Remix Culture (Class 13) - John Egenes

Changing connections/relations between musicians (producers) and listeners (consumers). Musicians always relied on connections between each other but there was a traditional separation between musician and audience. Digital culture has allowed rapid transfer of artists' work as well as greater communication between performers and audience. Yet audience wants to have more control; the invisible line is dissappearing so there is no longer a binary of creater/consumer.

Digital culture has allowed users to download the songs they want rather than an album. So an album has become individual tracks. Now we can take the tracks, break them down, and re-create the music for your own needs. Remixing is a signpost to a fundamental shift in the way we consider arts as commodities.

Artists no longer create products but processes. Remix culture - the folk process of the 21st century. Questions the artist's right and ability to control copyright. Non-linear, bottom-up, community-directed. Gutenberg is responsible for us starting at the beginning and reading through to the end.

Therefore remixers are not pirates. The media itself is what makes us think in a different way - not what is presented via that media...

Cities are predicated on the democratisation of transport through the automobile. We see the hype of new technologies but this hype distracts us from what we can actually do with the tech. Technology drives us to a more communal-focused creation of art; we go back to the foundational function of theatre - to create, and reflect community.

Essentially, digital content has no value. This is because the content is so easily changed. This is because there is no real documentable past - and an unlimited future.

remix.johnegenes.com