable cantidad de músicas de tiempos y espacios distantes y dispersos. Es la posibilidad de la escucha en serie, casi simultánea, de varias interpretaciones, arreglos, versiones y variantes de la misma pieza y la percepción directa de parecidos y coincidencias entre músicas distintas cuya detección solía ser prerrogativa exclusiva de especialistas. Navegar por la red en busca de la canción, versión o interpretación adecuada, nos revela hasta qué punto las nociones de innovación y originalidad, la creación exnovo, el genio solitario que crea un universo personal sin deudas con su pasado o su entorno inmediato, constituye un ideal que a menudo colisiona con las prácticas reales.

Música dispersa muestra que la creación musical es menos una epifanía y más una conversación infinita entre creadores de todos los tiempos quienes con sus intercambios, apropiaciones y repeticiones, vertebran su propia civilización musical dotando de significado nuestras experiencias auditivas. Nos lleva de la mano por los entresijos de diversos procesos y registros de reciclaje; analiza críticamente los discursos de autenticidad que han mediado en nuestra relación con lo musical desde el papiro hasta el iPad o el móvil; detalla los diversos pactos perceptuales implícitos con los que "disculpamos" nuestros placeres con la música grabada; pasa lista a los vanos intentos por reducir la música a objetos cerrados, concluidos y completos y manejables; y propone que el desafío mayor de la reciente remezcla y reciclaje digital no es su aparente saqueo indiscriminado del descomunal archivo musical atesorado en dos mil años y que ahora parece que se nos viene encima, sino su diáfana capacidad para mostrarnos que la música es un fluir indómito cuyo poder y originalidad está mucho menos afincado en su materia física, sus estructuras o componentes, o incluso en la genialidad inconmensurable de creadores, compositores, productores y postproductores. Su valor emana fundamentalmente de nuestra íntima historia personal con cada pieza, obra o canción.

Remix games are like remix videos, remix music, or remix images in that they are primarily comprised of sampled content. As a working definition, for the purposes of this chapter, remix games may be understood as games that are composed of previously published media elements, which have been appropriated, repurposed, and reconfigured in the creation of a new work that communicates different messages and meanings than the source material. This chapter has shown, the adoption of games as tools in digital humanities scholarship has been gradually increasing over the past decade, to the point where games have almost become an accepted form of academic publication in their own right. Finally, through a sample of global examples, this chapter highlights how remix games can be used to support existing practices within digital humanities scholarship, such as visualization, digital archiving, innovative pedagogy, and virtual simulation, while potentially enabling a range of new ones.

Il volume propone molteplici percorsi nei prodotti mediali contemporanei tra film e serie televisive, trailer e web partecipativo, opere di videoarte. Teorie e metodologie della sociosemiotica testuale dei media sono declinate come semiotica del sensibile e dell'esperienza, soffermandosi in particolare sulle figure legate alle corporeità e agli oggetti tecnologici. Vengono indagate, ad esempio, le trasformazioni narrative e discorsive portate nei film dai telefoni cellulari, o le invenzioni figurative degli oggetti che popolano i film di fantascienza. La sociosemiotica dei media diventa uno strumento per analizzare le "passioni sensibili" del contagio e dell'abitudine nella letteratura e nel cinema, oppure i regimi percettivi alterati nei racconti delle esperienze tossiche. Le analisi dei trailer cinematografici si aprono alle pratiche ludiche della rete e alle forme ibride di remix e fake trailer, accanto alle complesse saghe intermediali del Cremaster Cycle di Matthew Barney, o, invece, a serialità più canoniche come la prima stagione del Dr. House. Narratività, sensorialità e passioni, corpi e oggetti, entrano così a far parte di più ampi regimi di senso, e di logiche del sensibile, che intessono le diverse testualità del cinema e dei media dell'era digitale.

O desejo de estabelecer correspondências entre som e imagem vem intrigando e suscitando inúmeros questionamentos e analogias há séculos. Esta pesquisa visa levantar questões relativas ao sonoro e ao visual, discutir a prática dos mashups enquanto estética própria, e sugerir uma reflexão sobre a cultura remix da qual emerge. Copiar, cortar ou colar agora são ações intrínsecas ao cotidiano do ciberespaço, em que a recombinação da informação evidencia-se como prática usual. Nesse contexto, questões referentes à colaboração, interação e autoria, assim como a conceitualização da prática, sustentam-se a partir dos estudos de Lev Manovich e Lúcia Santaella. Essa conceitualização é fundamentada na maleabilidade do código binário e na transposição de um meio a outro. Constata-se que o processo formador do mashup, baseado na fórmula “a+b=c”, ou seja, na combinação de duas ou mais fontes para formação de algo novo, é o mesmo adotado nos diferentes períodos da história, variando apenas na forma e no relacionamento entre os conceitos antecessores às tecnologias e mídias emergentes. Partindo desta premissa, tentamos identificar e conceituar a estética do mashup. Para tanto, foram elaboradas quatro etapas. Na primeira, um levantamento histórico, baseado principalmente na “obra de arte total” proposta por Wagner e no “efeito Kuleshov”. O conceito é discutido na segunda etapa, a partir de textos de Eisenstein e do movimento da Música Visual. Na terceira, associamos a dimensão visual da música aos aspectos relacionados à linguagem hipertextual dos meios digitais. E, por fim, com o objetivo de dar visibilidade a essa tendência contemporânea, examinamos, como objeto de estudo, o álbum-mashup virtual “Thru You”,do músico Kutiman, onde “o que você vê é o que você ouve”.

Palavras-chave: a+b=c; Remix; Mashup

The desire to establish correspondences between sound and image has been intriguing and bringing up several issues and analogies for ages. This research aims to raise questions related to sound and visual fields, discuss the practice of mashups as a particular aesthetics and propose a reflection about the remix culture from where it comes from. Coping, cutting and pasting are nowadays intrinsic actions of cyberspace where recombining information has become an usual practice. In this context, questions related to collaboration, interaction and copyright, as well as the conceptualization of the practice are supported by the studies  of Lev  Manovich  and Lúcia  Santaella. This concept is  based on  the malleability of the binary code and on the conversion of one media into another. It was realized that the mashup forming process, based on the formula a+b=c, in which the combination of two or more sources generates something new, is the same that has been being adopted throughout human history, varying only in form and in the relation between the concepts that precede the emerging media and technologies. Based on this premise, we tried to identify and form a concept of the mashup aesthetics. Therefore, four stages were elaborated. In the first one, a historical approach based mainly on the Gesamtkunstwerk proposed by Wagner and on the Kuleshov effect. The concept is discussed in the second stage having as a starting point texts by Eisenstein and the scene of Visual Music. In the third, we associate the visual dimension of the music to the aspects related to the hypertextual language of the digital media. And finally, aiming to give visibility to that Contemporary trend, as study object we examined the virtual mashup-album “Thru You” by the musician Kutiman, in which “what you see is what you hear”.

Keywords: a+b=c; Remix; Mashup

Mixing and mastering music for sales is a highly important part of one's music career, whether you are just starting out of a garage, or you are a mega superstar and million album seller. Without quality mixes and complete control of the listener's experience, you can set yourself up as looking unprofessional while also compromising the integrity of the music.

If you want to know how to get the best possible sound for your music, then you have options. You could invest in expensive mixing and mastering services and put in the extra time yourself - that's after, writing, performing and editing tracks - or you could turn it over to someone, who knows what they are doing.

Critical Remix Video (CRV) has become a potentially powerful and persuasive alternative to mainstream commercial advertising. Many producers of such work seek to convince audiences that dominant media messages communicate inherently false ideological meanings by exposing contradictions and hypocrisies in these messages. However, CRVs themselves communicate equally contradictory ideological meanings in employing techniques of media manipulation, deception and censorship in their design. This study interrogates and deconstructs the visual signs in CRVs and explores the role and influence of ideology in the construction of meanings communicated to online audiences by such work. The findings of this inquiry should increase our understanding of how CRVs are constructed and why they are produced and enable future producers to improve the efficacy of subsequent iterations by revealing the inherent weaknesses in the current state of the art. A visual semiotic analysis of a representative sample of CRVs was carried out which found that in the process of unmasking the ideology in the subject of its critique, each CRV formulated a counter-ideology and made truth-claims that are equally susceptible to subsequent critique. Inadvertently, CRVs enable us to see more clearly that claims to truth, whether received through mainstream or alternative channels, cannot be accepted at face value and must be critically evaluated and considered in relation to the relative positions of the senders and receivers of the messages. Despite such dilemmas, CRVs represent an authentic opportunity for grassroots activist filmmakers to have their voices heard on a global stage, utilizing the full potential of digital networking and mobile technologies as well as spreadable media content and online distribution platforms.

This special issue of Media-N on contemporary approaches to remix was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” a recurring point of reference in the development of media culture. Prior to terms such as new media, digital art, media art, and remix, Borges’s narrative exploration of bifurcation as a means of reflecting on the possibility of multiple simultaneous realities with no clear beginning or end has offered a literary and philosophical model for creative uses of emerging technology throughout the twentieth century. The essays included in this special issue provide a glimpse into the relation of Borgesian multiplicity and remix as an interdisciplinary methodology.    Cover image: Jennifer and Rebecca Gallagher, Parker and Martin Lester, and Oscar and Oliver Navas-Mendoza. Composition remixed by Owen Gallagher, xtine burrough, Eduardo Navas.

Remix is now considered by many to be a form of derivative work, but such generalizations have resulted in numerous non-commercial remixes being wrongfully accused of copyright infringement. Gallagher argues that remix is a fundamentally transformative practice. The assumption that cultural works should be considered a form of private property is called into question in the digital age; thus, he proposes an alternative system to balance the economic interests of cultural producers with the ability of the public to engage with a growing intellectual commons of cultural works. Multimodal analyses of both remixed and non-remixed intertextual work, with a particular focus on examples of critical remix video, fuel the discussion, synthesizing a number of investigative methods including semiotic, rhetorical and ideological analysis. Author: Owen Gallagher (Routledge, 2017)

https://www.routledge.com/Reclaiming-Critical-Remix-Video-The-Role-of-Sampling-in-Transformative/Gallagher/p/book/9781138285262

This essay explores the ways that rhetoric and remix have similar communicative purposes. By using rhetorical tools amplificatio and diminutio, both rhetoric and remix magnify or minimize particular elements of their respective texts in order to best persuade the audience. To explore this process, I conduct an analysis of the remixed video clip "Debate Night" by the creators of the popular YouTube channel Bad Lip Reading. This 2016 video features footage of two presidential candidates engaged in the first presidential debate, however it has been recontextualized as a fictional game show. This political remix is an example of diminutio, and particularly the rhetorical figure of tapinosis, because its remixed incarnation diminishes the overall importance of the original text and emphasizes the ambiguous separation between politics and entertainment. In essence, this analysis demonstrates how remix and rhetoric illuminate each other. Having an understanding of rhetoric helps us analyze remix to discover the ideologies behind the content, even for supposedly meaningless content like online entertainment. Likewise, having an understanding of remix helps us see innovative ways to use rhetorical principles to make sense of our media-saturated world.

Yoko Ono is unusual in that she is a site of considerable activity in three distinct spaces where the term “remix” is in common use. This paper reviews her activity in these distinct remix spaces and examines the spaces for identifiable variations in the term’s resonances and meaning. First, the “here” of academia reflects academic conversations about remix and remix cultures that can be traced back to the mid 1990s. The second site is the site in which the general public first encountered the term “remix”— the “there” of music and music production. Within this space we pursue the shift from remix as a purely technical term occurring within the recording process to remix as an aesthetic term reflecting expanding and shifting aspirations for the composer of a remix. Finally, this paper will consider the “everywhere” of an Internet-based popular culture grounded in current social media.

Contrary to common perception, remix is not a new or strictly technological practice. Rather, it is a communicative process that shares common objectives with classical rhetoric. Remix bridges pre-modern and postmodern eras through its use of sampling, imitatio, kairos, and invention in the cultural production of texts. In this essay, I discuss the rhetorical antecedents to remix, represented by the classical rhetorician Isocrates. I conclude by analyzing a mashup by the remix artist Girl Talk, and isolate elements of Isocratic rhetoric located therein to showcase how classical rhetorical theories can shed light on the contemporary practice of remix.

Remediation broadly refers to the representation of one medium within another medium, often, in practice, leading to the incorporation of the ‘old’ into the ‘new’. This process can occur in a number of different ways, from the faithful adaptation or translation of a text into another media form, to the improvement, refashioning, absorption or repurposing of content into a more advanced technological state. This can have the effect of causing the medium of consumption to become either more transparent or more opaque, highlighting its relative immediacy or hypermediacy, respectively.

The theory of remediation is important within the sphere of citizen media because non-affiliated citizens are increasingly expressing themselves publicly using remediated content such as remixes, memes, mashups and bricolage. The figure of the independent remixer or meme-artist has become representative of a cultural desire to ‘talk back’ to the media, to politicians and big business, to highlight injustices, expose irresponsible behaviour and engage in various forms of socio-political action, potentially inspiring real change.

This entry considers the role of remediation in citizen media, focusing on a number of relevant examples and case studies from the past decade where newer forms of remix have been used to engage in political discourse or support social action. For example, critical remix video has emerged as an extremely potent form of citizen media production through its remediation of existing source material in order to critically engage with ideological biases and highlight perceived wrongs. The Cambridge Dictionary offers an alternative definition of remediation as “the process of improving or correcting a situation”, which, as this entry shows, is precisely what citizen-engaged remix aims to do.

https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Encyclopedia-of-Citizen-Media/Baker-Blaagaard-Jones-Perez-Gonzalez/p/book/9781138665569

The theory and practice of sound recording, from at least the moment of the invention of the phonograph, has been groping toward "simulation" and the "hyperreal" even if these words are not used as such or, when used, are employed in a way that is not entirely faithful to or even cognizant of Baudrillard's writing.  Conversely Baudrillard's texts from at least Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976) to the recent interviews collected in Fragments: Conversations With François L’Yvonnet (2001), whether explicitly acknowledged or not, articulate and provide a vocabulary for explaining, perhaps better than any competing theoretical lexicon, developments in sound recording.  To put it another way, Baudrillard is one of the most attentive theorists to sound and sound reproduction, without saying much about it and without the music industry or contemporary theorists recognizing it as such.

EN:
This is my final paper for my BA in audiovisual studies (Audiovisual Higher Education Course) at University of São Paulo / School of Communications and Arts / Department of Film, Radio and Television (CTR-ECA-USP).

Abstract
Videolatry: the user between reality and audiovisual realism in the Internet age

Given the exponential growth of possibilities in video communication and the blurring border between viewer and producer, this paper presents some issues that arise from these changes. Focusing centrally on the concepts of idolatry and dialogue, it courses through examples of contemporary audiovisual productions to introduce established theories about video in the present and in the future. The study is centered on YouTube, given the moment of its emergence and its current relevance in the streaming scenario. Some phenomena are observed, such as a difficulty in discerning reality and fiction, a transformation of idol worship, and a renewed viewer paradigm with the introduction of artificial intelligence to video. Observing the ontologically narrative characteristic of video, the Brechtian epic is called into question. Finally, facing the concept of remix, some paths for creativity are presented.

Keywords: video, digital television, YouTube, artificial intelligences, idolatry, dialogue, remix, epic, Brecht, hyper-inclusion.

PT-BR:
Essa é minha monografia, entregue como requisito para obtenção do título de Bacharel em Audiovisual pelo Departamento de Cinema, Rádio e Televisão da Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo.

Resumo
Videolatria: o usuário entre a realidade e o realismo audiovisual na era da Internet

Diante do crescimento exponencial nas possibilidades de comunicação em vídeo e da borra da fronteira entre espectador e produtor, o trabalho apresenta algumas problemáticas que surgem dessas mudanças. Baseado centralmente nos conceitos de idolatria e diálogo, percorre exemplos de produções audiovisuais contemporâneas para introduzir teorizações sobre o vídeo no presente e no futuro. O YouTube é escolhido como principal veículo nesse estudo, diante do momento de seu surgimento e de sua relevância atual no cenário do streaming. Observam-se alguns fenômenos como a dificuldade em discernir realidade e ficção, a transformação do culto aos ídolos e um renovado estatuto do espectador diante da introdução das inteligências artificiais no vídeo. Observando-se o caráter ontologicamente narrativo do vídeo, o épico brechtiano é colocado em questão. Por fim, são apresentados alguns caminhos criativos diante da ideia do remix.

Palavras chave: video, televisão digital, YouTube, inteligências artificiais, idolatria, diálogo, remix, épico, Brecht, hiperinclusão.

This special issue of Media-N on contemporary approaches to remix was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” a recurring point of reference in the development of media culture. Prior to terms such as new media, digital art, media art, and remix, Borges’s narrative exploration of bifurcation as a means of reflecting on the possibility of multiple simultaneous realities with no clear beginning or end has offered a literary and philosophical model for creative uses of emerging technology throughout the twentieth century. The essays included in this special issue provide a glimpse into the relation of Borgesian multiplicity and remix as an interdisciplinary methodology.    Cover image: Jennifer and Rebecca Gallagher, Parker and Martin Lester, and Oscar and Oliver Navas-Mendoza. Composition remixed by Owen Gallagher, xtine burrough, Eduardo Navas.

This special issue of Media-N on contemporary approaches to remix was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” a recurring point of reference in the development of media culture. 1 Prior to terms such as new media, digital art, media art, and remix, Borges’s narrative exploration of bifurcation as a means of reflecting on the possibility of multiple simultaneous realities with no clear beginning or end has offered a literary and philosophical model for creative uses of emerging technology throughout the twentieth century. The essays included in this special issue provide a glimpse into the relation of Borgesian multiplicity and remix as an interdisciplinary methodology. https://iopn.library.illinois.edu/journals/median/issue/view/88

In this article I analyze the cover version as a specific form of copying
in music recording and performance, and then evaluate it as a cultural variable that is part of the creative process in remix practice. This analysis demonstrates that cover versions, versioning, editing, sampling, and remixing are dependent on copying and, for this reason, my eventual focus is on the relation of copies to originals and copies to copies. Another important element examined throughout the essay is the role of selectivity in the creative process as a foundational principle of communication and how it shapes varying popular and individualized assumptions about definitions of originals and copies.

Fan edits are essentially unauthorized alternative versions of films made by fans. Unlike traditional film editing, which is characterized by a new assemblage of original film or video content, fan editing is a form of recombinant filmmaking that reactivates existing arrangements of audiovisual material. Fan edits are noncommercial transformative works that illustrate the mutability of digital cinema as well as the potential for new media artists, experimental filmmakers, and diverse critical voices to emerge from a networked public.

The Phantom Edit (2000) is a seminal fan edit based on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) that established a model of production and distribution for fan edits. As a central research problem, this study recognizes that the failure of previous scholarship to account accurately for the history of The Phantom Edit, as well as an evident lack of close engagement with contemporary fan edits, have hindered the ability of scholars to grapple with significant developments in fan edit culture. In general, film and media studies have failed to account for both The Phantom Edit and nearly two decades of progressive work.

This study builds upon the limits of previous scholarship in order to illustrate a historical trajectory of fan editing from The Phantom Edit to its more diverse present state, which is exemplified by Raising Cain: Re-cut (2012), a fan edit based on Raising Cain (1992) that was eventually endorsed by Brian De Palma and sold as the official director’s cut. Furthermore, this study examines practical trends of fan edits and effective means of classification. Combining archival research, interviews, practical fan editing experience, and textual analysis of fan edits collected over several years of participation in the fan editing community, this study offers a foundation of knowledge about the technology, legal contexts, and cultural practice of fan edits.

PDF full text available: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/26032

This research paper examines 21st century Internet and media cultures, with specific focus on remix video, participatory culture, and media literacy.

This paper received First Class Honors at Trinity College, Dublin.
Vanessa graduated with Distinction in B.A. English Literature and Media Studies.

A fan edit can generally be defined as an alternative version of a film or television text created by a fan. It offers a different viewing experience, much as a song remix offers a different listening experience. The contemporary wave of fan edits has emerged during the remix zeitgeist of digital media and at a time when digital video editing technology has become more affordable and popular. The increasing number of alternative versions of films and the works of revisionist Hollywood filmmakers such as George Lucas have contributed to a greater public understanding of cinema as a fluid medium instead of one that exists in a fixed form. The Phantom Edit (2000), a seminal fan edit based on Lucas's Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), inspired new ranks of fan editors. However, critics have misunderstood fan edits as merely the work of disgruntled fans. In order to provide a critical and historical basis for studies in fan editing as a creative practice, I examine previous interpretations of fan edits in the context of relevant contemporary works, and I use an annotated chronology of The Phantom Edit to trace its influence on subsequent fan editing communities and uncover their relationship with intellectual property disputes.

Full text available: https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/575

Notes and addenda: https://wille.tv/2014/09/22/fan-edits-and-the-legacy-of-the-phantom-edit/

Conference Theme: BETWEEN THE LOCAL AND GLOBAL: REPRESENTATIONS OF MAINSTREAM AND MARGINAL IN CONTEMPORARY CINEMA

Conference Stream: Films and Digital Distribution / The Aesthetics of Cinema and Other Media Technologies

Abstract: The antithesis of originality is collectively represented by the most successful mainstream movies and video games published over the past five years. Reboots, remakes, sequels, prequels and franchise spin-offs have consistently populated box-office results, Nielsen ratings and NPD reports year-on-year, pushing genuinely original and innovative content to the margins. Familiarity and nostalgia have become best-sellers. The film and video game industries are each valued in excess of $130 billion, as they continue to churn out Hollywood blockbusters and AAA game titles for the latest consoles. These high cost, high-risk ventures require substantial time, effort, money and talent to produce, so perhaps it is not surprising that studios are betting on safe, familiar source material with already established audiences and a built-in fan-base.

However, it is what such fans do with this content that is perhaps more interesting than the content itself. Intertextual mainstream success stories like Spielberg’s Ready Player One, Netflix’s Bandersnatch and LEGO: Dimensions inspire amateur online producers to create countless remix videos, political parodies, memes, mashups, critical reviews, reaction videos, and fan films (to name a few), which proliferate on video sharing platforms and social media networks, triggering a kind of cultural feedback loop between mainstream and marginal producers.

This paper considers the aesthetic influence of remix culture on mainstream film and game production by analysing a number of fan-made videos that use highly successful intertextual films and games as source material, which themselves are already based on pre-existing content. Pertinent questions of authorship and originality are examined in relation to copyright concerns and the legal status of unauthorised fan films. Remixers, meme makers and YouTubers  are like a mirror to mainstream culture, which has now become the uroboros snake devouring its own tail. In 2019 and beyond, culture continues its endless cycle of reproduction and self-consumption—rinse, recycle, remix, repeat—ad infinitum.

Corposcopio is a collaborative project that integrates two different worlds or territories: circle dances and new media technologies. Ancient circle dances are cultural manifestations present in different countries around the world. They have a great power of community integration and provide a unique experience of extended consciousness. In Brazil there are a number of amazing circle dances and one of the most popular is called ciranda, whose movements are inspired by sea waves. Ciranda is performed by hundreds of people and some participants fall into a trance. The purpose of the interactive performance is to stimulate, simultaneously, the perception of the media in contemporary reality and the collective body emergence. Corposcopio invites the participants to experience some circle dances and aggregates real-time image manipulation, software art, VJ and remix aesthetics. The transparent, ubiquitous and pervasive presence of computer systems in contemporary spaces is a quotidian fact. Nevertheless, the emergence of digital communities demonstrated the power of the human factor in the disruptive use of technologies. Human beings are social beings. Our depart point is to invite the participants to dance within the scenery of real-time image manipulation, ubiquitous computing and mixed reality. The performance itself deals with co-creation development and uncertainty. Each performance has peculiar characteristics hence it is an open system, open to receive the group interaction and participation. The experience stimulates an extended consciousness, a simultaneous perception of the individual body and the collective body. Our hypothesis is that each group will catalyze the emergence of an embodied consciousness of our mediated situation in a different way. As Bernhard Wosien (1988), one of the pioneer researchers on circle dance, has said, dance is a path to totality. In Wosien's view, circle dance has deep ritual characteristics and evokes a tremendous collective enthusiasm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_C2ofoVbk

A video review of This is Not a Remix: Piracy, Authenticity and Popular Music by Margie Borschke

Reviewed by Owen Gallagher

Book publisher’s website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/this-is-not-a-remix-9781501318948/

This special issue of Media-N on contemporary approaches to remix was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” a recurring point of reference in the development of media culture. Prior to terms such as new media, digital art, media art, and remix, Borges’s narrative exploration of bifurcation as a means of reflecting on the possibility of multiple simultaneous realities with no clear beginning or end has offered a literary and philosophical model for creative uses of emerging technology throughout the twentieth century. The essays included in this special issue provide a glimpse into the relation of Borgesian multiplicity and remix as an interdisciplinary methodology.    Cover image: Jennifer and Rebecca Gallagher, Parker and Martin Lester, and Oscar and Oliver Navas-Mendoza. Composition remixed by Owen Gallagher, xtine burrough, Eduardo Navas.

This special issue of Media-N on contemporary approaches to remix was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” a recurring point of reference in the development of media culture. 1 Prior to terms such as new media, digital art, media art, and remix, Borges’s narrative exploration of bifurcation as a means of reflecting on the possibility of multiple simultaneous realities with no clear beginning or end has offered a literary and philosophical model for creative uses of emerging technology throughout the twentieth century. The essays included in this special issue provide a glimpse into the relation of Borgesian multiplicity and remix as an interdisciplinary methodology. https://iopn.library.illinois.edu/journals/median/issue/view/88

In an essay for Keywords in Remix Studies (2017), Richard Rinehart notes that archives function as instruments of social and collective memory, and as the “primary sources” around which histories are based and selectively constructed. The archive exists, then, as a remixed collection of our history and cultural heritage. What this paper considers, however, is the metaphorical application of such framing in the context of religious traditions and their developments. General assumptions cast “religions” as referring to very specific cultural creations: their variations, denominations, sects, and the like pull acceptable elements from certain conceptual databases to be considered as such (i.e., “new” while still maintaining a tie to the “old”). Whether these “new” manifestations point to something static and “original” or not, an archive of source material does exist that determines what can be utilized in subsequent iterations of a “religion.”

Drawing on various thinkers within remix studies and particular concepts like “bricolage” and “restrictive remix,” this paper engages “archive” in a way that uniquely intersects with our digital age, its conceptual metaphors, and developments in cultural traditions. Demonstrating Lev Manovich’s assertion that culture’s “computerization” has affected our “reservoirs” of metaphors, this paper takes Stephen Batchelor’s work on Buddhism as its main example in considering the utility of rethinking religious traditions in terms of cultural archives: Buddhism 1.0 (the normative “operating system” and database of Buddhism, with various schools as “programs” on top of it) is placed in contrast to Batchelor’s proposed Buddhism 2.0 (a newly conceived “operating system” and database aiming to provide a more original form of Buddhism for use in newer “programs”).

"James Brown’s ‘‘I’m Real’ (1988) contains numerous lyrics regaled from James Brown’s earlier hits (including ‘Make it Funky’ (1971)) and also James Brown vocal samples from ‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine’ (1970) and ‘Get on the Good Foot’ (1972). But why sample James Brown’s voice when the man himself was in the studio recording a vocal? What purpose could it serve, especially when he was already replicating moments from previous hits? This article investigates that chronologic duality. The central questions I pose here focus on what the choice to sample himself reveals about Brown’s status as a Soul legend, and whether the contemporaneous James could sincerely live up to the mythic status he establishes lyrically. Via a detailed investigation of the song ‘I’m Real’, I will probe Brown’s playful employment of his own past. His gambit, I will argue, may be read simultaneously as testament to his own glory, and as a signifier that the excesses of egotistic auto-projection were always more distant than they first appeared to be.

This special issue of Media-N on contemporary approaches to remix was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” a recurring point of reference in the development of media culture. Prior to terms such as new media, digital art, media art, and remix, Borges’s narrative exploration of bifurcation as a means of reflecting on the possibility of multiple simultaneous realities with no clear beginning or end has offered a literary and philosophical model for creative uses of emerging technology throughout the twentieth century. The essays included in this special issue provide a glimpse into the relation of Borgesian multiplicity and remix as an interdisciplinary methodology.    Cover image: Jennifer and Rebecca Gallagher, Parker and Martin Lester, and Oscar and Oliver Navas-Mendoza. Composition remixed by Owen Gallagher, xtine burrough, Eduardo Navas.

Kopimism is a new religious movement predicated on, and revolving around, the assertion and belief that information is inherently sacred and needs to be copied and shared. Adherents to this Swedish-born religious movement have persisted in small pockets of devout communities around the world for almost a decade. This paper outlines a rudimentary and general sketch of the Kopimist worldview, its basic aims and its place within the contemporary religious landscape. In the latter part of this analysis, particular attention is given to the movement’s claim that it is not simply a sacralisation of political ideals – pirate politics, in particular – but that it maintains a distinct worldview and ethical system based on the notion that information – the foundation of everything – is itself divine. ‘Religion’ as a legitimating categorical force and the sociocultural conditions that engender new religious movements are also considered alongside the movement’s history and development.

Digital Performance in Everyday Life combines theories of performance, communication, and media to explore the many ways we perform in our everyday lives through digital media and in virtual spaces.

Digital communication technologies and the social norms and discourses that developed alongside these technologies have altered the ways we perform as and for ourselves and each other in virtual spaces. Through a diverse range of topics and examples—including discussions of self-identity, surveillance, mourning, internet memes, storytelling, ritual, political action, and activism—this book addresses how the physical and virtual have become inseparable in everyday life, and how the digital is always rooted in embodied action. Focusing on performance and human agency, the authors offer fresh perspectives on communication and digital culture.

The unique, interdisciplinary approach of this book will be useful to scholars, artists, and activists in communication, digital media, performance studies, theatre, sociology, political science, information technology, and cybersecurity—along with anyone interested in how communication shapes and is shaped by digital technologies.