The aim of this term paper is to identify shared basic principles and aesthetics of any remix or mashup product, and to understand its related practices in the framework of remix studies. The approach of this paper thus is transmedial. It will investigate if observations in remix studies made for a specific medium can be usefully adapted to other media. In a first step, different practices will be contextualized within media history to understand contemporary remixing practices as the result of an evolutionary process. As will be shown, general characteristics for a broad definition of remix products can be derived from this approach.
This is the first part of a series of papers on remix and mashup, laying the theoretical foundation for approaching any type of remix or mashup product through relevant criteria rather than fixed categories.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction: The Net Generation and Remix Studies
2 Approaching Remix and Mashup
2.1 Remix: Discourse, Culture, Practice, and Product
2.2 From Recording to Sampling to Remixing
2.3 Definitions and Categories of Remix and Mashup
3 Conclusion: From Definitions and Categories to Criteria
4 Works Cited
“When information is brushed against information the results are startling and effective.” Marshall McLuhan (n.p.)
1 Introduction: The Net Generation and Remix Studies
Don Tapscott's book Grown up Digital reflects upon the so-called “Net Generation”, born between January 1977 and December 1997, and how the rapid development from the Internet to the Web 2.0.has affected its members. Many preconceptions surround a generation that has been heavily confronted with new media.Tapscott formulates the concerns and criticism as blunt accusations such as “[t]hey steal”, while he equally argues that “[t]hey are innovative” (4; 36).These seemingly contrasting statements can actually be understood as two sides of the same coin, namely what has been identified as contemporary remix culture.
Today, the notion of intellectual property is challenged since members ofthe Net Generation prefer to participate as prosumers rather than be inactive as consumers. The rather recent field of remix studies investigates such new media phenomena and aesthetics beyond legal questions of copyright1. The related products and practices are manifestations of a larger discourse of Remix with shared formal principles, and specific ideologies and politics.
This paper investigates the various notions surrounding remix culture: It will first identify the different levels of discussion about remix,and it will position its aim accordingly. It will then briefly trace art history to identify shared principles ofmodern remix practices. Finally, it will critically reflect on the value of existing definitions and categories whileit will try to establishspecific criteria for an analysis of a remix or mashup product.
2 Approaching Remix and Mashup
2.1 Remix: Discourse, Culture, Practice, and Product
First of all, different levels of remix will need to be clarified. Eduardo Navas distinguishes between "Remix", i.e. upper caseR, and lower case "remix". The former refers to the discursive meta-concept:“Remix, itself, has no form, but is quick to take on any shape and medium” (Navas, Remix Theory 4). Remix as a discourse affects culture. The lower case use of remix can referto such a culture as a particular movement and “global activity” (ibid. 65). Debatesinremix culture address, for example, the above mentioned issues surrounding copyright laws. Lower case remix can also refer to the actual product as a result of a “creative activity of remixing” (Navas, Gallagher, and burrough 1). Although it is important indeed to understand these different levels of approaching remix, the distinction by upper case versus lower case use of the term is at times unreliable - for example at the beginning of a sentence or in headings - and may add to a certain confusion over categories and labels. This paper will not be too preoccupied with following Navas' use of upper and lower case R/r consistently. Instead, it strives to be as explicit as possible about the level of the respective discussion.
The aim of this term paper is to identify shared basic principles and aesthetics of any remix or mashup product, and to understand its related practices in the framework of remix studies. The approach of this paper thus is transmedial. It will investigate if observations in remix studies made for a specific medium can be usefully adapted to other media. In a first step, different practices will be contextualized within media history to understand contemporary remixing practices as the result of an evolutionary process. As will be shown, general characteristics for a broad definition of remix products can be derived from this approach.
2.2 From Recording to Sampling to Remixing
Recording may quite generally be defined as the practice of “capturing material” (Navas, Remix Theory 12). It thus creates a mechanically produced media representation of an outside world. Sampling, in turn, refers to “copying in material form, not by capturing from the real world, but from a pre-existing recording” (ibid. 14). While early recording practices mark the beginning of the media history of mechanical reproduction, sampling introduces a second stage after recording had established an archive of representation. Photography and photomontage, for example, illustrate the relation between original recording and sampling (ibid. 17). In music, sampling means “[t]he extraction of portions of sound
-‘samples'- from recorded media, and their reuse as material for new recordings” (Rutherford-Johnson, Kennedy, and Bourne Kennedy n.p.). For a transmedial understanding of recording as a precondition for sampling, this quote can be extended to other media formats simply by using “text” in the broadest sense of the term2 instead of “sound”.
Henry Jenkins broadly defines sampling as a “practice of borrowing [...] from an original work” as opposed to allusion, which stresses a “conceptual link between two works” (109). His definition of sampling subscribes to a contemporary notion which takes the initial recording practice for granted. Fragmentation as a feature of sampling may point to the fact that the recording itself is only a sample of a larger world. Yet for the purpose of this paper, recording and sampling will not be used synonymously; they represent the distinctive practices of initially capturing versus subsequently re-using material.
The technique of sampling becomes a fundamental aesthetic principle for the next stage of mechanical reproduction, i.e. remixing (Navas, “Regressive and Reflexive Mashup in Sampling Culture,” 157). Just like sampling practices re-evaluate the representation of the world, remixing marks a “second stage of recycling“ (Navas, Remix Theory 19). Copy/cut and paste becomes the method for the actual appropriation and potential manipulation of original media content. While recording eventually triggered sampling, sampling enables remixing. This development has gained a new momentum through the digitalization of text into information (Jenkins 105-106). This next stage of a re-valuation of cultural products happens through combining “formal and ideological strategies” (Navas, Remix Theory 15). This shows why a discussion of remix practices and culture is closely connected to a discussion of Remix as a discourse.
2.3 Definitions and Categories of Remix and Mashup
The following quote by Henry Jenkins briefly recapitulates the relation between samples and remix products as above outlined: “The sample is the material borrowed from the other work while the remix refers to the new work created through the process of appropriation and recombination” (Jenkins 109). Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear define the practice of remixing along similar lines: “Remix means to take cultural artefacts and combine and manipulate them into new kinds of creative blends” (Knobel and Lankshear 22). Both quotes stress that the end result of remix is a new piece of work through borrowing, combining, appropriating, and manipulating. This poses questions of reference and validation, autonomy and originality which need to be addressed in the analysis of a given remix product. While plagiarism attempts to mask or hide the original sources and pretends to be original itself, remix is indeed an own creative expression which, in one way or the other, acknowledges the borrowed material (Jenkins 110).
Eduardo Navas offers a definition of remix within a specific media format, namely music: “A music remix [.] is a reinterpretation of a pre-existing song, meaning that the ‘spectacular aura' of the original will be dominant in the remixed version” (Navas, Remix Theory 65). This definition can also be adapted to any given medium. The concept of aura is surely most relevant in an analysis of a work of art in the history of mechanical reproduction3. Navas introduces further sub-categories that turn out to be rather limited to the medium of music, though. He distinguishes (1) “extended”, (2) “selective”, and (3) “reflexive remix”: (1) produces an extended, largely instrumental version of an original song, (2) adds or subtracts sounds and tracks from the original source, and (3) creates a version that strives for autonomy while the original is still recognizable (ibid. 65-66). Remix initially manifested in music, and Navas retrospectively categorizes this development. At least the first two techniques, however, are quite specific to music. It is rather difficult to translate them into any media. In literature, for instance, the actual length of the remixed text as compared to the original is arguably insignificant. The three sub-categories of remix are not open to accommodate new phenomena in any media and will therefore not be helpful as labels for a transmedial approach to remix practices and products. Relevant questions for an analysis of a given remix product can still be derived from this discussion: What media specific techniques and remixing practices are actually at work and how do they affect the aura of the original source?
As a fourth subcategory of remix in other media, Navas introduces the "regenerative type" (ibid. 66). This category goes beyond remix practices as defined so far. It no longer relies on the principle of sampling but mostly on a deconstruction and subversion of allegory. Navas gives an example from music in which the only thing that is recognizable from the original is the title. At this moment Remix becomes discourse; its principles are at play as conceptual strategies [...] Remix [is used] as a concept, as a cultural framework rather than a material practice. (ibid. 67)
The category of the regenerative remix can incorporate marginal phenomena into Remix as a discourse. Yet, if mere reference and allusion are also understood as remix practices, and if the activity of sampling is no longer a fundamental condition, then virtually everything could be interpreted as a remix. It would be rather difficult to distinguish remix from the broad notion of intertextuality and intermediality “as a fundamental condition” of media (Rajewsky 48). Lawrence Lessing, in fact, argues that the act of reading and even culture as a whole is
[...]
1 Remix culture and law are most prominently investigated by Lawrence Lessig.
2 Semiotics define a text as "any set of signs which can be ‘read' for meaning" (Chandler 263). This includes written texts, images, sounds, gestures etc.
3 The concept of aura is derived from Benjamin Franklin
- Quote paper
- Rüdiger Thomsen (Author), 2016, Approaching Remix and Mashup: Definitions, Categories, and Criteria, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1158114
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