Outwhere? Some dare, 'Ill-liter-it' with care. Where Imagination Persists, Man Ek-Sists. Mythological Models Emerge, And hands of power, surge. Do the tools invert the man, Or are we all just one big clan? When the Hunter becomes the Hunted; Even if not Hit, we are all confronted. Extract the color from this life; Was black and white just too much strife? Waiting eagerly for distribution, Mute surfaces need contribution. Once one masters the WORDS, Frozen images can the Merge. Change the information, please. One-sided can not be all that one sees. Redundancy can be habitual, Except when it becomes mythical. Magic is a necessary game, If not; Then each day would be the same. *
Now don't cry kiddies - Steamboat Willy, the classic Mickey Mouse, was not exactly Walt's own idea. It came from Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr. You can see how he could turn the name to fit the picture he had in his mind though, right. Why blame him? Don't go boycotting Disney and throwing away all of your old bubble case tapes now! They could be worth something, or hell, you could make them into something new - There is a concept! So, in this world, where even Mickey Mouse is not an 'original' idea, where do we draw the line of where we get our own information, and where it becomes our own rather than someone else's idea. It seems almost impossible to be able to tell from where all of this information originally came. Life these days is a cross cultural and societal game of battle ship, where the players are also the writers and the speakers. Text and music become hit, exploded and mashed up and then regurgitaded to another someones' ear, who may then tell retell the story - but slightly remixed. Think of it as a universal game of 'telephone'. Remember that one...
So really, let's face it, there are millions and millions of humans in this world. Writers, artists, musicians, poets, etc who all create their "own" work; and guaranteed that 99% of these folks would admit that some to the majority of their work had roots in someone else's ideas. And this is not to say that the intention was for the 'new' artist to steal ideas from the 'old' artist, sometimes it is even unknown that the material may not have even been there own. Call it this 'human connectedness'. Maybe someone out there could have actually just happened to have the same idea. Its possible, especially if you don't let the ego get in the way. With the advancements of computers, yes, copyrights and plagerisms are now more apt to be found through endless source material that exists. The idea of the open source has existed long before the computer age. It is now just more able to be brought to our attention, because so much information is at the reach of 8 finger tips (oh, and two thumbs too). But is the transparency of process helping or hindering the artistic society in which we live.
I truely beleive that now, in 2010, Intellectual Properties, while they do have there place, should be limited in the arts. This neologism, called Open Content should be considered, especially in the Remix Culture. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages in regard to the thing that copyright seems to try to take away - CREATIVITY. How can one say that using information, maybe that has even been passed down, is not new material, and therefore, not creative. Absolute Malarky! I think Umberto Eco puts it best when he states, "Every reception of a work of art is both an interpretation and a performance of it, because in every reception the work takes a fresh perspective for itself". This brings me to my personal philosophy on the subject matter of the Open Source dimema. Every moment is different, yes? And everyone sees/hears/feels colors, shapes, even ideas differently, even if they are described as solid,tangible facts that everyone understands on the same plane. So aren't we remixing EVERYTHING all the time. It is mostly in the way it is percieved. So get over it people, we all plagerize. I prefer to play-gerize personally though.
The effort to protect intellectul property definitely becomes obsolete in this digital/networking society. Im not even sure how this would be monitered. And more power to the nerd who wants to try. I bet that some of their music has been sampled from lets say, oh the Motown generation, and quietly and strategically placed into new tunes that play in their car. That is full of parts that are probably from other cars. When getting information, especially in the digital age, it seems necessary to use other information to base facts and then draw new and fresh conclusions, that can then still be left up for interpretation. We should feel lucky for all of the information out there that can be seen with new eyes, bringing light to information. Call me crazy, but without using other people's material, I think we would all be alot more confused than we already are! Take for example this song by Lemon Jelly, which incorporates an astonauts voice while he is in Space into the song. I wonder if he was mad about his voice being used in the song...but that is what the debate is all about, yeah?!
Now, the way artists themselves see this open source approach is greatly varied across the board. I personally, as an artist, feel that the use (and more importantly the knowledge) of previous material always helps my art. The research and remix of other work is a huge part of my creative process, whether it be through writing, painting or sculpture. I feel flattered when other people want to use my work, and create something new, because that is in fact what I do all the time in my own process. It is like with photography as well; if someone takes a photo of another persons work, and then manipulates it on their end is it there work now. I think there is a balance, of course, but yes, I do beleive that is a new form of work, with a base that has been altered. Now, it does not always have to do with re-making in this way. A good example that I found was in more of a learning module. Professor Chuck Severence remixed an open book which he re-named "Python for Informatics", and his students will be using this text this semester. This remix of the book only took him 11 days, and helped save the curriculum. How can that be wrong. And moreover, Severence was appreciative to the former authors for the material, and hopefully vice versa. Of course this will always be such a touchy subject, because once again, we all interpret thing differntly and see 'right' and 'wrong' in different lights.
This is just random clutter that I want to get out of my head, and may not even be a valid argument, but thats okay. So remix. Text, and words and people getting pissed for using the same things over and over again and not giving credit and blah blah blah. In reality, just speaking in general is plagerism. There are only a certain number of words and a certain number of ways to say things. So in this case, we are remixing each others speech and lives all the time. It is kind of what keeps the world going round, and interesting. And relates us all together.
I wanted to also add this link, because this artist Girl Talk, gets alot of shit for what he does. And what he does is exactly is make mashups. Really good mashups. And people love to critisize his work. But that doesn't cease the fact that fans flock to see him perform live, which almost negates the idea of him using old material, because he is doing it in front of a live audience. http://www.artsjournal.com/flyover/2008/09/sure_it_might_be_illegal_and_i.html Then Check out this Open Source mix from a fan, who took their own spin on his music.
I would love to keep going on this, and maybe I will add more later, because this is a very interesting and ever-changing topic. But for now, I will just leave my favorite quote that I found while cruising the internet for the this weeks readings and pages....
In every century, the way artistic forms are structured reflects the ways in which contemporary culture and science view this thing called reality. (and im not gonna say where it is from, or quote directly, because I changed up some words. and hey, i've thought of that concept before, so TAKE That! plagiarisms who minus the play!)
