Remix Theory

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  Remix Image Inspired by the Title of my Book, Remix Theory

  Posted: 10-April-2013, 10:41pm EDT by navasse

  

  I received a tweet with the image above.  I think it’s a good remix in its own right. It appropriates not only the title of my book but also the concept behind the sound of music quite well.

  Thanks to Harold Schellinx; his tweet: [https:]]

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  Text Release: Modular Complexity and Remix: The Collapse of Time and Space into Search, by Eduardo Navas

  Posted: 15-March-2013, 10:48am EDT by navasse

  

  Note: This text was written for the peer review Journal AnthroVision 1.1 | 2012 : First issue. It was published in September of 2012. It is released here with permission from the editors. A special thanks to Nadine Wanono and the peer reviewers for all their support in the process of revising and publishing the text.  This essay is the first formal release of my post-doc research for The Department of Information Science and Media Studies at The University of Bergen, Norway in collaboration with The Software Studies Lab at Calit2, University of California, San Diego during the period of 2010-2012. I will be releasing more of my research in the near future. For now, you may also look over related material, available under Projects.

  For proper text citation use:

  Référence électronique
  Eduardo Navas, « Modular Complexity and Remix: The Collapse of Time and Space into Search  », Anthrovision [En ligne], 1.1 | 2012, mis en ligne le 01 septembre 2012, consulté le 15 mars 2013. URL : [lodel.revues.org]

  Download and read the complete article: DownLoad PDF

  Excerpt:

  If postmodernity consisted of the collapse of time into space, then the time of globalization at the beginning of the twenty-first century consists of the collapse of time and space into search.  Culture has entered a stage in which time and space are redefined by modular access to knowledge in unprecedented fashion with the use of search engines. Search redefines the way people come to terms with historical developments that are constantly recycled and remixed with the use of new media technology.  A search is usually performed with engines such as Google and Bing; technology that is founded on research that brings together private and public interests.

  This text is a reflection on the implications behind search algorithms that provide people with material that is relevant in correlation to a hierarchy of supposed importance that may reach great popularity, and perhaps even go viral (large circulation online) according to the use of key terms known as meta-data. This text is an evaluation of the aesthetics of search made possible because of what I call modular complexity; meaning, the ability to function within a system of modules that are autonomous but that also effectively inform and redefine each other.[1]  This, in effect, leads to the collapse of time and space into search; meaning, if the postmodern gave way to a sense of historical dismissal, such attitude is fully at play in networked culture as ahistoricity.  This shift, which informs emerging markets on the global network, repurposes interdisciplinary methodologies across fields of research in the social sciences as well as the humanities.

  [1] I first introduce the concept of Modular Complexity in the Essay “Remix: The Ethics of Modular Complexity in Sustainability,” written for CSPA Journal’s Spring 2010 issue.  See: [remixtheory.net]

  Download and read the complete article: DownLoad PDF

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  The Framework of Culture: Remix in Music, Art, and Literature, by Eduardo Navas

  Posted: 8-March-2013, 10:58am EST by navasse

  

  Image: The four diagrams of The Framework of Culture. Each is discussed below.

  Note: This text was commissioned for the exhibition Reuse Aloud, taking place at the NewBridge Project Space, Newcastle, England; and broadcasting 24 hours a day on basic.fm throughout March, 2013. Many thanks to the curators Will Strong and Rosanna Skett for commissioning the text.  A recorded version is also part of the exhibition.

  An earlier version of this text was presented as my keynote speech for Remixed Media Festival in NYC.  In that occassion I only focused on literature. The version for Reuse Aloud was revised to include art and music as well. My thanks to Tom Tenney, director of the NYC festival for giving me the opportunity to test my ideas in front of a very receptive audience.

  This text can also be downloaded as a PDF, which is friendlier for print, or for reading on tablets: NavasFrameNC_Web

  Introduction

  We live in a time when the self-awareness of recycling of material and immaterial things is almost taken for granted. I state almost because, as the following analysis demonstrates, the potential of recycling as a creative act in what we refer to as remix is in constant friction with cultural production. Consequently, the purpose of this essay is to demonstrate the importance of remix as a practice worthy of proper recognition exactly because of its ability to challenge the mainstream?s ambivalent acceptance of aesthetic and critical production that relies on strategies of appropriation, recycling, and recontextualization of material.

  Proper recognition is only worthy when it is an attestation of a particular achievement, which can only come about through struggle. Arguably a type of struggle that is certainly recognized and even celebrated quite often, (which admittedly makes for romantic narratives) is the basic human struggle: the will to live. We can think of struggle here as a term spanning across all types of activities, from war to natural disasters?many which are now commonly shared all over the world.

  But to begin with a more basic premise, struggle in its most abstract form can simply consist of reflecting on the pain of self-awareness; of having the burden of knowing that we just exist and, for the most part, will do anything to make sure that we will exist for as long as possible. Many of us are willing to find ways to extend our lives before we take our last breath. Others, admittedly, will struggle to leave this world as soon as possible; thus, it may be suicide the subject of struggle in such cases. But this brief reflection on struggle as a humanistic preoccupation is mentioned because we diligently have extended it to everything we produce. It is an important ingredient in what we may call progress.  As romantic as it may sound, human beings have the tendency to struggle in order to be better; whatever that means. And as we have grown as a complex global society, we have been able to extend our struggle on to and through media.

  We well know, for some time now, that we have been going through a well-defined struggle in media production, in which the act of remixing has proven to be most pivotal.  So, in a way, this essay aims to evaluate remix as an act of struggle. But this analysis is not only about remix, but also its relation to music, art, and literature. Adding these three cultural areas makes this analysis rather complex because we have to deal with two things that are challenging to cultures (at least cultures considered part of globalization), which is to participate in the act of repurposing, recycling, remmediating (remixing) material that  superficially, in terms of history, has been validated by the very idea of being original. The very concept of originality helped establish literature, a creative field which, to this day, holds a somewhat privileged position in relation to art and music?and especially to the basic concept of remixing; this view is still pervasive in mainstream culture; and it is remix culture that is trying to debunk such position, of course.

  In brief, this essay is an analysis of the recycling of concepts and ideas in relation to material forms. It is an evaluation of how an object or type of production may at times consist of citations from, or references to previous production, or be direct samplings that make evident how pre-existing material is present in, or is the content of a new form in terms of appropriation. This text is about a cultural struggle that has at its disposal unprecedented tools, which are, more than anything else, a double-edged sword. And it is this sword that we must learn to handle, so that we don?t perform any self-inflicted wounds. I call this sword, The Framework of Culture.

  The Framework of Culture is a Double-Edged Sword

  In order to understand remix in music, art, and literature we must first consider how cultural production takes effect. The Framework of Culture makes possible the act of remixing. This Framework consists of two layers which function on a feedback loop.  The first layer takes effect when something is introduced in culture; such element will likely be different from what is commonly understood, and therefore it takes time for its assimilation. The second layer takes effect when that which is introduced attains cultural value and is appropriated or sampled to be reintroduced in culture. The first layer privileges research and development. Creative practice in all of the arts function on the second layer, which is why, more often than not, their production consists of appropriation, or at least citation of material with pre-defined cultural value. The two layers have actually been in place since culture itself came about, but their relation has changed with the growing efficiency in production and communication due to the rise of computing. Before we evaluate the implication of this change in creativity and contemporary critical production, we must first understand the relation of the layers.

  

  Figure 1: Framework before modernism, diagram: Eduardo Navas

  Some examples from the past include the photo camera, the phonograph, and more recently, the computer. All of these examples were not ?original? but rather drastically different because of the combination of various ideas to create a specific technology that when first introduced people had to negotiate into their lives. [1] These are rather modern examples, which were only possible once the loop between the two layers was fast enough to provide feedback at a rate that would make research and development an actual endeavor worth capital investment; but this was not always the case.

  Before this period, the two layers were separated, or at least there was a great communication lag between them. [Fig. 1]  When we think back to the days prior to the enlightenment, we can see how the production of new forms and technologies took much longer to develop than in our time. This was in part due to material limitations in combination with social beliefs that perpetrated certain behaviors and attitudes towards the world.

  

  Figure 2: Framework during modernism, diagram: Eduardo Navas

  Religion certainly played a major role in how we viewed the world. Prior to the enlightenment, people approached nature as something in which to live, in part because nature was seen as a creation of God, and thus one had to respect it and live as part of it. But as the Enlightenment took place, the belief of manipulating nature for human needs took hold of Western culture. [2] This premise enabled human beings to push for innovation, as we currently understand it. Once humans felt free to bend and shape all things, from nature to ideas for particular ideological interests, we entered a new stage when the speed of innovation becomes the driving force of what came to be known as modernism. [Fig. 2] Arguably, a recent result of this attitude to bend nature to our desires is global warming, and the effects it is creating, from hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere to the disappearance of glaciers in Antartica and the North Pole.

  

  Figure 3: Framework during postmodernism, diagram: Eduardo Navas

  As modernism further developed, the efficiency of production led to an even more efficient feedback loop, one which was sensed by cultural critics who came to be associated with the postmodern period. [Fig. 3]  In this case, the feedback loop is not only more efficient but begins to overlap, albeit with some delay. The relation of the two layers begins to be apparent to cultural critics and the questioning of terms such as originality, uniqueness, and the concept of progress, itself, became common subjects for intellectual debates.

  

  Figure 4: Framework during the time of networks, diagram: Eduardo Navas

  What all this means is that the layers begin to share interests that push the established critical approach of the modern and postmodern onto a different position.  One that we are now in the need to reflect upon. In this case, the loop?s efficiency intensified as we entered our times, and currently the two layers function almost on top of each other.  [Fig. 4] The result is a steady relationship between them that positions The Framework of Culture in an optimized loop; material is recycled, leading to the efficient production that is completely dependent on constant communication. This last tendency is best understood in popular terms with the concept of constant updating. Just how tweeter is relevant because people keep tweeting non-stop, the two layers now have reached a frenetic pace that repositions them in a state of never-ending production.

  We can think of our current moment as the dream party of the house DJ, whose ultimate high is to keep the perfect beat going for hours, whose obsession is to make the entire mix of multiple songs sound like one single composition in which the dancers can push themselves physically with no other goal than to feel the beat. The perfect loop of beat-blending, then, serves as a decent metaphor for the type of productive drive behind the two layers of The Framework of Culture that appear to be one due to the Framework?s current efficiency.

  The Two Layers and Material Production

  When the two layers were not working so closely together, [Figs. 1 & 2] there was some space for critical reflection as the entire process took place. This enabled the hard sciences, once we enter the Enlightenment, to become legitimated by claiming to do research not always knowing how it may be useful for practical day-to-day goals. The main purpose of science in this case was to understand how things functioned. This meant that science was strategically depoliticized, and to this day, one is likely to hear a scientist explain a theory, or an emerging technology that clearly has political and economical implications, while deliberately claiming neutrality as to how such things will take effect in our culture once it is prepared to be introduced via the media. A very common example are staticians, who during TV interviews will explain the results of polls but also will be careful not to comment on the implications of such reporting.  They often repeatedly point out that the process was entirely free of bias and therefore holds up to scientific standards. [3]

  The Framework of Culture, Music, Art, and Literature

  As previously noted, creative acts in music, art, and literature function on the second layer of The Framework of Culture. These acts consist of appropriating something of cultural value in order to create meaning. This need has long been associated with intertextuality.

  Intertextuality in the literary tradition is the act of embedding a text within another text, a conceptual remix of sorts where ideas are cited, but not necessarily the material object or concrete instantiation (which is what the act of remixing achieves in actual sampling of content). An intertextual work is, in essence, a literary mashup (a direct juxtaposition) of concepts. [4] Intertextuality takes effect in two ways, which can also be combined in any creative production; the first is cultural citation and the second is material sampling.

  Cultural citation, which we can think of as the foundation of intertextuality, is much more difficult to trace than material sampling because at times it may be an abstract idea, or a premise that is being recycled. If the way the idea is presented is different enough, then it is considered an independent and even innovative creation. Nevertheless, an intertextual influence may be undeniable under such circumstances. Cultural citation is commonly found in literature: Ulysses by James Joyce is said to ?borrow? or be ?inspired? in part by Homer?s Odyssey. In film, Quentin Tarantino is often criticized for recreating scenes from movie classics with his own characters. Kill Bill is considered his ?master thesis,? according to Kirby Ferguson. [5] In both Joyce?s and Tarantino?s work the authors? process of appropriation unfolds as one encounters it. Our engagement with their works makes evident that what we experience is not theirs, but borrowed. The intertextual process (cultural citation) in these cases makes the works important contributions to our culture.

  Material sampling consists of taking parts of a source and repurposing it for one?s own interests. Remixes of music function this way. Much of the production of early hip-hop relied on material sampling and quickly had problems with copyright holders; hip-hop producers were reprimanded with lawsuits. At the moment, corporations? attitudes are changing, but it is still very hard to sample for a major and official international production unless you have deep pockets.

  Material sampling can be seen in the two layers functioning when looking back at the history of photography and visual art. The first layer is evident in early photography, particularly daguerrotypes. Such images, especially the very early ones, were not developed as commentary on anything specific. Their purpose was primarily experimental. They were tests in recording light on a surface over lengthy periods of time.  But once this process was optimized and became efficient enough to be used by many people, a large amount of images were produced. Around the 1920s, collage, particularly, photo-collage became a valid forms of production by avant-garde artists.  The photo-collage, in contrast to early experimental photography, functions on the second layer of The Framework of Culture.  Its primary role became to comment on pre-existing material which was evident in the recognition of its disparate elements.

  It is evident that literature initially explored  principles of remix in terms of cultural citation, meaning that unlike remix as popularly understood in terms of music, literature more often than not relies on referencing ideas. And the act of remixing as is often celebrated in remix festivals around the world, consists of sampling of specific material closely informed by the type of material sampling along the lines of photo-collage. Remix in music, art, and literature are meta. The creative act of appropriation in these media relies on recombining or recontextualizing material that already has cultural value to emphasize such value in the form of commentary, or aesthetic exploration. Both, even when they are aligned with different strategies of referencing, are dependent on elements that are well understood, or have some cultural validity.

  All of this happens on the second layer. What takes place on the first layer?the layer of science–also is dependent on pre-existing material, which is obviously recycled in some form to develop something that appears to be new. But the difference is that this happens with a proactive attitude of action, that is, it comes about not by dwelling primarily on the cultural implications of what is being developed, but rather on how to develop something which may aid in evaluating certain cultural implications. A researcher, a scientist, primarily functioning on the first layer, then, focuses on a problem that is shared by many who have different agendas, and tries to develop a tool, device, technology?in essence a solution?with the aim to help in resolving, or at least reposition a problem.

  The Feedback Loop, Research, and Culture

  Today, we live in a time when research and development is closely linked to creativity as so far discussed in terms of remix. To this effect, research institutions have been developing programs that encourage the crossover between the hard sciences and the arts.  The concept of the Digital Humanities, and Cultural Analytics thrive on the overlapping of the two layers.

  Digital humanists, at least some of them, function like developers of new forms of analysis. Their goal is to collaborate on new tools of research defined by the possibilities that computing offers. Such humanists have the license not to take a particular critical position, but deliver new tools for use by other humanists. The digital humanities is only one example; arguably, when new media began, it also functioned in similar fashion.  And before new media it was in music where much innovation took place when computer sampling found its way into music composition in the studio in terms of post-production.  This activity is now a shared attitude in computing, quite evident in the basic act of cut/copy & paste; arguably, the most common form of sampling in daily life.

  Currently, we are able to produce on both layers of The Framework of Culture with great efficiency. This means that remixing material as is commonly known in terms of material sampling has reached a moment in which we produce almost as fast as we speak. As a result, we are self-aware of how we recycle ideas, information and material production.  Consequently, it is in the materialization of the immaterial?that is in the careful measurement of the flow of ideas as they are embedded in different forms where there is potential for remix in music, art, and literature as forms of criticism and creative production to thrive, while functioning on the second layer; the challenge remains to push the first layer to be more transparent and admit to its relation to the politics of culture.

  [1] This idea is summarized by Kirby Ferguson in his short film series, ?Everything is a Remix,? [www.everythingisaremix.info] accessed August 20, 2012.
  [2] This is something that is commonly understood in the history of science. For a very basic book see Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500-1700 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2001).
  [3] During the 2012 Presidential elections in The United States, Nate Silver rose as a prominent analyst of polls.  He was frequently interviewed in different news channels to explain how and why poll statistics are important.
  [4]See my text [remixtheory.net]
  [5]See the end of Kirby Ferguson?s ?Everthing Is a Remix, Part 2?: [www.everythingisaremix.info]

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  Some notes on Simon Reynolds?s Call for Originality, Eduardo Navas

  Posted: 1-March-2013, 11:00am EST by navasse

  

  Image source: slate, by Laura Terry.

  Back in October of 2012 Simon Reynolds wrote a passionate piece on Remix Culture for Slate magazine titled “Your Are not a Switch” in which he calls out mainly scholars who are using the reference of the DJ and remixing to discuss issues of originality, and especially in his view, questioning the concept of the “genius.”  For me what is striking about Reynolds’s position is that he goes over much of the literature that has been produced for the last few years claiming that all of the authors (amazing that all of them,  a bit essentialist on his part disappointingly), especially those in academia are guilty of dismantling the originality in creativity.  To make a sweeping statement like this is troublesome enough but there is more.

  As much as I like Reynolds’s research, including his most recent book titled Retromania, I have to say that his article is long-winded and does not contribute anything new, not even a strong counter-argument against the authors he calls out.  Reynolds appears to want to celebrate the artist as genius, and to do this he claims at the end of his article that there is something to the process of coming up with new material based on a unique interpretation.  Well, this is not so different from what some  of the authors that he is critiquing are saying.  In fact, this is the whole point of the books, such as Synreich’s Mashed up, or Amerika’s Remixthebook.  Perhaps it’s the “academic” or (I prefer) the systematic and rigorous approach of some of the publications that may come off as a way of killing the potential of creativity that is misread by Reynolds.  But to understand the grammar of a process, to understand the history, to understand the politics of a cultural activity does not mean that such an activity, in this case creativity, will whither. It simply means that we will understand it better and we need to because the process of borrowing from and being inspired by others now has turned into a material conflict that is finely tuned with economics.

  I’m talking about copyright conflicts, of course. We need to understand the process of creativity because we need to make sure that it keeps flowing as it always has. With new technology we are able to archive more of that process and all that is archived becomes commodity in some way. This is really what is at play at the moment in, yes, all of the books and essays Reynolds is critical of; they are  contributions to overcoming such an impasse. And is creativity or the concept of the genius being redefined in this process? Yes.  But all things change, they evolve.  It’s the way we function.  We cannot hold on to some idea of genius or originality as it functioned in the past.  Just like photography redefined painting, just like the computer redefined just about every aspect of daily life, the concepts of the genius and originality are also being redefined.  And this is not a bad thing at all.

  —–

  I share a couple of paragraphs from Reynolds’s text below:

  Many of these polemics make allusions to DJ culture in their titles: Mark Amerika?sremixthebook, Kirby Ferguson?s video essays and website Everything Is A Remix, Arram Sinnreich?s Mashed Up.Remixing and mashups are familiar?indeed, somewhat tired?notions in dance culture, but in critical circles they enjoy modish currency because they seem to capture something essential about the cut-and-paste sensibility fostered by digital culture. Likewise, the Internet?s gigantic archive of image, sound, text, and design has encouraged a view of the artist as primarily a curator, someone whose principal modes of operation involve recontextualization and connection-making.

  As a neutral description of the current state of the art in many fields, this would be fine. But recreativists don?t just champion these practices, they make grand claims about the essentially recycled nature of all art. In Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling, authors Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola quote the DJ Matt Black?s assertion that ?humans are just sampling machines … that?s how we learn to paint and make music.? In an opinion piece for NPR, Alva Noë discussed contemporary anxieties about plagiarism in a cut-and-paste era and defended quotation as an artistic practice. But instead of stopping there, he also asserted that ?sampling is nothing new, not in art, and not in life … Evolution, whether in biology, or in technology and culture, is never anything other than a redeployment of old means in new circumstances.* We use the old to make the new and the new is always old.? Much the same idea crops up in Austin Kleon?s Steal Like an Artist, a sort of self-help manual for modern creatives. Kleon moves quickly from ?every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas? to insisting that ?you are the sum of your influences? and that ?you?re a remix of your mom and dad.?

   Read the complete article at Slate
• 

  REUSE ALOUD

  Posted: 18-February-2013, 10:21am EST by navasse

  

  Image source: Basic.fm

  Note: Very happy to be participating in the upcoming exhibition, ” Reuse Aloud.”  Information below.

  Directly from the basic.fm blog:

  Newcastle?s Tyneside Cinema and The NewBridge Project present Reuse Aloud, a month-long exhibition and radio broadcast throughout March 2013 featuring work from national and international artists, musicians and writers.

  The project will be hosted in The NewBridge Project Space on New Bridge Street West and broadcast on Tyneside Cinema?s online radio station basic.fm as part of its digital arts programme, Pixel Palace.

  Reuse Aloud is curated by Will Strong and Rosanna Skett and will examine the art of using old and existing compositions to make something new, and ask questions about originality in the digital age.

  It will do this through an ambitious schedule of live and pre-recorded work with contributions from artists and musicians from across the globe, including critically acclaimed artists Frank Nora, Eduardo Navas and Natalia Skobeeva, DJs and mashup pioneers Z-trip and Girl Talk, and award-winning Canadian rap artist Baba Brinkman.

  Throughout March a radio booth will be installed in the NewBridge Project Space and it will broadcast 24 hours a day on basic.fm.

  Reuse Aloud will open to the public at 5pm on Friday 1 March with a preview event featuring new work from artists Andy Ingamells, Sam Christie, Jess Rose, Rachel Magdeburg and Joe Pochciol.

  The project space will be open to the public Monday-Friday, 12noon?6pm throughout March and will culminate in a live 24-hour broadcast marathon starting at 6pm, Friday 29 March and running until 6pm, Saturday 30 March.

   

  Regular updates about Reuse Aloud can be found at:
  [www.basic.fm]
  www.thenewbridgeproject.com < [www.thenewbridgeproject.com] >
  [www.facebook.com]

• 

  Panel Discussion for Three Junctures of Remix

  Posted: 10-February-2013, 9:45am EST by navasse

  Calit2 has made available the panel discussion for the exhibition I curated, Three Junctures of Remix. Artists part of the panel include, in order of appearance, Giselle Beiguelman, Elisa Kreisinger, Mark Amerika, and Arcangel Constanini. The discussion ends with a 10 minute performance by Constanini with his own musical object named Phonotube.

  Eduardo

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  Images from the Exhibition Three Junctures of Remix

  Posted: 27-January-2013, 9:27pm EST by navasse

  

  Image from Cali2′s Flickr stream. From left to right: Mark Amerika, Giselle Beiguelman, Elisa Kreisinger, Arcangel Constantini, Trish Stone, and Eduardo Navas

  The opening at Calit2 on January 17 was a complete success.  Many thanks to Jordan Crandall and the gallery committee for their support in the realization of the exhibition. A special thanks to Trish Stone and Hector Bracho and the entire Calit2 team for all their help.  It was truly a great experience.  The discussion panel, which took place just an hour before the official opening will be online very soon, in the meantime I want to point out that there are lots of great pictures on Flickr for anyone interested to view.

  More Soon,

  Eduardo

• 

  Exhibition: Three Junctures of Remix, Curated by Eduardo Navas

  Posted: 11-January-2013, 8:52pm EST by navasse

  

  Date: January 17th, 2013
  Time: 5p Panel; 6p Reception
  Location: Calit2 Auditorium and gallery@calit2, Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego
  Host: Jordan Crandall, Vis Arts and gallery@calit2

  Guest Speaker: Eduardo Navas, Curator (pictured); Artwork by
  Mark Amerika & Chad Mossholder, Giselle Beiguelman, Arcángel Constantini, Elisa Kreisinger

  DESCRIPTION/ABSTRACT:
  A panel discussion and reception mark the opening of Three Junctures of Remix, curated by Eduardo Navas. It runs Jan. 17 to March 15 in the gallery@calit2.

  The exhibition THREE JUNCTURES OF REMIX features the art of Mark Amerika & Chad Mossholder, Arcángel Constantini, Giselle Beiguelman, and Elisa Kreisinger, a group of international artists who have explored and reflected on the implications of the creative act of remixing since the concept became popular beginning in the nineties. The art works crossover and explore three junctures (moments of production) of remix: the pre-digital/analog; the digital; and the post-digital which developed in chronological order, but after their initial manifestation, became intertwined and currently are often reintroduced in conjunction to inform the aesthetics of remix as a creative act in art practice. The exhibition is curated to reflect on how computing has enabled people to recombine pre-existing material with unprecedented efficiency that is relatively affordable just about everywhere information-based technology is widely used. This has affected how local and global communities view their cultural production, from politics to the arts.

  SPEAKER BIO:
  Eduardo Navas researches the crossover of art and media in culture. His production includes art & media projects, critical texts, and curatorial projects. He has presented and lectured about his work internationally. Navas researches and teaches in the School of Visual Arts at The Pennsylvania State University, PA. He also lectures in the program of Culture and Media at Eugene Lang College, and MA Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement, NY. Navas is a 2010-12 Post Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway, where he remains an affiliated researcher. He received his Ph.D. from the Program of Art History, Theory, and Criticism in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling.

  Mark Amerika is an internationally renowned remix artist who not only reconfigures existing cultural content into new forms of art, but also mashes up the mainstream media forms and genres that most commercial artists work in. His artwork includes published cult novels, pioneering works of Internet art, digital video, surround sound museum installations, large scale video projections in public spaces, live audio-visual/VJ performance, and most recently, a series of feature-length foreign films shot with different image-capturing devices in various locations throughout the world. He is currently a Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Principal Research Fellow in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science at La Trobe University. His Internet art can found at his website. http://markamerika.com

  Chad Mossholder is a sound artist working in art installations, film, music and video games. His critically acclaimed and experimental electronic music project Twine has performed all over the world and has released six full-length albums as well as numerous mini-albums, and EP?s on such labels as Hefty Records (Chicago), Bip-Hop Records (Marseille France) and Ghostly Records (Ann Arbor). His live audio/visual performances have attracted audiences in Europe, Japan and North America. His sound collaborations with artist Mark Amerika, including Filmtext, Codework and Immobilité, have been exhibited in international museums, galleries and festivals. [cwmossholder.com]

  Giselle Beiguelman is a new media artist, curator and researcher. She was Artistic Director of Sergio Motta Institute (2008-2011), and was also Professor of the Graduate Program in Communication and Semiotics of PUC-SP (São Paulo, 2001-2011). Beiguelman teaches Art History and Design at the Architecture and Urbanism Faculty of the University of São Paulo. She was Editor of seLecT magazine and curator of Tecnofagias (3rd 3M Digital Art Show, Instituto Tomie Othake, 2012). Her art work has been presented in international venues such as Net_Condition (ZKM, Karlsruhe), el ÿnal del eclipse (Fundación Telefonica, Madrid), The 25th São Paulo Biennial, Transitio_MX (Mexico), YOU_ser (ZKM), among many others. She was Curator of Nokia Trends (2007 and 2008), and the Brazilian participation in ISEA Ruhr (2009), among many others. [www.desvirtual.com]

  Arcángel Constantini produces work of a marked ludic-experimental nature, strongly influenced by the fortuitous and chaotic processes of the city as reflected in the systematic use of glitch aesthetics. His work and artistic practice explore the dynamics of visual and sound works, low-tech installations, propaganda action, visual/sound performance, hardware hacking, physical computing, installation, sound art and net art. As an independent curator, he has been developing the program of Cyberlounge, Museo Ruÿno Tamayo since 2001, and was part of the curatorial team for Transitio Mx electronic art festival. He is a member of dorkbot Mexico D.F. council. He has received several awards, among them the Prize for Best Multimedia Work at Vidarte, Video and Electronic Arts Festival, CENART (Mexico City, 1999), and received first prize for Atari-noise at Interference Festival France 2000. In 2002 Constantini received the Rockefeller/MacArthur grant for new media. [www.arc-data.net]

  Elisa Kreisinger is a video artist based in New York City. With an early knack for making videos in lieu of writing term papers, Elisa has been editing ever since middle school. Her latest work includes remixing Mad Men, Sex & the City, and the Real Housewives programs into feminists and lesbians. Her work has been featured in galleries and festivals throughout the US and Europe including Museum of Film and TV (Berlin), MIP Cube (France) and SxSW. A prominent voice in the remix and online video community since 2006, Elisa speaks on university campuses, including USC, MIT and Harvard, and at industry events throughout the world. Her success engaging female audiences online has led to collaborations with NBC, Paramount Pictures, Art 21, Eileen Fisher, Women Make Movies and the Women?s Media Center. An advocate and activist, Elisa works with Harvard?s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, American University?s Center for Social Media (where she is currently a Media Fellow) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to continue to pave the way for a remix-friendly web that acknowledges creators? rights under US Copyright Law?s Fair Use provision. [popculturepirate.com]

  MORE INFORMATION:
  gallery@calit2 events are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

  [gallery.calit2.ne] t

  Media Contact: Doug Ramsey, dramsey@ucsd.edu

  Please RSVP to Trish Stone, tstone@ucsd.edu

  A second gallery event of THREE JUNCTURES OF REMIX will take place on Friday, March 8, with a 5pm presentation in the Calit2 Performance Space (Calit2 Theater).

   

• 

  The New Aesthetic and The Framework of Culture, by Eduardo Navas

  Posted: 11-January-2013, 12:13pm EST by navasse

  

  Look #1, Adam Harvey, http://cvdazzle.com/assets/images/comparison_lg.jpg (accessed October 12, 2012).

  My text “The New Aesthetic and The Framework of Culture” was published in the Media-N Journal issue for Fall 2012: v.08 n.02: Found – Sampled – Stolen – Strategies of Appropriation in New Media . Media-N is The New Media Caucus‘s peer-review journal. Many thanks to Joshua Rosenstock and Pat Badani for their generous feedback, and editing.

  Part of the introduction follows below.  For the full text visit Media-N.

  This essay is a critical overview of the New Aesthetic in the context of what I define as The Framework of Culture. The New Aesthetic relies heavily on principles of remixing, and for this reason it is not so much a movement, but arguably more of an attitude towards media production that is overtly aware of computing processes that are embedded in every aspect of daily life. Material considered part of The New Aesthetic often, though not always, consists of pixilated designs that make reference to digital manipulation of contemporary media.

  One of the The New Aesthetic?s resonating issues is that by using the word ?new? it appears invested in the recontextualization of cultural production that is aware of its materialization through the use of digital technology. At the same time, it also appears to be revisiting much of what new media already examined during the early stages of networked communication beginning in the mid-nineties. [1] The subject of interest in this text is not whether The New Aesthetic may be something actually ?new,? or simply a trend revisiting cultural variables already well defined by previous stages of media production. Rather, what is relevant is that The New Aesthetic makes evident how recycling of concepts and materials is at play in ways that differ from previous forms of production.

  Read the complete article at Media-N

• 

  Mobile Art Applications: Sensor-driven apps and the emerging aesthetics of mobility, by Eduardo Navas

  Posted: 11-January-2013, 12:29pm EST by navasse

  

  Konfetti by Stephan Maximilian Huber.

  This text was commissioned by mooove.com.  Excerpt follows below.  For the full text please visit mooove.com:

  Mobile applications became quite popular when Apple?s smartphone, the iPhone, was introduced in 2007; reciprocally, apps are one of the reasons (if not the main reason) why the iPhone itself became so popular. Later, the popularity of its follow-up, the iPad tablet, cemented an emerging market?s strong interest in software development for mobile devices. Artists and designers began to experiment with app technology almost as soon as it was introduced, and the result has been the emerging aesthetics of mobility, which at the moment shows great potential for creative exploration in the arts in direct relation to diverse areas of information-based research.

  Read the complete article at mooove.com