Remix

Almost everyone has heard of “remixing” - taking existing cultural artifacts like songs, films, images, and texts, and combining these into new cultural artifacts. In the Wikipedia article about Lessig’s 2008 book Remix, we read: (Youth) quote content from various sources to create something new. Thus, the remix provides a commentary on the sounds and images it utilizes the same way a critical essay provides commentary on the texts it quotes. One of Lessig’s favorite remix examples is the Bush and Blair Love Song which remixes images of President Bush and Tony Blair to make it appear as if they are lip-synching Lionel Richie’s “Endless Love”. “The message couldn’t be more powerful: an emasculated Britain,as captured in the puppy love of its leader for Bush. This remix in Lessig’s eyes is exemplary of the power this type of expression holds - to not tell but show. Using preexisting images is vital to the art form because the production of meaning draws heavily on cultural reference an image or sound brings with it. ...

I recently posted a link to the OER Remix Game, a card game you can play with friends to learn about the license compatibility difficulties involved in remixing. Well, if you’ve had a hard time convincing your friends to play the game with you, you can now try a beta of the online (one player) version of the game! You can find it at OER Remix Game Online. Your thoughts and feedback would be appreciated. Critical and corrective feedback is, of course, the most useful kind.

Heard of ThruYou yet? Lessig says, “Watch this, and you’ll understand everything and more than what I try to explain in my book [Remix].” Writing for the Huffington Post, Timothy Karr says, “What ThruYOU tells us is that all bets are off. The DNA of our media system has mutated so completely that it’s only a matter of time before our society changes as well.” Writing for this blog post, David says - Wow. ...

What do you think about while you stare at the ceiling, unable to sleep? Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about license compatibility issues. Specifically, I’ve been wondering how I can communicate to people the difficulty copyleft causes for would-be remixers. Until you get knee-deep in it, you can’t really understand the pain. And how many people ever really get knee-deep in it? So I wondered… how can I bring that pain to the common man? And in addition to “bringing the pain,” how can I effectively educate them about licensing compatibility issues and instruct them in the art of creating legal remixes? ...