Living in the mash-up culture
Have you ever questioned if a “remix” song is original?
In the following paragraphs I will be talking about the originality of remix in digital culture and how there are critics about if remixes are original or are just a reconfiguration of the content of others. First of all I will argue if “remix” are original, after it I will discuss why would someone describe “remix” as something not original and finally I will include what would David J. Gunkel argue about the originality of “remix” artist.
After reading Rethinking the Digital Remix: Mash-ups and the Metaphysics of Sound Recording by David J. Gunkel it is very clear how “mash-ups” and “remix” are part of what we call digital culture. One of the reasons of it is because there are active producers that repurpose content from intellectual property of others; here we can apply the term “participatory culture” by Jenkins because people is participating in producing new content by doing a fusion of two or more existing contents. As Jenkins explains in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide the fans are the most active segment of media industry and the participation is less under control of the media producers; this is a problem that Gunkel also talks about of how it undermines the authority. As an example we can look at Jenkins Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide when he talks about Star Wars mash-ups and how the fans create new videos and stories by using Star Wars “original” content.
For that reason I personally think that mash-up culture impulse creativity and that it is good if you recognize the work of the “original” creators. I also think that the real problem of the digital “remix” is with the authority and media producers and therefore there is a need for collaboration between fans and producers that goes further than authorized “remix”; because there will always be more active participants that want to join the mash-up culture by creating their own “remixes.” I also think that sometimes a mash-up can be better than the first creation and that by “remixing” there can be amazing results. Here I attach one example of a "remix":
There are a lot of advocates of mash-up culture because they argue that are creative and undermine the power of the elite that control the music industry. They see the mash-up as a new mode of artistic expression. On the other hand, there are a lot of people against it because they consider it “not original", because it is a manipulation and reinterpretation of an “original” content. And therefore, they consider it a patent violation and an illegal appropriation that undermines authority. It is also important to say that there are authorized and non-authorized “remix” and that the difference between it is that if it is an authorized mash-up the lawyers join the creative process and the intellectual property belongs to the people of the industry.
One of the elements that I consider interesting is that Gunkel argues that the “mash-ups” are the sound of a simulation, are redundant and prove the theory of Theodor Adorno who says that the beginning of the chorus of the songs is replaceable by the beginning of other choruses.
Finally, it is important to identify what Gunkel says about the originality of “remix” artists in his text Audible Transgressions: Art and Aesthetics after the Mashup. He says that “Taking someone else's creative work, cutting and pasting it together, and then slapping your name on it is the province of the cheat and talentless, not the product of a true and original artist”. And complement it with what he says in Rethinking the Digital Remix: Mash-ups and the Metaphysics of Sound Recording; Gunkel argues that the practice of “remix” artists is not original and neither unique and that there is nothing original in the results, technique and elements of the mash-up.
