The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies
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THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO REMIX STUDIES The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies comprises contemporary texts by key authors and artists who are active in the emerging field of remix studies. As an organic interna- tional movement, remix culture originated in the popular music culture of the 1970s, and has since grown into a rich cultural activity encompassing numerous forms of media. The act of recombining pre-existing material brings up pressing questions of authen- ticity, reception, authorship, copyright, and the techno-politics of media activism. This book approaches remix studies from various angles, including sections on history, aes- thetics, ethics, politics, and practice, and presents theoretical chapters alongside case studies of remix projects. The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies is a valuable resource for both researchers and remix practitioners, as well as a teaching tool for instructors using remix practices in the classroom. Eduardo Navas is the author of Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling (Springer, 2012). He researches and teaches principles of cultural analytics and digital humanities in the School of Visual Arts at The Pennsylvania State University, PA. Navas is a 2010–12 Post- Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway, and received his PhD from the Program of Art and Media History, Theory, and Criticism at the University of California in San Diego. Owen Gallagher received his PhD in Visual Culture from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin. He is the founder of TotalRecut.com, an online com- munity archive of remix videos, and a co-founder of the Remix Theory & Praxis seminar group. He is the author of a number of research papers and book chapters on remix culture, intellectual property, and visual semiotics. Owen is a lecturer of Web Media at Bahrain Polytechnic. xtine burrough is a media artist and educator. She has authored or edited several books including Foundations of Digital Art and Design (New Riders, 2014) and Net Works: Case Studies in Web Art and Design (Routledge, 2012). She believes in the transformative power of participatory, digital art. xtine bridges the gaps between histories, theories, and production in new media education. This page intentionally left blank THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO REMIX STUDIES Edited by Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher, and xtine burrough First published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The Routledge companion to remix studies/edited by Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher, and xtine Burrough pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Appropriation (Arts) 2. Remixes—History and criticism. I. Navas, Eduardo. II. Gallagher, Owen. III. Burrough, Xtine. NX197.R38 2015 700.9′04—dc23 2014022804 ISBN: 978-0-415-71625-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-87999-4 (ebk) Typeset in Goudy by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix List of Figures and Tables xi Notes on Contributors xiv Introduction 1 EDUARDO NAVAS, OWEN GALLAGHER, AND XTINE BURROUGH PART I History 13 1 Remix and the Dialogic Engine of Culture: A Model for Generative Combinatoriality 15 MARTIN IRVINE 2 A Rhetoric of Remix 43 SCOTT H. CHURCH 3 Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal: Reflections on Cut-Copy-Paste Culture 54 STEFAN SONVILLA-WEISS 4 Toward a Remix Culture: An Existential Perspective 68 VITO CAMPANELLI 5 An Oral History of Sampling: From Turntables to Mashups 83 KEMBREW McLEOD 6 Can I Borrow Your Proper Name? Remixing Signatures and the Contemporary Author 96 CICERO INACIO DA SILVA 7 The Extended Remix: Rhetoric and History 104 MARGIE BORSCHKE 8 Culture and Remix: A Theory on Cultural Sublation 116 EDUARDO NAVAS v CONTENTS PART II Aesthetics 133 9 Remix Strategies in Social Media 135 LEV MANOVICH 10 Remixing Movies and Trailers Before and After the Digital Age 154 NICOLA MARIA DUSI 11 Remixing the Plague of Images: Video Art from Latin America in a Transnational Context 166 ERANDY VERGARA 12 Race and Remix: The Aesthetics of Race in the Visual and Performing Arts 179 TASHIMA THOMAS 13 Digital Poetics and Remix Culture: From the Artisanal Image to the Immaterial Image 192 MONICA TAVARES 14 The End of an Aura: Nostalgia, Memory, and the Haunting of Hip Hop 204 ROY CHRISTOPHER 15 Appropriation Is Activism 217 BYRON RUSSELL PART III Ethics 225 16 The Emerging Ethics of Networked Culture 227 ARAM SINNREICH 17 The Panopticon of Ethical Video Remix Practice 246 METTE BIRK 18 Cutting Scholarship Together/Apart: Rethinking the Political Economy of Scholarly Book Publishing 258 JANNEKE ADEMA 19 Copyright and Fair Use in Remix: From Alarmism to Action 270 PATRICIA AUFDERHEIDE 20 I Thought I Made a Vid, but Then You Told Me That I Didn’t: Aesthetics and Boundary Work in the Fan-Vidding Community 283 KATHARINA FREUND 21 Peeling the Layers of the Onion: Authorship in Mashup and Remix Cultures 296 JOHN LOGIE 22 remixthecontext (A Theoretical Fiction) 310 MARK AMERIKA vi CONTENTS PART IV Politics 321 23 A Capital Remix 323 RACHEL O’DWYER 24 Remix Practices and Activism: A Semiotic Analysis of Creative Dissent 333 PAOLO PEVERINI 25 Political Remix Video as a Vernacular Discourse 346 OLIVIA CONTI 26 Locative Media as Remix 358 CONOR McGARRIGLE 27 The Politics of John Lennon’s “Imagine”: Contextualizing the Roles of Mashups and New Media in Political Protest 374 J. MERYL KRIEGER 28 Détournement as a Premise of the Remix from Political, Aesthetic, and Technical Perspectives 386 NADINE WANONO 29 The New Polymath (Remixing Knowledge) 397 RACHEL FALCONER PART V Practice 409 30 Crises of Meaning in Communities of Creative Appropriation: A Case Study of the 2010 RE/Mixed Media Festival 411 TOM TENNEY 31 Of Re/appropriations 425 GUSTAVO ROMANO 32 Aesthetics of Remix: Networked Interactive Objects and Interface Design 432 JONAH BRUCKER-COHEN 33 Reflections on the Amen Break: A Continued History, an Unsettled Ethics 444 NATE HARRISON 34 Going Crazy with Remix: A Classroom Study by Practice via Lenz v. Universal 453 XTINE BURROUGH AND EMILY ERICKSON 35 A Remix Artist and Advocate 461 DESIREE D’ALESSANDRO 36 Occupy/Band Aid Mashup: “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” 471 OWEN GALLAGHER vii CONTENTS 37 Remixing the Remix 480 ELISA KREISINGER 38 A Fair(y) Use Tale 487 ERIC S. FADEN 39 An Aesthetics of Deception in Political Remix Video 495 DIRAN LYONS 40 Radical Remix: Manifestoon 503 JESSE DREW 41 In Two Minds 509 KEVIN ATHERTON Index 516 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A major project such as an anthology for a field of studies is made possible thanks to the collaboration of many individuals who unselfishly support a book’s eventual publication. For this reason, we would like to thank all of the contributors who accepted our invita- tion to participate and write a text that went through a long editing process. We would like to thank our editor at Routledge, Erica Wetter, for considering the proposal of a reader, and the editorial board at Routledge, who offered us this major project by induct- ing what was once a smaller proposal into part of the Routledge Companion series. We also thank Simon Jacobs, Editorial Assistant at Routledge, who oversaw the book’s pro- cess during its early stages, reviewed it, and prepared it for its final production. We thank the remix community, who participated in a survey we distributed during the proposal stage of this project. Their feedback was vital in determining the feasibility of a publica- tion of this magnitude. —Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher, and xtine burrough I would like to thank Graeme Sullivan, Director of The School of Visual Arts at The Pennsylvania State University, for his support in the last two years that led to the eventual publication of The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies. I also thank Lev Manovich for his ongoing support in my research and activities. His unselfish critical feedback has always proven fruitful for all aspects of my practice. I also thank my fam- ily, especially my wife and partner, Annie Mendoza, who gave me moral support and the time needed to finish such a long-term project. And I thank my two sons Oscar Eduardo and Oliver Antonio for constantly reminding me what is ultimately important in life. —Eduardo Navas I wish to extend my gratitude to Dr. Paul O’Brien and Professor Jessica Hemmings of the Faculty of Visual Culture, and Professor Des Bell, Head of Academic Affairs and Research at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin, for their guid- ance and support of my research over the past few years, leading to the publication of this volume. I also thank Brendan Muller, Web Media Programme Manager, for his support of my involvement in this project while simultaneously lecturing at Bahrain Polytechnic. I would like to thank my parents, Brendan and Frances Gallagher, for their unwavering encouragement and most importantly, I thank my wife, Aoife, and my daughters, Jennifer and Rebecca, for their love and support throughout this process.