Mashup: Deformative Practice as Comment on Gender and Sexuality

Let’s talk terms. ‘Remix’ and ‘Mashup’ . What is the difference. According to the great wiki:

A remix is an alternative version of a song, different from the original version. A remixer uses audio mixing to compose an alternate master of a song, adding or subtracting elements, or simply changing the equalization, dynamics, pitch, tempo, playing time, or almost any other aspect of the various musical components. Usually, a remix will involve substantial changes to the arrangement of a recorded work; lyrics may be added or removed, such alterations are not a necessity. A song may be remixed to give a song that wasn't popular a second chance at radio and club play, or to alter a song to suit a specific music genre or radio format.

While:

Mashup (or mash it up) is a Jamaican Creole term meaning to destroy. In the context of reggae or ska music, it can take on a positive connotation and mean an exceptional performance or event. The term has also been used in hip-hop, especially in cities such as New York that have a high Jamaican population.

Mashup, or bootleg, is a musical genre which, in its purest form, consists of the combination (usually by digital means) of the music from one song with the a cappella from another. Typically, the music and vocals belong to completely different genres. At their best, bastard pop songs strive for musical epiphanies that add up to considerably more than the sum of their parts.

Differences? Remix has cool white connotations of high tech interventions. Mashup is Creole (read black), with a hot edge of violence (to destroy) and also termed ‘bastard pop’. Remix is attributable to ‘a remixer’, whereby the artist as genius lives on within the new technology. Mashup is a process (as is Remix actually) that confuses boundaries while striving for a constellation that is only “considerably more than the sum of their parts” but never a new thing. But remix creates a song with “substantial changes” and “a second [coming??] chance”. Remix exists in the production of commodity culture while mashups subvert the values of that culture. Originality is supposed in the remix while it is erased in the mashup.

Consider the points raised in this seminar outline (PDF) in regards to mashup culture. Who owns words, and what is the value of fan production? Can you see value in mashups if we think about it in the following ways:

( from: Mashup Cultures by Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss - editor. p9)

Mashups are combinations of one or more existing works of media that rely on references back to the original/s in order for the newer combinations to be meaningful. In this way mashups differ from remixes as the latter creates a new work and can be made from a single already-existing work. As a critical device a mashup works from what literary theorist Jerome McGann calls derformance.

"Imaginative work has an elective affinity with performance: it is organized as rhetoric andpoiesis rather than as exposition and information-transmission. Because this is so, it always liesopen to deformative moves. Harold Bloom's trenchant theory of poetic influence spelled outsome of the imagination's performative "ratios," as he called them. Certain of these ratios areaggressively deformative, as when Blake famously overturns both Milton's Paradise Lost and itschief precursor, the Judaeo-Christian bible, or when Ronald Johnson selects from and revisesParadise Lost in RADI OS (1977)" (McGann and Samuels)

"Deformative scholarship is all but forbidden, thethought of it either irresponsible or damaging to critical seriousness. It exists nonetheless, and incertain cases it has gained justifiable distinction and importance. Forgery is the most importanttype of deformative scholarship, nor should its contribution to the advancement of learning beunderestimated, as Anthony Grafton has recently shown." - (McGann and Samuels)

Buffy versus Edward is a well know mashup that exposes many of the biases and stereotypical gender assumptions that underpin the Twilight series, along with foregrounding the strong female character in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. This mashup is an excellent critical reflection in the deformative sense that McGann refers to.

"Five months in the making, Buffy vs Edward is essentially an answer to the question “What Would Buffy Do?” My re-imagined story was specifically constructed as a response to Edward, and what his behavior represents in our larger social context for both men and women. More than just a showdown between The Slayer and the Sparkly Vampire, it’s also a humorous visualization of the metaphorical battle between two opposing visions of gender roles in the 21ist century" - What Would Buffy Do? Notes on Dusting Edward Cullen by Jonathan McIntosh (on WIMINs Voices).

One of the primary strengths of digital media as a meaning making system is how the collision of two elements can make a third. A video and a soundtrack can be joined in a webpage to create a new set of meanings when compared to the previous two or more works.

(Note: Some of these references are incorrect, but the general idea is present)

Materiality: “Dream America Movie” is constructed entirely by recombining semiotic content from Internet sources. The material consists of the following elements:

1. Moving visual imagery derived from YouTube, with one of two direct references to 131 course material, i.e., a clip from Michael Moore’s documentary, “Bowling for Columbine”;

2. Still photography from news sources and Microsoft clipart;

3. Spoken verbal commentary in the forms of voice over (inserted from YouTube) of the introduction to “God Bless America” by Irving Berlin, newscaster narration, clips from news conferences of former President Bush and current Vice President Biden, and, in one of two direct references to 131 course material, a clip from Morgan Spurlock’s TV documentary, “Minimum Wage”;

4. Written verbal content in the forms of title (her only self-created addition to the video text), news channel logos (ABC; Fox News; CNN), news captions and scrolling banners, signs in the hands of individuals in visuals or propped on objects in visual); a combination of complete sentences in the narration, voiceover, and signs; and one-line clauses and phrases in the news banners and captions;

5. Streaming music throughout (Carmina Burana’s “O Fortuna”) inserted from YouTube (http://vodpod.com/watch/3134307-carmina-burana-o-fortuna).

(Source: Mashup of Discourses: A Critical Analysis of the Videotext, "Dream America Movie" by Nancy Fox)

What unites all of these elements in the above video is the critical theme of 'What is America today as a contrast to the American Dream?'. The focus provided by a theme is an important thing to remember when making a mashup.

The creation of a mashup can critique an established code or order that represents gender or sexuality.

This video was created by Michelle Redman and Kyle Nimmo for MACS 221 at UFV. It is meant to highlight how gender stereotypes are present in commercials and advertisments.

Making the Mashup

a) Writing for a Mashup
Creating a mashup is a lot about improvisation, using the materials at hand and understanding how references work in popular culture. You may decide to make a mashup based on a video you have seen that you believe needs to be answered. The YouTube function of Video Response caters for this aspect of the mashup. You may have thought of a theme, say Barack Obama is a Player, and you construct a mashup around that idea, gathering material from videos, podcasts, news images and broadcasts and audiobooks. The time line and rhythm of the segments you use in the mashup are important. Adding music can often make the mashup more effective, or it can fail.

b) The Tools:
There are three approaches to gathering moving images for the construction of a mashup; 1. copying, 2. ripping, 3. making.

1. Copying - screen capture using Camtasia, Jing (Mac and PC), AviScreen Classic, Fraps, GameCam, and Capture Me (Mac compatible). Using these programs you can capture images and often sound (AviScreen is image only). These can be saved as an .avi file and edited in a video editing program. I will return to video editing in the third section, making.

2. Ripping is the taking of content from the Internet. the Fast Video Download (FVD) addon for Firefox is one way of taking videos from the Internet. DownloadThemAll allows for fast download of videos, audio and images from a webpage. It does not work with embedded content the way FVD does. KeepVid does work with embedded videos on the Internet.

When making mashups a Creative Commons License (CC) is your friend. The CC License allows you to copy and modify content for non-commercial use. There are many sites on the Internet that allow for free use (free as in open). These include the enormous archive.org, OurMedia, and Freesound.org. Soundcloud is a music sharing site that allows for free downloads, as does the Free Music Archive.

3. Making is the stage after both copying and ripping. You have the gathered the raw materials for your mashup and now you need to put them all together. This is the hardest part of the process in many ways. For video editing there are a number of options available. In HUMlab we offer FinalCut Pro. As a free online download, but much simpler solution for video editing I use VirtualDub. There is also Windows Movie Maker. Camtasia (Free 30-day trial version) has a fairly advanced editing function as well. To covert AVI to MOV files for Window Movie Maker, there is a free solution. To covert Flash to MOV try this one. For working with sound, I use Cubase LE4, but there are free solutions. Audacity is one of them. Sill images can be inserted into the editing time-line of Camtasia and FinalCut. You can import the ripped video (after conversion if necessary) into each of the video editing programs mentioned here, using the Import Media function. You may want to add your own content as well and this can be done with the video cameras in HUMlab, the audio software I have mentioned here or using your own images.

Once you have completed your mashup I recommend sharing it with the world, using:

56.com (Chinese) Archive.org Afreeca (South Korean) AniBOOM Blinkx Blip.tv BlogTV Brainpop Break.com Buzznet Comedy.com Crackle Dailymotion EngageMedia ExpoTV FC2 Video Funnyordie.com

Flickr Fotki Gawkk Gaytube Tangle.com (formerly Godtube) Hulu HD share (focus on HD videos) Lafango Liveleak Mail.ru MaYoMo Mefeedia Megaupload Metacafe Mevio Myspace MyVideo

Novamov Nico Nico Douga (Japanese) OneWorldTV Openfilm Ourmedia Photobucket Podblanc Rayzz Redtube Revver Rambler Vision (Russian) ReelTime.com RuTube (Russian) Sapo Videos (Portuguese) SchoolTube ScienceStage Sevenload SmugMug Trilulilu (Romanian)

TroopTube Tudou (Chinese) Vbox7 (Bulgarian) Veer Veoh Viddler Videojug Vidoosh (Iranian) Vimeo Vuze Vzaar Wildscreen.tv xtube Yahoo! Video (no new uploads) Youku (Chinese) YouTube Zoopy

GET TO IT PEOPLE!

Frankenstein’s Monster Comes Home: Digital Remix and the Ends of Origin

Frankenstein’s Monster Comes Home:

Digital Remix and the Ends of Origin

Jim Barrett

Language Studies/HUMlab

Umeå University

Sweden

“The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind. ”

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.

“One text that shows the disaster of the divorce between science and poetry would be the one by Mary Shelley whose name is Frankenstein.”

Avital Ronell, Body/No Body (in conversation with Werner Herzog)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (published 1818) represents a historical and literary divergence between the poetic and the technical, and is a significant reaction against this split as part of English Romanticism. It is the contention of my presentation that in contemporary digital works of art and narrative we are witnessing a re-marriage of science and poetry. However, this union should be no automatic cause for romantic joy, as the present situation in the education sector of most Western democracies indicates. Today, the natural sciences are separated from and weighted favorably in relation to the production and analysis of culture.  There is little to indicate that this is an effective strategy in light of present global ‘network culture’ initiatives. Today, the union of science and poetry in digital media is felt most acutely in reading, or the performative interpretation of imaginative works. Computer games, websites, digital works of literature, apps, virtual worlds, interactive art, and spatial media (GIS, Kinnect, GPS, Wii) are interpreted as they are performed and often require some knowledge of the medium by the user in order for the work to function. This situation represents a form of reading that has not been practiced widely in Western academic and literate circles for several centuries. We are not witnessing a return to what Walter J. Ong famously terms a “secondary orality” (10-11), but rather we are seeing a form of inscription rapidly emerge that is spatial, multi-temporal, performed, place-bound, visual, sonic, and navigated. Two central concepts are important for understanding how digital works are generally interpreted, and these are simulation and remix. Representation has become the domain of mediating objects, both virtual and physical, while reading is as much about arranging and appropriating as it is about reference, symbolism, iconography and interpretation. Based on a relatively small selection of digital works this presentation examines reception practices involving digital media, which suggest an expanded concept of reading where the material technology of a work determines meaning as much as its representative elements do. In this examination I demonstrate how performance, participation, co-authoring, and remix make the reading of the digital works.  These works are

Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson (1995)

Last Meal Requested by Sachiko Hayashi (2004)

Façade By Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern (2006)

Second Life http://youtu.be/9g-kYvK3P-Q

CONSTRUCT by salevy_oh (2011)

The Celebration by Iris Piers (2011)

Patchwork Girl is a work of electronic literature by American author Shelley Jackson. It was written in Storyspace and published by Eastgate Systems in 1995. It is often discussed along with Michael Joyce's 'Afternoon, a story' as an important work of hypertext fiction. "Shelley Jackson's brilliantly realized hypertext Patchwork Girl is an electronic fiction that manages to be at once highly original and intensely parasitic on its print predecessors."



The actions of the avatar, which is the identity of its operator in SL, conform to the traditions of Varjrayana Buddhism. The combination of the actions of the avatar and the audio is a two fold signifying structure, with the operator of the avatar at the center. In a simulative sense the operator of the avatar is enacting a practice that is firmly contextualized in religious and social contexts.



Last Meal Requested is an interactive net art work by Japanese/Swedish artist Sachiko Hayashi. It deals with themes of gender, state power, violence and the rhetoric of the image. The original work can be accessed at http://www.e-garde.net/lmr/lmr2.html

 

Selavy: What happens when you write in a diary? Of course, some people write down “got up at 7am, drank a coffee, had lunch with Jim, went to bed early”, but that’s not the type of diary I’m referring to. It is rather the idea of keeping a record of selected thoughts, feelings, moods, ideas, etc. The important part is, of course, that you do that regularly. And that is exactly what I did in CONSTRUCT: I added one room each day. Every one of the 75 days of the residency has its own room, often relating to the topic of the residency itself, a time capsule of ideas, artifacts, or reference to other work. If you read a diary, you may get an idea about the writer and her life. If you visit CONSTRUCT, you may get an idea about Selavy Oh and her residency.



The Celebration "combines a circular display of flatscreens, reminiscent of a giant zoetrope, containing amateur film footage from the 1910's-1940's with different soundscapes that can be manipulated by the audience" (Piers). How the audience manipulates the various audio and images, and how they combine to create an interactive and immersive space, makes The Celebration an engaging work of interactive digital art. The visitor enters a darkened space, where the only available light comes from the 10 screens showing the films of The Celebration. By moving around the space and judging their own distance, speed of movement, posture and height in relation to the (largely invisible) Arduino trackers, a dance begins with the audio and the cracked black and white images from almost a century ago. Each of the screens that make up The Celebration has an Arduino tracking sensor attached, which maps the movements of the body of a visitor, and implements pre-programmed changes in the presentation of images and sound. Unknown faces stare out from the screens, mostly laughing, talking (unheard) and often looking straight at the camera, and at the audience. As these faces watch, the visitor dodges and weaves, hops and slides, while the images and sounds change. At the same time the visitor is watching the faces, along with their bodies, their families and friends, competitors at sports events and classmates, neighbors and colleagues. It is according to this arrangement that a circuit of movement and gaze is achieved by the programming of The Celebration.




Façade is a prototype of interactive drama, a new genre of character and story-intensive interactive entertainment. Façade is freely downloadable at interactivestory.net. In Façade, you, the player, using your own name and gender, play the character of a longtime friend of Grace and Trip, an attractive and materially successful couple in their early thirties. During an evening get-together at their apartment that quickly turns ugly, you become entangled in the high-conflict dissolution of Grace and Trip’s marriage. No one is safe as the accusations fly, sides are taken and irreversible decisions are forced to be made. By the end of this intense one-act play you will have changed the course of Grace and Trip’s lives – motivating you to re-play the drama to find out how your interaction could make things turn out differently the next time. In this video Facade is used to promote an abstinence program.

Twitter as Social Media

Twitter is a log-in web 'micro-blogging' service where users can follow each other as they post 140 character entries in a scrolling feed of short messages, links, updates, bookmarks and referrals (re-tweets). It was founded in 2006 and currently has 11 million active accounts.

San Antonio-based market-research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the US and in English) over a two-week period in August 2009 from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM (CST) and separated them into six categories:

• Pointless babble – 40%
• Conversational – 38%
• Pass-along value – 9%
• Self-promotion – 6%
• Spam – 4%
• News – 4%

Social networking researcher Danah Boyd responded to the Pear Analytics survey by arguing that what the Pear researchers labelled "pointless babble" is better characterized as "social grooming" and/or "peripheral awareness" (which she explains as persons "want[ing] to know what the people around them are thinking and doing and feeling, even when co-presence isn’t viable").

An enormous number of universities are using Twitter to brand and profile themselves. I have been Tweeting since 2006. When it comes to my own Twitter use and what I get from it. I do not engage in conversation so much using Twitter, although it is becoming more of my twitter activity as more people join in.  I have broken it down into these categories:

1. Bookmarks - I have a delicious site where I keep bookmarks. Twitter is more about sharing bookmarks than archiving and ordering them. I can also harvest bookmarks from the Twitter feeds I follow.

2. RSS Feed - Twitter has replaced my syndication services, although I keep it going I hardly ever use it. The people I follow using post about their blog entries

3. Profiling myself - this includes notifying on my own blog posts, publications, events, performances, teaching and travel.

4. Conference and event reporting -  I can follow a conference or event either from the Twitter site dedicated to it, or from its assigned hash tag.

5. Note taking and record keeping - i have composed blog posts and journalism articles from my entries on Twitter. It is possible to archive your Twitter posts and as Twitter only keeps the previous 4000 tweets you may want to do this regularly.

6. Networking - Twitter tracks the location of Tweets and you can search of other Twitter users nearby. As well Twitter is an easy way to come into contact with the leaders or interesting people in your academic field. 

7. As a Text and Research Object - Enormous amounts of information are generated by Twitter. In regard to some of the big national and international events of the past few years, Twitter has been a source of expression and information for millions of people. The Israeli invasion of Gaza, The student uprising in Iran, the revolutions in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and the massacre in Norway have all be well documented using Twitter. Collecting this information and collating it is an interesting challenge for academics.

8. Creative Writing and Literature - Fiction using twitter abounds by so-called TwittLitters. As well there is the retelling of the great novels using Twitter, with the book Twitterature selling well in many countries.

9. To converse and socialize - you can chat with friends, discuss a common interest, look for missing people at workshops, get information about food, accommodation, travel, books, music, websites and so on.

Place and Identity in the Digital Arena (Virtual World and Digital Literature)

"Place is experienced space (Malpas, 1999; Tuan & Mercure, 2004). It is what happens when geographic space takes on meaning of any sort—as an object of memory, desire,or fear. Place can be produced through happenstance (the space of a first kiss), through narrative (the space of childhood that is persistently articulated with story), through familiarity (the space one lives each day),or through representation (the space of art or advertising). This identification with place is an important method of organizing personal experience and social actions." - Using Virtual Worlds to Foster Civic Engagement, Eric Gordon and Gene Koo p206

Place is more than just a name. Place gives identity and meaning to space. Places are marked out and organized according to class, gender, history, power, politics, knowledge, nationality, memory, desire, narrative, and conflict. It is relatively easy to think of a place that has special or specific meaning and then question why it is different from another, perhaps very similar place.

In digital media place takes on a new level of significance in narrative. Place often determines identity in digitally media narratives. Consider the most famous computer games, where location directs action.

World of Warcraft relies on places to order the flow of play. Raids are conducted over boundaries between places. Places take on specific characteristics to enhance play and contextualize characters and action.

It is different in Counter-Strike. Distances, heights and fields of view are that much more meaningful here. Meaningful largely through the functionality of my weapons, to be sure. Still, a variety of tactical behaviours is possible. The spatial structures can be appropriated in different ways. But again, the look of the buildings is largely irrelevant. I learn the valuable properties of places via multiple repeated attempts.

Façade

A "one act interactive drama" where "A couple, Grace and Trip, hosts the player in their apartment for cocktails and proceeds to have a relationship breakdown. Using full typed sentences the player can coach them through their troubles or drive them to be more distant from each other." Facade as a narrative work relies on the representation of place and identity (specifically gender and class) to present a story. In Façade place and gender are combined in the bar and the lounge areas of the three-dimensional apartment that makes up the work. The bar is associated with the male character Trip, and the lounge is given female characteristics though an alignment with Grace. Each character retreats or is drawn into their respective areas in the conflicts of the narrative, often calling for the guest/reader to join them. The objects that are located in the respective areas also function to prompt the reader in responding to the narrative according to associations between gender and place. A painting or a piece of furniture prompts dialogue from the characters to address the reader according to gendered themes in narrative. With the structures provided by the characters and their respective places in the narrative, the reader is restricted to a set number of responses according to gender. In this way the characters and the places they occupy establish the directions for narrative development in Façade.

The relationship between Trip and Grace is composed of stereotypical gender roles and the portrayal of their professional versus private lives. Trip and Grace’s marriage is defined in narrative according to Trip as the stronger and more powerful partner while Grace struggles against being submissive. This, in turn, translates into one character having greater agency where Trip dominates compared to Grace. Many of these conflicts are played out in the narrative in relation to the places depicted in the work. For example, during the evening, he chooses the wine and fixes the drinks. In negotiating the bar and serving the drinks, Grace asks the guest, “Jim, how about something simple, like a nice glass of chardonnay?” only to receive the reply from Trip, “Yeah, no, we need to open this wine! Our friend is here, we're going to enjoy ourselves, that's all there is to it! GRACE: (frustrated sigh)” (Façade). Grace, as representing a narrative direction, is denied agency, in that she is unable to choose her own drink, and once again fails to find her own voice in the dialogue with Trip. As a result the reader is left with the narrative direction initiated by Trip as the only way forward for the story.

The bar area is identified with Trip as part of the gendered structure of the places in Façade. Trip occupies and controls the bar, and he refers to it numerous times with statements that assert a sense of competitive and aggressive pride,

TRIP Oh, yeah, uh, I'm gonna fix us some drinks in a sec! TRIP Ah, you need to help me break in my expensive new set of cocktail making accessories. JIM: cocktails? I love cocktails TRIP: Yeah, hang on, ooh, I'm going to make you one of my fabulous drinks in just a minute, heh! (Façade)

The bar is a masculinized place in Façade by virtue of Trip’s dominance of it, as it is only there that he can display his power and status,

TRIP. Y -- yeah, uh, we need drinks! JIM: large drinks TRIP: This is great... -- (interrupted) TRIP: W -- well, uh, I'm going to open an exquisite Bordeaux! TRIP: Best of the best, you can't buy this in stores. Very, very special - GRACE: God Trip, you are such a wine snob. Just like my dad. (Façade)

The comparison between Trip and Grace’s wealthy father is part of the masculine and authoritative narrative qualities assigned to the bar. Readings are set up according to the power and status implied by the exclusive wine offered by Trip. The alcohol is presented in contrast to the tastes of Grace, who is parodied and humiliated in the contexts of the bar. This humiliation is demonstrated in exchanges such as, “TRIP: Why don't I make us one of my new drink inventions, TRIP: I call it Grace's Inner Soul. TRIP: It's a mixture of chardonnay, bitters and lots of ice” (Façade). Grace is contrasted to the social prestige associated with the bar in relation to Trip.

The bar area functions as support for Trip, which confines the reader to a single male perspective. A picture of the Italian countryside, from a holiday that Trip references as a “second honeymoon” (Façade) is beside the bar, and he draws attention,

TRIP: Oh, Jim, I thought you might like this photo I just put up from our recent trip to Italy. JIM: thanks GRACE: Uhh, it's a beautiful picture of the Italian countryside, of course he'll like it! (Grace sips her Grace's drink.) TRIP: Grace, I know you don't like it, but our friend might. GRACE: By the way, anybody, join me on the couch if you like. (Façade)

If the guest joins Grace on the couch the narrative themes connected to her and prompted by the objects, decorations and art that surround are moved into the centre of dialogue. A move to the lounge by the guest/reader shifts the progression of narrative away from the perspectives of Trip and towards those of Grace. If Trip is not at the bar and instead moves closer to the couch and Grace, the overall narrative moves to center more on the concerns of Grace and eventually on both characters. The two places in the apartment, the lounge and the bar are actually extensions of the characters Grace and Trip as far as narrative is concerned.

From these place-based narrative exchanges identity converges for each of the characters. The reader/guest establishes perspective regarding the characters and the 'best' ways to address them as identities considering the contexts of dialogue.

"There is no self that is prior to the convergence or who maintains 'integrity' prior to its entrance into this conflicted cultural field. There is only the taking up of the tools where they lie, where the very ’taking up’ is enabled by the tool lying there”. - Judith Butler (1990 145)

This is a still image of my avatar in Second Life. It has no biological sex, no genitals or DNA that identifies it according to a scientific standard as male. However, it is consistently referred to by myself and others as 'he' or 'him' and the things it owns as 'his'. Visually, this avatar presents as male and the above image illustrates this 'maleness' in a contemporary style. The business suit, hair style and physical features indicate to me a form of 'soft masculinity', with influence from some of the androgynous gender tropes from popular culture. Lack of facial hair, long eye lashes, large eyes, longish hair style, slight build that lacks developed muscle definition, and thin hips add to the androgyny of the avatar. The image of the avatar is not suffused with sexual imagery and the erotic zones of the body are not emphasized in gender specific ways. The lips are one area of the body that can carry erotic connotation in particular cultures (both male and female) and these are somewhat emphasized with the avatar. The soft masculinity of the avatar can be related to a larger masculine culture in East Asia, where male bodies are represented without excessive muscles or hair and attention is paid to cosmetics and appearance preparation. This video is an example of such a soft masculinity:

South Korean idol boy band, Dong Bang Shin Ki singing Under My Skin in 2008, (Notice the avatar-like flying of some of the characters) Further analysis of this video and "mu-kuk-jok 'soft masculinity'" is HERE

"Feminist geographers often consider the body as a place, a “location or site . . . of the individual”(McDowell,1999). Judith Butler (1990) developed the influential concept of“performativity,”regarding gender identities as a performance in the “stylized repetition ofacts.”To Butler,being a woman is not a natural fact but “a cultural performance [in which] ‘naturalness’ [is] constituted through discursively constrained performative acts that produce the body through and within the categories of sex”(cited in McDowell, 1999,p.54)." Bardzell and Odom The Slave's Body as a Place p252

Apart from the visual appearance of the avatar in regards to gender and sexuality there is also the concept of performing gender. My avatar performs as a predominantly heterosexual identity in Second Life. While stereotyping plays a large role in the performance of heterosexuality masculinity, the attributes of my own avatar that indicates a predominately hetero-orientation can be the same that indicate androgyny; lack of overt sexualized physical attributes, a gender-neutral physical stance and movements, and the absence of queer, bi or gay (HTB) symbols in reference to what is considered the so-called 'default sexuality' (i.e. heteronormativity).

I presented my avatar to some students recently as "fairly standard in regards to gender" and it was only while thinking about it further today that I understood what this can mean. The opening quote, "There is only the taking up of the tools where they lie, where the very ’taking up’ is enabled by the tool lying there” from Judith Butler is very much about the components of gender performance. When we work in virtual worlds we operate under the same rules to which Butler refers. What is available is what people can use to identify socially with gender and sexuality. Agency emerges from this range of possibilities according to what is tolerated, permitted and encouraged in the "conflicted cultural field"..

The avatar above references symbols of soft-masculine power in the suit, formal qualities (expensive clothes, neck tie) and attention to appearance. These factors ally power with economic wealth in the formation of identity. These qualities are surprisingly similar to many of the images from the video of the South Korean pop band. The role of my avatar in my job influences the references and values I represent within it. I have attempted to build connections between agency and power in my avatar by referencing formal qualities in male contexts. The technological aspects of my job can be related to the East Asian cultural reference where a stereotype of a technical mediated identity is common. I also think about Science Fiction novels, especially those by William Gibson, and the ways they portray East Asia as a digital society where gender-ambiguous figures move freely in information spaces.

Background Commentary

In performing the above reading I considered the following:

- Performativity: We have talked about gender being created performatively by our everyday practices. In this sense the practice of creating avatars is part of the process of creating gender. So how do the avatars (re)produce gender stereotypes? How do they exceed them?

- Representations of gender and sexuality: as both representing what is not present (the avatar representing 'me' in SL, the avatar's gender representing cultural notions/norms of gender such as the heteronormative), and as actually creating/being what is thus represented (and never just 'mirroring' the student, or cultural notions/norms). So, what do the avatars create when it comes to gender/sexuality? What do they think of the potential political power behind this kinds of representations? Do you think about the looks of the avatar's as being feminist in any sense? If so - how?

- The Butler quote: "There is only the taking up of the tools where they lie, where the very ’taking up’ is enabled by the tool lying there”. This is somewhat difficult to grasp, but virtual worlds are good examples in order to illustrate it, since "the tools" (for performed gender for example) are on the one hand per-determined by the architecture of the computer program, and on the other hand, as is the case with Second Life the tools for the manipulation of gender imagery and performance are many.

- Agency: The above also relates to agency, and having a choice (although always conditioned by the "convergence or who maintains 'integrity' prior to its entrance into this conflicted cultural field").

- Gender is said to be the prime thing in people's identifications and in identifications of others. So what choices are made in relation to identify and identification in the construction of the avatar? Initially it is necessary to decide whether the avatar is male or female (which is of course an interesting thing in itself). Why does one choose the avatar's gender as the same as my own? Why does one choose an oppositional gender? In relation to becoming a subject occurring in relation to subjecting oneself to different norms (for example gender norms). In a virtual environment simulations of gender performance can be experimented with. My avatar is not specifically incomprehensible and this is a result of reference to standard contemporary gender norms .

For further references to avatars, agency and the representation and performance of Self see HERE.

"Donna Leishman’s “Red Ridinghood” is an interactive story and a prime example of electronic literature. The viewer has to click on certain objects within the scene in order to make the story progress resulting in interaction. While at one point the viewer is offered two choices to click, both routes end up leading to the same ending. This type of story can be mistakenly labeled as a ‘game’ meaning that the viewer actually has the ability to change the outcome of the story line. Yet “Red Ridinghood” does not actually offer the reader to choose the ending of the story, it simply allows them to become an essential part of the story. Thus the literary aspect is kept in tact, the viewer is allowed a sense of control over the story, but is ultimately not able to change the plot in any way. This element of interactivity with the story is makes “Red Riding Hood” an example of how an interactive story can still be literature and not art or even an online game. The narrative cannot be completed without an outside force, in this case the reader clicking through the passages. The narrative itself is also something that can only be produced on an electronic level. It is made up of pictures and sounds rather then words. While Little Red Riding Hood is a common story, the illustrations put a new twist on it, making it a new urbanized fairy tale that doesn’t adhere exactly to the original plot line."

Place plays a significant role in the establishment of Red as a characte both in terms of the depicted body and the locations it occupies:

"Red and Wolf are two deeply intertwined characters acting out in this story. Red's perspective is one of compromised authenticity; so much of the background storyline is acted out through her dreams (or written in her diary) that it is hard to know how her evident inner turmoil has skewed the Wolf's character. Leishman excels in bringing to life the complex inner workings of a young woman, particularly through the view of Red's bedroom. Who is Red? What are her mental fabrications and what is fact? These are questions that the author begs us to raise with this scene." - A Peak into the Bedroom

Reading Gender and Sexuality in the Avatar

"There is no self that is prior to the convergence or who maintains 'integrity' prior to its entrance into this conflicted cultural field. There is only the taking up of the tools where they lie, where the very ’taking up’ is enabled by the tool lying there”. - Judith Butler (1990 145)

This is a still image of my avatar in Second Life. It has no biological sex, no genitals or DNA that identifies it according to a scientific standard as male. However, it is consistently referred to by myself and others as 'he' or 'him' and the things it owns as 'his'. Visually, this avatar presents as male and the above image illustrates this 'maleness' in a contemporary style. The business suit, hair style and physical features indicate to me a form of 'soft masculinity', with influence from some of the androgynous gender tropes from popular culture. Lack of facial hair, long eye lashes, large eyes, longish hair style, slight build that lacks developed muscle definition, and thin hips add to the androgyny of the avatar. The image of the avatar is not suffused with sexual imagery and the erotic zones of the body are not emphasized in gender specific ways. The lips are one area of the body that can carry erotic connotation in particular cultures (both male and female) and these are somewhat emphasized with the avatar. The soft masculinity of the avatar can be related to a larger masculine culture in East Asia, where male bodies are represented without excessive muscles or hair and attention is paid to cosmetics and appearance preparation. This video is an example of such a soft masculinity:

South Korean idol boy band, Dong Bang Shin Ki singing Under My Skin in 2008, (Notice the avatar-like flying of some of the characters) Further analysis of this video and "mu-kuk-jok 'soft masculinity'" is HERE

Apart from the visual appearance of the avatar in regards to gender and sexuality there is also the concept of performing gender. My avatar performs as a predominantly heterosexual identity in Second Life. While stereotyping plays a large role in the performance of heterosexuality masculinity, the attributes of my own avatar that indicates a predominately hetero-orientation can be the same that indicate androgyny; lack of overt sexualized physical attributes, a gender-neutral physical stance and movements, and the absence of queer, bi or gay (HTB) symbols in reference to what is considered the so-called 'default sexuality' (i.e. heteronormativity).

I presented my avatar to students yesterday as "fairly standard in regards to gender" and it was only while thinking about it further today that I understood what this can mean. The opening quote, "There is only the taking up of the tools where they lie, where the very ’taking up’ is enabled by the tool lying there” from Judith Butler is very much about the components of gender performance. When we work in virtual worlds we operate under the same rules to which Butler refers. What is available is what people can use to identify socially with gender and sexuality. Agency emerges from this range of possibilities according to what is tolerated, permitted and encouraged in the "conflicted cultural field"..

The avatar above references symbols of soft-masculine power in the suit, formal qualities (expensive clothes, neck tie) and attention to appearance. These factors ally power with economic wealth in the formation of identity. These qualities are surprisingly similar to many of the images from the video of the South Korean pop band. The role of my avatar in my job influences the references and values I represent within it. I have attempted to build connections between agency and power in my avatar by referencing formal qualities in male contexts. The technological aspects of my job can be related to the East Asian cultural reference where a stereotype of a technical mediated identity is common. I also think about Science Fiction novels, especially those by William Gibson, and the ways they portray East Asia as a digital society where gender-ambiguous figures move freely in information spaces.

Background Commentary

In performing the above reading I considered the following:

- Performativity: We have talked about gender being created performatively by our everyday practices. In this sense the practice of creating avatars is part of the process of creating gender. So how do the avatars (re)produce gender stereotypes? How do they exceed them?

- Representations of gender and sexuality: as both representing what is not present (the avatar representing 'me' in SL, the avatar's gender representing cultural notions/norms of gender such as the heteronormative), and as actually creating/being what is thus represented (and never just 'mirroring' the student, or cultural notions/norms). So, what do the avatars create when it comes to gender/sexuality? What do they think of the potential political power behind this kinds of representations? Do you think about the looks of the avatar's as being feminist in any sense? If so - how?

- The Butler quote: "There is only the taking up of the tools where they lie, where the very ’taking up’ is enabled by the tool lying there”. This is somewhat difficult to grasp, but virtual worlds are good examples in order to illustrate it, since "the tools" (for performed gender for example) are on the one hand per-determined by the architecture of the computer program, and on the other hand, as is the case with Second Life the tools for the manipulation of gender imagery and performance are many.

- Agency: The above also relates to agency, and having a choice (although always conditioned by the "convergence or who maintains 'integrity' prior to its entrance into this conflicted cultural field").

- Gender is said to be the prime thing in people's identifications and in identifications of others. So what choices are made in relation to identify and identification in the construction of the avatar? Initially it is necessary to decide whether the avatar is male or female (which is of course an interesting thing in itself). Why does one choose the avatar's gender as the same as my own? Why does one choose an oppositional gender? In relation to becoming a subject occurring in relation to subjecting oneself to different norms (for example gender norms). In a virtual environment simulations of gender performance can be experimented with. My avatar is not specifically incomprehensible and this is a result of reference to standard contemporary gender norms .

For further references to avatars, agency and the representation and performance of Self see HERE.

Gender and Sexuality in Virtual Worlds and Digital Literature

Föreläsning/workshop om genus/sexualitet i olika digitala arenor (virtuella världar, digital litteratur) (2 timmar) Lärare: Jim Barrett

The Avatar, The Reader and The Self: Gender and Sexuality in Selected Digital Arenas 
Two popular modes of digital mediation are virtual worlds and digital literature. This lecture will introduce both by first providing a brief history of their development and the basics of how they function and convey meaning. At the center of both virtual worlds and digital literature is the concept of interactivity. In this lecture I will provide explanations of how gender and sexuality are performed and represented in the interactive digital environments according to six works; three virtual worlds (Second Life, World of Warcraft, and The Sims) and three works of interactive digital literature (Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson, Facade by Mateas and Stern, and Little Red Riding Hood by Donna Leishman). In order to prepare for the workshop and student work on gender and sexuality in digital areas we will focus on:

- How agency is represented and embodied in the works
- The concept of reader versus user in relation to the works
- How narrative architecture functions in the works
- The use of perspective and stereotypes in the works
- The role of simulation and narrative in the works

Workshop om genus/sexualitet i olika digitala arenor (virtuella världar, digital litteratur) (2 timmar) Lärare: Jim Barrett In this workshop you will be instructed in creating an avatar in Second Life according to a written abstract (50-150 words) based on gender and sexuality. You will first be asked to develop an avatar identity with a focus on gender and sexuality as a character in the written abstract (this could be an oppositional gender or a transgendered avatar). You will then create an account and choose a default avatar in Second Life and author it yourself according to your abstract (you will need an email for this). Next you will be asked to enter into a social situation with your avatar in Second Life. Finally you will be asked to write a short description of how the you experienced the social situation as your avatar. The performance of gender and how it was received and responded to by others in the social situation are important in this exercise. Consider the visual and gestural ques involved in the social exchange as the avatar. You will submit the short description of the social situation as the avatar and offer some reflections upon it based on the first lecture.
Handledning digitala arenor (2 timmar) Lärare: Jim Barrett

Artistic Expressions and Copyright: The theory and practice of remix culture

Short Course
7 April kl. 13:00 - kl. 16:00 in HUMlab
Carl-Erik Engqvist, Jim BarrettBackground and Theoretical Perspectives


How have artists critically appropriated the concept of copyright in their works? In this course we will take a closer look at remix culture from the perspectives of text, image and music, and how different artists over considerable time have related to the idea of using already copyrighted materials. We will also investigate some of the different software programs that have, and are, important in the process of creating contemporary remix culture.

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. Copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression. In most jurisdictions copyright arises upon fixation and does not need to be registered. Copyright owners have the exclusive statutory right to exercise control over copying and other exploitation of the works for a specific period of time, after which the work is said to enter the public domain. Uses covered under limitations and exceptions to copyright, such as fair use, do not require permission from the copyright owner. All other uses require permission. Copyright owners can license or permanently transfer or assign their exclusive rights to others.

Initially copyright law applied to only the copying of books. Over time other uses such as translations and derivative works were made subject to copyright. Copyright now covers a wide range of works, including maps, sheet music, dramatic works, paintings, photographs, architectural drawings, sound recordings, motion pictures and computer programs.

The British Statute of Anne 1709, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned", was the first copyright statute. Today copyright laws are partially standardized through international and regional agreements such as the Berne Convention and the WIPO Copyright Treaty. Although there are consistencies among nations' copyright laws, each jurisdiction has separate and distinct laws and regulations covering copyright. National copyright laws on licensing, transfer and assignment of copyright still vary greatly between countries and copyrighted works are licensed on a territorial basis. Some jurisdictions also recognize moral rights of creators, such as the right to be credited for the work.

Remix deals with the discursive, the meanings of the remix exists in relation to a dialogic referent. When we see a video such as Star Trek; The Sexed Generation



This fan-create video can be interpreted both in relation to the original work (Star Trek: The Next Generation), and what is evoked by the remix. The changes between what the scene, word, sound or image 'meant' in the original context and in the remix can be partially explained by the Kuleshov effect;

Lev Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of Tsarist matinee idol Ivan Mozzhukhin was alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a girl, a little girl's coffin). The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on Mozzhukhin's face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at" the plate of soup, the girl, or the coffin, showing an expression of hunger, desire or grief respectively. Actually the footage of Mozzhukhin was the same shot repeated over and over again. Vsevolod Pudovkin (who later claimed to have been the co-creator of the experiment) described in 1929 how the audience "raved about the acting.... the heavy pensiveness of his mood over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead child, and noted the lust with which he observed the woman. But we knew that in all three cases the face was exactly the same."


Kuleshov used the experiment to indicate the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing. The implication is that viewers brought their own emotional reactions to this sequence of images, and then moreover attributed those reactions to the actor, investing his impassive face with their own feelings.

Remix is discursive, where signs, symbols, motifs, characters, settings, images, sounds, expressions, phrases, and so on are manipulated, removed from their 'original' contexts (if there is such a thing) and reconfigured according to the contexts of a remix. Other examples of remix and radically different contexts include the genre of remix film trailers, where The Shinning becomes a feel-good family comedy and Mary Poppins a suspense thriller.

Today, the material and aesthetic remix is an established form of cultural production. While legal action and artistic endeavour push remix to new heights of sublimity and farce, the massive growth of what Lawrence Lessig calls the “read/write” culture continues unabated as a source of music, visual and literary arts. Recent examples include the novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Paper Planes (2007), which uses the riff from The Clash’s song ‘Straight To Hell’. The works of the 2010 Art Remix exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts also contain many examples of remix in the visual arts. (2009) as a work of remix literature, and MIA’s

Remix is an important part of digital culture, as this video illustrates,



As a result of the extent to which remix has developed in relation to digital technologies, it has become a popular topic in theoretical and academic contexts as well. This interest has resulted in debates concerning how we should understand remix in a wide variety of practices and genres. For example, Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear explain,

“Remix means to take cultural artifacts and combine and manipulate them into new kinds of creative blends. In this sense, remix is as old as human cultures, and human cultures are themselves products of remixing.

Since the late 1980s, however—originating with highly contrived forms of music remix by dancehall DJs—remix practices have been greatly amplified in scope and sophistication by recent developments in digital technologies. These make it possible for home-based digital practitioners to produce polished remixes across a range of media and cultural forms. This has in turn strengthened remix culture, encouraging seemingly endless hybridizations in language, genre, content, technique, and the like, and raised questions of legal, educational, and cultural import.”

– Abstract from Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (2008, September). Remix: The Art and Craft of Endless Hybridization. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(1), 22–33. doi: 10.1598/JAAL.52.1.3

Remix can be divided into the aesthetic and the formal; a remix through references or a remix of materials. Remix as both a theoretical field and practical concept is discussed on the excellent blog Remix Theory by Eduado Navas, as well as in the work of Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid), and in documentary films such as Good Copy Bad Copy (2007). As I have already mentioned, the work of Harvard University Law Professor Lawrence Lessig is well-known in relation to remix culture, and to Lessig’s name we should add Henry Jenkins as a source of valuable writing on the topic.

While quotation and pastiche are parts of the geneology of remix, I believe the practice has gone from existing outside the norms of cultural production to become the staple of it. As Lev Manovitch argued back in 2002:

"Think Internet. What was referred in post-modern times as quoting, appropriation, and pastiche no longer needs any special name. Now this is simply the basic logic of cultural production: download images, code, shapes, scripts, etc.; modify them, and then paste the new works online - send them into circulation. (Note: with Internet, the always-existing loop of cultural production runs much faster: a new trend or style may spread overnight like a plague.)"

The advent of new ways to legally frame and claim copyright, such as the Creative Commons (CC) Licence options, has given new scope to the practice of remix. Combining CC licensing with online archives, such as the Internet Archive or the Freesound Project, provide remix artists with the raw materials for their work. To say anything about the digital tools that are available for remixing here would not do justice to the topic. The number of digital tools available for remixing audio, image and text today is huge.

Finally, we should be wary of making assumptions about what is happening to culture as it operates under digital regimes of production. It is not enough to say that the avant garde no longer exists, that art is dead or that we are all authors now. I believe we should consider the words of Jörgen Schäffer and Peter Gendolla who wrote recently in Reading (in) the Net

If we approach computer-controlled processes in the context of industrial production from the producer’s point of view, we could argue that manual work has been replaced by industrial work and automation technologies. This can also be observed in the arts: Whereas the Cubists and Dadaists had to work with paper, scissors and paste, contemporary artists trust in fast word processing, communications, image editing, graphics, animation and motion tracking software. Tristan Tzara’s instruction how to make a Dadaist poem or Burroughs’ cut-up poetics—to name only two examples—have turned into cut-and-paste or “StorySprawl” tools, and Mail Art is being succeeded by web logs and wikis. From the point of view of a reader, spectator or listener, we could argue that these tools demand a much higher grade of activity than the coughing, snorting and hawking which John Cage activated in his famous composition 4’33”. As regards the work of art, it seems as if the individual piece with beginning, middle and end had actually vanished from the scene or—to put it more mildly—had been transformed into an open and recursive process between producers, programs, and readers/spectators/listeners.

Some Links

http://www.soulsphincter.com/search/label/Remix

http://www.soulvlog.com/search/label/Remix

http://remixtheory.net/

http://www.soulsphincter.com/2007/11/beyond-intellectual-property-from-file.html

http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/Remix and Literature


The Cut Ups (1961) William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Anthony Blanch

The cut-up technique is an aleatory literary technique in which a text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. Most commonly, cut-ups are used to offer a non-linear alternative to traditional reading and writing.

The concept can be traced to at least the Dadaists of the 1920s, but was popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by writer William S. Burroughs, and has since been used in a wide variety of contexts.

It is important to remember that Surrealism began as a literary movement. During the First World War, André Breton, who had trained in medicine and psychiatry, served in a neurological hospital where he used Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic methods with soldiers suffering from shell-shock. Meeting the young writer Jacques Vaché, Breton felt that Vaché was the spiritual son of writer and pataphysics founder Alfred Jarry. He admired the young writer's anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition. Later Breton wrote, "In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud, with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau, with Lautréamont, but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe the most."

During a Dadaist rally in the 1920s Tristan Tzara offered to create a poem on the spot by pulling words at random from a hat. Collage, which was popularized roughly contemporaneously with the Surrealist movement, sometimes incorporated texts such as newspapers or brochures. Prior to this event, the technique had been published in an issue of 391 with in the poem by Tzara, dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love under the sub-title, TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM

Exquisite Corpse is a surrealist word game that can be described as proto-remix, as while it does not re-work exisiting examples of language, it does manipulate the gramatical forms of language. Exquisite Corpse is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun") or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed. Like the OULIPO, Exuisite Corpse introduces both chance and rules into the composition of language. There is now an Exquisite Corpse app for the iPhone.

Burroughs cited T. S. Eliot's poem, The Waste Land (1922) and John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy, which incorporated newspaper clippings, as early examples of the cut ups he popularized.

Gil J. Wolman developed cut-up techniques as part of his lettrist practice in the early 1950s.

Also in the 1950s, painter and writer Brion Gysin more fully developed the cut-up method after accidentally re-discovering it. He had placed layers of newspapers as a mat to protect a tabletop from being scratched while he cut papers with a razor blade. Upon cutting through the newspapers, Gysin noticed that the sliced layers offered interesting juxtapositions of text and image. He began deliberately cutting newspaper articles into sections, which he randomly rearranged. The book Minutes to Go resulted from his initial cut-up experiment: unedited and unchanged cut-ups which emerged as coherent and meaningful prose. South African poet Sinclair Beiles also used this technique and co-authored Minutes To Go. A chapter on the cut-ups from Minutes to Go is available here as a PDF. Other works on the cut-up by Burroughs can be found here.

Gysin introduced Burroughs to the technique at the famous Beat Hotel. The pair later applied the technique to printed media and audio recordings in an effort to decode the material's implicit content, hypothesizing that such a technique could be used to discover the true meaning of a given text. Burroughs also suggested cut-ups may be effective as a form of divination saying, "When you cut into the present the future leaks out."[2] Burroughs also further developed the "fold-in" technique. In 1977, Burroughs and Gysin published The Third Mind, a collection of cut-up writings and essays on the form. Apart from this publication, at the time, another important outlet for, the then radical technique, was Jeff Nuttall's publications entitled "My Own Mag"

Argentine writer Julio Cortázar often used cut ups in his 1963 novel Hopscotch.

Since the 1990s, Jeff Noon uses a similar remixing technique in his writing based on practices prevalent in Dub music. He expanded upon this with his Cobralingus system, which breaks down a piece of writing, going as far as turning individual words into anagrams, then melding the results into a narrative.The Internet and Literary Remix




The Grafik Dynamo is an example of language remix for the Internet. Random visual and written elements are combined in the familiar comic strip format, which blend them together in a three part narrative sequence that is often funny or ironic.

The Postmodern Generator: communications from elsewhere, is a website that scripts the composition of so-called postmodern texts. It is described on the site as "a parody of the postmodern school of academic writing written by Andrew C. Bulhak, using a system for generating random text". By refreshing the web page a net text is generated each time. The essays are produced from a formal grammar defined by a recursive transition network. It was mentioned by Biologist Richard Dawkins in his article Postmodernism Disrobed for the scientific journal Nature and in his book A Devil's Chaplain. This installation of the Generator has delivered 4933206 essays since 25/Feb/2000 18:43:09 PST, when it became operational.

Cutup machines are online programs that rearange texts according to the sequences they have been programmed with. This is a cut-up machine that works in similar ways to "those used by Burroughs in his own work. Basically it works along similar principles to photo-montage, create an new image of words out of whatever was put in."A nifty little text cutter-upper for all those would-be Burroughs out there.
Fanzines
Fanzines are another form of literary remix with texts produced from cutting up other texts, rearranging them, often involving glue. A fanzine (blend of fan and magazine or -zine) is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and first popularized within science fiction fandom, from whom it was adopted by others.

Typically, publishers, editors and contributors of articles or illustrations to fanzines receive no financial compensation. Fanzines are traditionally circulated free of charge, or for a nominal cost to defray postage or production expenses. Copies are often offered in exchange for similar publications, or for contributions of art, articles, or letters of comment (LoCs), which are then published.

A few fanzines have evolved into professional publications (sometimes known as "prozines"), and many professional writers were first published in fanzines; some continue to contribute to them after establishing a professional reputation. The term fanzine is sometimes confused with "fan magazine", but the latter term most often refers to commercially-produced publications for (rather than by) fans.


Touch and Go, a classic of the fanzine formatFan Fiction
Fan fiction (alternately referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF, or fic) is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters (or simply fictional characters) or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Works of fan fiction are rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work's owner, creator, or publisher; also, they are almost never professionally published. Fan fiction, therefore, is defined by being both related to its subject's canonical fictional universe and simultaneously existing outside the canon of that universe. Most fan fiction writers assume that their work is read primarily by other fans, and therefore tend to presume that their readers have knowledge of the canon universe (created by a professional writer) in which their works are based.

In relation to remix, fan fiction takes elements from one work and reworks them into new and sometimes very different contexts. Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex.



Fan fiction works are often character-centric, where a well known character is altered according to the genre or expanded ideas of the appropriating author. In this way fan fiction works with discourse, using established elements, such as character sexuality, to either counteract or comment on themes and images across a wider spectrum than may have been evoked by the original work.



Buffy vs Edward: Twilight Remixed
In this remixed narrative Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer at Sunnydale High. It’s an example of transformative storytelling serving as a pro-feminist visual critique of Edward’s character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy’s eyes, some of the more sexist gender roles and patriarchal Hollywood themes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways. Ultimately this remix is about more than a decisive showdown between the slayer and the sparkly vampire. It also doubles as a metaphor for the ongoing battle between two opposing visions of gender roles in the 21ist century.

Written examples of fan fiction can be found on MuggleNet (Harry Potter), FanFiction.net (General), Trekfanfiction (Star Trek), and Whispered Words (Slash Fiction).

The Tools

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Gathering Tools

http://www.vidtomp3.com/

http://www.online-convert.com/

http://www.downthemall.net/ 
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/fast-video-download-with-searc/ 
http://www.doom9.org/ 
http://www.download-finished.com/  

http://keepvid.com/ 

Sources
This is a short list of sites on the Internet where you can find Creative Commons and other open copyleft materials that can be remixed: 

Sound

http://www.opsound.org/
http://soundcloud.com/
http://www.archive.org/details/audio
http://www.ubu.com/sound/
http://freemusicarchive.org/
http://sounds.bl.uk/
http://library.open.ac.uk/find/images/ 
 http://www.freesound.org/  

Film
http://www.archive.org/details/movies
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.ubu.com/film
http://library.open.ac.uk/find/images/
http://video.google.com/
http://www.ourmedia.org/
http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger 

Print
http://www.ubu.com/papers/
http://www.archive.org/details/texts
http://www.scribd.com/ 

3D Models
http://www.turbosquid.com/
http://secondlife.com/ 

Samples
http://free-loops.com/
http://www.freesound.org/
http://bit.ly/fZsZOZ
http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/365/2007/199.shtml
http://bit.ly/ea60e2 

Images
http://www.picsearch.com/
http://www.cvma.ac.uk/index.html
http://images.google.com/hosted/life
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://www.everystockphoto.com/

These are some of the tools you can use for remixing and manipulating sound. 

Remixing Sound
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
http://ubuntustudio.org/
http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/cubase/cubase6_start.html
http://www.avid.com/us/products/family/pro-tools
http://www.adobe.com/se/products/soundbooth/?sdid=GPQKN&
http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/
http://ardour.org/ 

Sound Machines
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/
http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper/terminatorx 

Image Manipulation
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.lunapic.com/editor/
http://www.picnik.com/

http://www.picmonkey.com/


Word and Text manipulation work with few tools. Once you have written text you can record it, animate it or publish it.
Word and Text
http://www.openoffice.org/