100 Ideas and Remixing

Gasser and Ernst consider the remix culture as a potential viable form of realty for the entertainment industry. The boom, they argue, would include “us,” the users/creators to which digital content is being created and fed, because this model of creation and distribution would be encouraged, and possibly a source of revenue for the parties involved. The underlying issue is that this new creative market, from its content to its distribution, is still beholden to antiquated laws and practices. As our technology flourishes, so too do the creative minds that create for entertainment and edification; although mass media is many generations old, the current model is arguably still younger than a decade.

The best point of the article is its last: “the full exploitation of the new opportunities presented by the Internet requires an effort by all players, last but not least by us, the users/creators of digital content.” As our media is consolidated and the niche markets grow ever larger, it becomes apparent that big industries and mass media are slow to provide to individual desires, which is often why artists turn to creating their own work, and why users search out that work and distribute it. It’s not only a matter of respect for a fellow creative type trying in the world: they have a better understanding of their demographic, and what that demographic understands in their influences.

Consider DJ/producer Flying Lotus, who created new music and curated some of his favorite artists for an in-game radio station for Grand Theft Auto V, on why he chose certain songs for the game’s caricatured California cities: “I would drive around and listen to OutKast and Aphex Twin in L.A., and I have my own experiences in the areas that they recreate in the game. I have that shit. I know what it's like listening to Aphex Twin driving down the beach. I get it, and it's special to think that someone else might think that, too. I made this shit for those people.”1 The progress here is that GTA V is a “big industry” text. But video games over the decades have diverged often with the music and film industries on views towards participatory culture. That artists like Flying Lotus can have creative freedom on this level, and to bring his own influences and ideas to the project regardless of the narrative or actual production of the video game, suggests a model for integration into participatory culture that other forms of media might look to for guidance.

Although I argued earlier in this post that the current model might be considered younger than a decade, Gasser and Ernst bring up a pertinent example regarding the 1990 N.W.A. song “100 Miles and Runnin’”. Here, a sample is used from a Funkadelic song and the new song is played in the soundtrack of a film. The copyright holders for the track “Get Off Your Ass and Jam” came at N.W.A. and won. A music activist group Downhillbattle launched a contest to show how a simple guitar riff can be shifted to create an endless amount of new meanings. The point stressed here is, if the original source is cited and attributed to the creation of a new meaning, the new work should be allowed to say its piece and be judged on the merits of its aesthetic and purpose. It should not be remembered solely for the act of “re-appropriation,” unless it is important in starting dialog on why this service toward creation is important in our current generation.

¹http://pitchfork.com/features/update/9220-flying-lotus/

p.s. remix culture is some great music, y'all