Remixed
A ‘remix’ refers to revisiting an existing piece of media and then repurposing its material through relentless reproduction, creating infinite alternate renditions of reality. To remix is to reproduce; also known as ‘post-production.’
A technical term coined by Nicholas Bourriaud which refers to the set of processes applied to recorded material; a montage. Remixed art is a response to the proliferating chaos of rising globalisation prevalent in the Information Age.
Remixing is a form of rebellion. Artists infuse their work onto pre-existing works to eradicate convention, abolishing the traditional concepts of production, originality and copying. Bourriaud believes that the material artists manipulate is no longer primary. This means that the production is no longer elaboration of raw material but the circulation of cultural objects that are already in existence.
A piece of media (or an object) is informed by another object. This is the essence of post-production. Where the ideas of ‘originality’ and ‘creativity’ are juxtaposed into a new cultural landscape. And, in a further twist, “having widespread access to ever more sophisticated computers and other digital media over the past two decades has fostered the re-emergence of a “read-write” culture,” says Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig.
The ubiquity of digital technology has rendered the process of reproduction effortless. Anyone with an idea and a computer is now an artist. Sort of like a Post-Duchamp world of Jeff Koons minions sprawling all over the internet.
A great example of that is power couple Queen Bey and Jay-Z, in their riveting music video APES**T, flexing their pastel power suits in front of the Louvre’s prized Mona Lisa. Resulting in a significant moment for bodies of varying shades. This juxtaposition of a revered piece of western art and the elimination of people of colour from museum walls form a new remixed narrative, one that is defined by inclusion and equality, and a whole lot of BADASS-RY!
It’s the advent of Photoshop that birthed a generation of Bush’s photos wearing Salvador Dali’s moustache or infinitely manipulated versions of Edvard Munch’s the scream is now available everywhere! like fake news or internet trolls.
Our Modus operandi in the information civilisation is contemporary remix practices. A ‘contemporary culture’ is now a new form of participatory culture.
To remix is to share, with an additional flair.
There is an interesting relationship or duality that unfolds between the creator of mainstream culture and the audience who experience it.Each of us absorbs cultural objects in different ways.
In African oral cultures where no written traditions prevailed, tales of their history and narratives of their culture were performed and shared communally. Evolving into different versions as each generation influences its predecessors. This was not considered theft but a natural evolution of how things unfolded.
Interpretation or translation is a creative process too.
As Lawrence Lessig suggests in his work, we live in a world infused with commercial culture, yet we rarely see how it touches us, and how we process it as it touches us. Isn’t it remarkable? how we observe the world in one way, aiming to best articulate our vision through the cultural devices available to us?
We are always on the look-out for new ways to restructure the existing narratives embedded deep in the fabric of our society and create new cultural pieces to shape future discourse.
As Lessig writes, “No artist works in a vacuum. Every artist reflects — consciously or not — on what has come before and what is happening parallel to his or her practice.”
I think the absolute original artwork is perhaps a myth.
Because it’s authenticity determines it’s success rather than originality. By that i mean, it’s authenticity is derived from the new ideas or possible re-positioning of old ideas. Crafted by the individual, somehow elevating it’s status from being just a copy. To be an original of an original.
All works of art are inherently reproducible. Yet it is the reproducibility of an image increases its uniqueness. The Mona Lisa is as valuable as it is popular. Which just means that art simply exists as a replication.
Fancy French philosopher Gilles Deleuze writes:
“Things and thoughts, advance or grow out from the middle and that’s where you have to get to work, that’s where everything unfolds”.
The question is not about what we can create that is new, but how we can create something new from what already is.
References
- https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2015/03/article_0006.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMqWXnpXcA
- https://aestheticamagazine.com/post-production-in-arts/
- The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin.
- Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy Lawrence Lessig.
- Post-Production:Culture as screenplay: How Art Reprograms The World, Nicholas Bourriaud.
