~ SpringerWienNewYork Eduardo Navas .000• 00.00 .000. 00000 .000.••••• •••••• 0000 ••0 •• 00.00 0.0.0 00000 .0.0 • 00.00 00.00 00.00 .00.0••••• •••••• 0000 .000• 00.00 0.0.0 00000 • 000. ••••• .000• 00.00 .000. 00000 • 000• .000• •••••00.00 .000. •••••• 0000 •••••• 000• .000•••••• 0.0.0 00.00 • 000• 00.00 00.00 .000.••••• •••••• 0000 .000• .00.0••••• 00.00 00.00 • 000. ••••• ••••• .000• 00.00 THE AESTHETICS OF SAMPLING SpringerWienNewYork Eduardo Navas, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Information Science and Media Studies University of Bergen, Norway With financial support of The Department of Information Science and Me- dia Studies at The University of Bergen, Norway. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is con- cerned, specifically those of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocopying machines or similar means, and storage in data banks. Product Liability: The publisher can give no guarantee for all the informa- tion contained in this book. The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific state- ment, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. © 2012 Springer-Verlag/Wien SpringerWienNewYork is part of Springer Science+Business Media springer.at Cover Image: Eduardo Navas Cover Design: Ludmil Trenkov Printing: Strauss GmbH, D-69509 Mörlenbach Printed on acid-free and chlorine-free bleached paper SPIN 86094050 With 60 figures Library of Congress Control Number: 2012939340 ISBN 978-3-7091-1262-5 SpringerWienNewYork Contents Acknowledgments [vii] Preface [xi] Introduction: Remix and Noise [1] Chapter One: Remix[ing] Sampling [9] Sampling Defined (11) —The Three Chronological Stages of Mechanical Repro- duction (17) —The Four Stages of Remix (20) — Analytics: From Photography to Remix Culture (22) — The Regressive Ideology of Remix (27) Chapter Two: Remix[ing] Music [33] A Night at Kadan, San Diego, CA (35) — Dub, B Sides and Their [re]versions in the Threshold of Remix (36) — The Threshold in Dub (37) — Dub: From Acetate to Digital (39) — Subversion and the Threshold (42) — Analytics: From Reggae to Electronic Dub (44) — Dub in Hip Hop, Down Tempo and Drum ‘n’ Bass (47) — Dub ‘n’ Theory (50) —Dub-b-[ing] the Threshold (53) — Dub ‘n’ Remix (58) — Bonus Beats: Remix as Composing (60) Chapter Three: Remix[ing] Theory [63] Remix Defined (65) —Allegory in Remix (66) — Analytics: Variations of the Re- flexive Remix in Music (68) — The Regenerative Remix (73) — Remix in Art (76) — The Waning of Affect in Remix (86) — Remix in the Culture Industry (89) — Mashups Defined (93) — From Music to Culture to Web 2.0 (100) — Web Application Mashups (101) — The Ideology Behind the Reflexive Mashup (103) Analytics: From Music Video to Software Mashups (105) — Sampling and the Reflexive Mashup (108) — Resistance in Remix (109) — Remix in History (111) — Remix in Blogging (120) — Bonus Beats: Remix in Culture (124) Chapter Four: Remix[ing] Art [129] A Late Night in Berlin (131) — Remix is Meta (133) — The Role of the Author and the Viewer in Remix (134) — The Role of the Author and the Viewer in Per- formance and Minimalism (137) — New Media’s Dependence on Collaboration (141) — The Curator as Remixer (146) — Online Practice and Conceptualism (150) — The Regressive Ideology of Remix Part 2 (155) — Bonus Beats: The transparency of Remix (157) Conclusion: Noise and Remix [161] Periférico, Mexico City (163) — After the Domestication of Noise (167) — Bo- nus Beats: the Causality of Remix (170) Index [175] Acknowledgments I have read many acknowledgments in books that I reference in my own research. Now that it is my turn to thank people who helped me move to- wards the completion of this book, I find it difficult to decide when to stop, so I will thank people based on a straight forward criteria which is self- evident. I hope not to forget anyone. Writing this book took much longer that I expected; it was made possible thanks to many people, some who supported me directly by reading my writing, others who provided oppor- tunities for presentations and workshops—which often led to intense dis- cussions, and others who in different ways made sure that I stayed active even during periods when I had little time to do research because of the necessity to meet the basic needs of my family. First, I would like to thank Norman Bryson, Teddy Cruz, Brian Gold- farb, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin for their support during my graduate studies in the Program of Art and Media History, Theory and Criticism at Univer- sity of California in San Diego. I especially thank Lev Manovich, without whose advice and guidance I would not have been able to complete my initial research. I also thank him for his ongoing support long after I re- ceived my Ph.D., and for introducing me to Cultural Analytics. The final stages of my investigation would not have been possible with- out the more than generous support of Dag Elgesem, Director of the De- partment of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. I thank the Department for their generous financial sup- port, which made possible this publication. My post-doctoral research at the University of Bergen found its way to this publication under the sec- tions titled “Analytics.” I thank the university staff, especially Gjartrud Kolås, and Rune Arntsen who went out of their way to make my stay in Bergen as productive as possible; and a special thanks to Alvaro Ramirez, who during my stay provided much needed feedback on all things impor- tant about not only research but also life. I thank the international community of artists, digital humanities & new media researchers who invited me to lecture and discuss my research and art work especially (in no particular order) FionaWhitton and Sean Dock- ray at Telic and The Public School in Los Angeles; Gustavo Romano, Belen Gache, and Rodrigo Alonzo in Buenos Aires, as well as Lila Pagola and Jorge Castro in Cordoba, Argentina; Brian Mackern in Montevideo, Uruguay; Ignacio Nieto, Italo Tello, Ricardo Vega, and Barbara Palomino in Santiago de Chile; Arcangel Constantini and Karla Villegas in Mexico City; Leslie Garcia of Dream Addictive in Tijuana, Raul Ferrera-Balanquet in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico; Mónica Mejia, Juan Sanchez, Fernado Fa- jardo, and Mayra Barraza in San Salvador, El Salvador; Isabel Restrepo in Acknowledgments Medellin, Colombia; Marcos Garcia at Medialab Prado in Madrid, and Raquel Herrera in Barcelona, Spain; Lucrezia Cippiteli and Kristen Palana in Rome, Italy; Timo Daum, Christoph Büch, and Klaas Krüger in Berlin, Germany; Ine Poppe and Sam Nemeth in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Mårten Janson, Fia Palmgren, and Ana Valdez in Stockholm and Visby, Sweden; Scott Rettberg, Jill Walker Rettberg, Patricia Tomaszek, and Eric Rasmussen in Bergen, Norway; and Nadine Wanono in Paris, France. A special thanks to Mick Smiley who kept me active as a DJ for over fifteen years. I thank long-time collaborators Jo Anne-Greene and Helen Thorington for making it possible for me to share my initial ideas about Remix in a publication for Turbulence.org. I thank Greg J. Smith for inviting me to publish on Vague Terrain an early version of the second chapter of this book. Thanks to Owen Gallagher, Mette Berke, and Martin Leduc, who invited me to participate in online seminars on remix. I also want to thank McKenzie Wark, Dominic Pettman, and Christiane Paul at the New School; as well as Carlos Rosas, Graeme Sullivan, and Charles Garoian at Penn State University for giving me the opportunity to teach as needed. Thanks to Suzanne Lacy and Dana Duff at Otis College of Art for letting me explore in the classroom my early theories. I thank Todd Margolis at Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA) Calit2, San Diego, who always listened to many of my ideas that never materialized. I also thank CRCA’s director Sheldon Brown for providing a space in which to work during my time in San Diego. Thanks to Jordan Crandall, Adriene Jennik, and Trish Stone for encouraging me to curate based on my research. Thanks to Ricardo Dominguez and Brett Stalbaum, whose work, even though it is not analyzed in this book, certainly has pro- vided me with the necessary strength to believe that there is real critical potential within a contemporary art practice that, for the most part, is no longer concerned with actual criticism. Thanks to Jeremy Douglass who patiently explained to me the principles of Cultural Analytics implemented at the Software Studies Lab. At Calit2, I thank Hector Bracho for support- ing me with technical needs during crucial presentations of my research. A very special thanks to my long-time friend Yong Kim, who took the time to read carefully my manuscript at different stages of its production; I also thank long-time friend Ludmil Trenkov, who designed the cover of this book. I thank my editor David Marold and my project manager An- gela Fössl at Springer, who were very generous and diligent in the entire process of editing and making the book find its way down the line of pro- duction. I also thank Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss for the opportunity to publish parts of what is now chapter three in this book, in an edited publication of his own. viii Acknowledgments As this is my first major publication, I would like to thank my mother Mercedes, my sister Mirna, my brothers Max and Ricardo, who believed in my career decisions. A special note to my nephew, “little” Max, who I hope never stops pursuing his own goals in life.