Remix Theory

#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.

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

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.

The remix demonstrates that creativity is alive and well, but also under attack by corporate copyright holders trying to shut down media sharing and remixed media. Artistry now lies in how pre-existing materials are remixed and rendered new; it is through acts of transformation of the original that the remix's value is found. Artists reuse other works to reveal or transmit political messages, and not simply to re-create them. The remix is not killing narrative but instead is fostering a transformation and renaissance of creative practice, outside of the legal boundaries of copyright. The criminalization of new kinds of creative practice is a growing barrier to the remix's creative renaissance. Remix reimagines pre-existing texts, plots and genres as a way of interrogating the future of culture, via digital collaborative authorship and a distinct remix aesthetic of interruption, disturbance, and capture/leakage.

Le remix démontre que la créativité est bel et bien vivante; mais qu'elle est aussi en butte à des attaques par les détenteurs de droits d'auteur des entreprises, qui tentent d'arrêter le partage de médias et des médias remixés. La pratique de l'art se trouve maintenant dans la façon dont les matériaux préexistants sont remixés et rendus neufs. C'est l'acte de transformer le matériel original qui contribue à la valeur du remixage. Les artistes réutilisent d'autres textes pour révéler et pour transmettre des messages politiques, et non pas tout simplement pour les recréer. Le remix ne tue pas la forme narrative; au contraire il favorise une transformation et une renaissance de la pratique créative, à l'extérieur des limites juridiques du droit d'auteur. La criminalisation des nouveaux types de cette pratique créative est un obstacle croissant à la renaissance créative du remix. Le remix réinvente les textes préexistants, aussi bien que les intrigues et les genres comme un moyen d'interroger l'avenir de la culture, et cela, par le biais de la paternité des travaux numériques réalisés en collaboration, et par une forme esthétique distincte du remix qui est basée sur l'interruption, les perturbations, la capture et les fuites.

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.

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/

The remix demonstrates that creativity is alive and well, but also under attack by corporate copyright holders trying to shut down media sharing and remixed media. Artistry now lies in how pre-existing materials are remixed and rendered new; it is through acts of transformation of the original that the remix's value is found. Artists reuse other works to reveal or transmit political messages, and not simply to re-create them. The remix is not killing narrative but instead is fostering a transformation and renaissance of creative practice, outside of the legal boundaries of copyright. The criminalization of new kinds of creative practice is a growing barrier to the remix's creative renaissance. Remix reimagines pre-existing texts, plots and genres as a way of interrogating the future of culture, via digital collaborative authorship and a distinct remix aesthetic of interruption, disturbance, and capture/leakage. Le remix demontre que la creativite est bel et bien vivante; mais qu'elle est aussi en butte a des attaques par les detenteurs de droits d'auteur des entreprises, qui tentent d'arreter le partage de medias et des medias remixes. La pratique de l'art se trouve maintenant dans la facon dont les materiaux preexistants sont remixes et rendus neufs. C'est l'acte de transformer le materiel original qui contribue a la valeur du remixage. Les artistes reutilisent d'autres textes pour reveler et pour transmettre des messages politiques, et non pas tout simplement pour les recreer. Le remix ne tue pas la forme narrative; au contraire il favorise une transformation et une renaissance de la pratique creative, a l'exterieur des limites juridiques du droit d'auteur. La criminalisation des nouveaux types de cette pratique creative est un obstacle croissant a la renaissance creative du remix. Le remix reinvente les textes preexistants, aussi bien que les intrigues et les genres comme un moyen d'interroger l'avenir de la culture, et cela, par le biais de la paternite des travaux numeriques realises en collaboration, et par une forme esthetique distincte du remix qui est basee sur l'interruption, les perturbations, la capture et les fuites.

As a form of Indo-Caribbean popular music produced primarily in Trinidad, chutney soca has been shaped by a variety of remembered and 're-membered' sonic and stylistic traditions. Among them have been Indian classical singing, performed mostly by men; Hindu songs of worship (bhajans); Bhojpuri folksongs, especially those performed by women in the private, Hindu matikoor (pre-nuptial) and maaro (marriage) spaces; Caribbean Carnival music; and the songs of twentieth-century Hindi cinema. In this paper, I explore the importance of the latter and consider its implications on (re)constructions and deconstructions of Indianness. By illustrating the ways in which Bollywood—as it is colloquially known—has persistently informed the audio-visual Indo-Caribbean imaginary and performance aesthetic over time, I contend that its endurance in the Caribbean can be attributed to purist anxieties over the threat of identity loss in an effort to protect Indianness from ethnocultural invisibility within the larger creole nationalist framework that has historically characterized postcolonial Caribbean societies. As such, this paper contributes to critical dialogues on the politics of hybrid identity and difference in Caribbean contexts, strengthening the limited body of scholarly research on Indo-Caribbean popular culture, that is part of my larger dissertation project which investigates the evolution of chutney soca music as a transgressive platform through which to examine the tensions and negotiations around identity formation in Trinidad.