Rhimc's Remix

For my multimedia project, I explore the artistic benefits of opening up works for collaboration. I use images, text, sound and video to make my argument that creators should legally open their work for collaboration and comment. Creators will continue to transform others' creations into new works, but they should be given legal permission--so would-be commentators are not stifled by fears of lawsuits.

Method

My presentation is self-referential in that I am making a mash-up of already existing works.

Images:

• Shepard Fairy's transformation of the Associated Press's photo of Obama
• In the same photo, another artist's painting of Fairy's work
• The same Fairy image transformed to signify Christmas by adding a santa hat and replacing the word "hope" for "noel"
• A quilt (traditionally a collaborative genre) composed of the same Obama image
• A photomosaic (another collaborative genre) of the Creative Commons licence logo

I chose the Obama image because of the controversy surrounding Fairy's use of AP's copyrighted material. The image is iconic and clearly more significant now than it was as a photo. The argument is not just whether it is fair use of the photo--but whether it is good for society to stifle creative expression.

Audio:

• Airtone "Sometimes," a collaborative song composed on CCmixter and CC licensed
• “How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law," clip from Lawrence Lessig's lecture at TED

Video:

• Clip from RiP: a Remix Manifesto

In order to create my visual and aural argument, I borrow from already existing images and sound. Therefore, the medium, the mash-up, is the message. Indeed, Marshall McLuhan argues that this is always the case because everything is composed of something else. Therefore, "the 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.("The Medium is the Message, 3). The medium of my presentation is web 2.0, and its message is about scale and pace.

Web 2.0 has increased the number of people who are making remixes, mash-ups, collages and remediations and the number of media that they are using to make their works. Web 2.0 has also increased the pace of commentary--it is now 24 hours and in real time.

It is the technology--Web 2.0--that has allowed users to creatively reference more than just words--music, pictures and video too.

Issue

Many copyright owners, or so their lawsuits would suggest, do not view this Web 2.0-borrowing as commentary, but stealing. They have not been willing to open their works for comment and transformation without being asked for permission and, often, given royalties.

In reality, cultural borrowing predates Web 2.0. We have always critiqued past media in our own works. In essays, writers have always referenced other works and attributed their sources. Artists have used others' art in collages. Pop artist Andy Warhol changed the size and color of a piece of someone else's art in order to emphasize the object. As the music montage in the RiP: a Remix Manifesto clip emphasized. Early in the 20th century, musicians recorded other artists' music. Even cartoonist Walt Disney stole the Mickey Mouse drawing from another cartoonist, and yet he did not face legal sanctions.

Due to the advancement of technology and monetization of intellectual property, however, borrowing has become easier (for copyright "infringers") and more explicit (in the eyes of copyright owners). Again, the medium has increased the scale of borrowing, and therefore, it has made it seem more like stealing. Lawrence Lessig explains this idea: In a digital world, everything is a copy, and if making copies is illegal, then all remixes are illegal. They are illegal, unless they are fair use.

Fair Use Test:

1. What is the size of the borrowed material--is it the heart of the original piece?

2. Is the use non-commercial?

3. What is the effect on the market of the original?

"Remix is legally interesting. Infringement is a central issue because much remix contains varying amounts of unauthorized copyright-protected material. There is a strong argument, however, that much of this remix is fair use and hence legal. Because the trend toward remix is substantially technology driven, it is likely to continue, if not to accelerate, unless the law somehow puts the brakes on the process," (Hetcher, "Using Social Norms to Regulate Fan Fiction and Remix Culture).

In order to avoid such case-by-case rulings on fair use, Lawrence Lessig suggests creating a different space for artists to choose to make their work available for remix. Lessig started Creative Commons for creators to have legal licenses that allow creators to use their material (under chosen conditions) without the remixer having to worried about being sued.

Argument

Artists should choose to license their work with Creative Commons. More important than the subjective artistic value of remixes is the remix itself. More important than which songs Girl Talk cuts up is the act of cutting up. In order to have a robust and engaged democracy, the people must be able to comment on the media. Copyright laws have made the masses consumers and not creators, argues Lawrence Lessig in his TED lecture “How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law." A society of few creators and a mass of consumers is not a democracy and does not lead to innovative technology that fuels a country's economy.

Remediation is progress: "Our culture conceives of each medium or constellation of media as it responds to, redeploys, competes with, and reforms other media. In the first instance we may think of something like a historical progression, of newer media remediating older ones and in particular of digital media remediating their predecessors," (Bolter and Grusin).

Tweet Stream Part 2, begin at bottom

Tweet Stream, begin at bottom

Original story: Creating Drama on the Road

I spy with my little eye...space. Miles and miles of space. Space enough to stretch my cramping legs, run my body to fatigue, and make snow angels in the dirt until I find just the right position to snooze in the hot sun. Whenever little pellets of sweat would form on my face, the cool breeze would wipe them clean. I could rest comfortably listening to the barns creak, the windmills swoosh, and the cicadas buzz. The earth below would subtly shift my body the six hours across the border to the edge of the Rockies without disturbing this reverie.

That would be nice, I think turning my head from the window back to the Chevy Cavalier stuffed with gummy bears, pillows, coolers, and restless children. Dad is focused on the road. He knows this western stretch of I-70 and how to make up for lost time. The man might as well be a trucker the number of American highways he's been down.

We usually listen to his stories in between Yanni, Culture Club, and The Beatles. He plays the Spice Girls and Led Zeppelin back-to-back, impervious to shame and unconcerned with sanctity. At this point, everyone silent and bored, I would ordinarily ask him to retell his boyhood adventure of crossing the railroad bridge to the ice cream shop. I always envisioned his story as a scene from Stand By Me. At that moment, however, our eyes widen and our bladders fill as we see the horror miles up the road--traffic. This is not Atlanta. This is not Los Angeles. This is West Kansas, no place for cars to pile up.

"God damn it!" My dad huffs through his clenched teeth. "Wouldn't you fucking know it," he bobs his head distinctly on each syllable. We are all tense, but he adds to the discomfort by screaming at what is inconveniencing him--road work. They closed the left lane, so everyone has to merge into the right, creating a bottleneck. We sit, arm pits sweaty despite the full-blasting air conditioning, fixated on the minute progress of the lane.

Focused west on freedom, we don't immediately notice that the sky begins darkening, losing its trademark blue and pillowy white clouds. We notice when some jackass isn't watching the road and holds up traffic needlessly. My dad honks, but it isn't just that car. Passengers up ahead are all looking right, so we do.

"Whoa," my sister says.

There is no siren, no hail, no train chug. I can't hear what I see, although it seems close enough to warrant some noise. A few miles north of I-70 greenish-gray clouds hover over the field of soft wheat. Then, it was as if God intentionally poked two fingers through the smoke to create two swirling funnels. He didn't have to do it. He could have stopped midway in his reach, pulled up quickly and dissipated the storm. Tornadoes can be fickle that way, but these two were committed to touching down and widening their bases.

We stare, nose to glass trying not to blink. For all my life living in Tornado Alley, I had never actually seen these swirling beasts. I had to crouch in the basement countless times to the haunting call of the tornado siren. There was even that time my dad raced us to Mom's with balls of ice pounding the windshield. In the suburbs, it's always dark when they hit, so the tornadoes are amorphous winds that pull your trees down and your roof off. Out on the prairie, these two are in full form.

I feel so cool. Watching the big one grow larger and the smaller one try to keep up, my eyes are transfixed. Not only have I seen a tornado now, but I have seen two tornadoes form. Bree is seven, but she doesn't cry. Aislynn, my dad and I aren't scared either. We are excited.

As the traffic scoots forward, the tornadoes seem fixed in one place like the sun. I grow used to the image and less fascinated by the sight. I now take breaks staring at the dirty gray tunnels to size up the scene. Traffic is still keeping pace with a box turtle. The landscape is true-to-its-stereotype flat, save for the ditches running along the interstate. There's a disconcerting lack of structure to crouch behind or under.

"Dad what if they start coming our way?" I inquire. "I'll pull to the side of the road, bypass the traffic and get the hell out of Dodge if we have to," he sounds empowered by his answer. Listening, I squint my eyes and make a clicking noise, tapping my tongue to my palate. A sedan off-roading in the ditch, trying to out run the trucks and SUVs. Nope, this Cavalier just won't do. If the tornadoes decide to make a name for themselves, we're fucked. This should bother me more, probably, but I make peace with dying in rural Kansas. Really, I'm ready for more excitement. C'mon tornadoes give us a thrill. Instead, the stalemate continues.

Damn. That's too bad, I say to myself seeing the left lane open again. The drivers waiting in line to speed down the newly opened lane alternate quick glances between the threatening clouds and open stretch of asphalt almost in their reach. It feels climatic when we reach our turn to start going 60 again. Although the tornadoes haven't moved much, I create a little excitement for myself. Are you we going to make it, are we going to make it?

We do. We get miles ahead of our construction impediment. My sisters and I are staring out the rear window keeping watch in case the tornadoes switch direction. This is when I see my bag fly off the roof into the road behind us.

"Dad stop! My bag fell off the caaarrr!" I hold the last word for dramatic effect. He stops to the side of the road, and I quickly volunteer to retrieve the luggage. This is my moment. I leap out of the side door, bare feet slapping the asphalt, my arms straight blades as I sprint east on the interstate. I'm running right at the tornado, I fantasize. The tornadoes look more like a distant storm at this point, but I know I'm a bad ass. When I reach my duffle , I waste little time. I crouch down, grab it, and spring up. My pace has slowed under the weight of the unnecessary clothes and toys packed in the shapeless knapsack. I have a serious look on my face, yet a twinkle in my eye. I imagine the scene outside my body. It's just like Twister. I'm running full-throttle towards the car. My family swings their arms, their mouths move in slow motion, and they are crying as they watch the tornadoes spin after me. My dad puts the key in the ignition. One door is open for me to leap in at the last moment. They worry: Is she going to make it? Is she going to make it?

Remediation Project

For my project, I chose to remediate a short story I wrote for a creative writing class into tweets. The non-fiction story occurred before the days of camera phones and Twitter. I wanted to explore how different my retelling of the road trip would have been had I been able to tell it in the moment through Twitter.

Language
My first step was editing the short story paragraphs into 140 character tweets. Rather than truncate words, I had to capture the idea in a sentence or two. Given the informality of tweets, I had more creative leeway. For example, in my original composition I described the irony of my situation "At that moment, however, our eyes widen and our bladders fill as we see the horror miles up the road--traffic. This is not Atlanta. This is not Los Angeles. This is West Kansas, no place for cars to pile up." For Twitter, I reduced that thought to an equation: "Kansas + Prairie = Traffic? WTF." Given the form of the remediation, I could also use acronyms and curse more readily than would be appropriate for a short story.

I wrote the tweets to be short and entertaining. I had the same audience in mind that I do when I am tweeting for fun. However, when I began tweeting my prepared statements, I quickly had to adjust what I said and my dispersal of the story. Twitter is participatory, so my followers commented on my tweets and asked questions. Four of the followers were warned that this was fake and encouraged to comment. One follower, Ryan, believed I was really tweeting from I-70 in Kansas.

Because Ryan didn't know he was in an experiment, he rushed my story along. He wanted to know what my family was going to do if the tornado got too close. "arveem @Rhiremediation Is it full formed? What if it turns towards you, what's the procedure?" I had prepared a pithy tweet for that purpose, but I was still building tension in my story. I had not expected how participants would rush through the plot looking for flashy updates rather than sit back and let the story unfold. This took away some of my ability as a writer to control the progression or direction of my story. Because of Twitter, Ryan was now a part of the story. For that reason, if I were to remediate the tweet stream into a short story, it would now include my experience watching these tornadoes with my followers' commentary.

Aural/Visual
Twitter took away some of my control with language, but it gave me more tools to tell my story aurally and visually. For my short story, I had to make word pictures and work on writing in concrete language. "Show don't tell" is a big axiom with writing. When forced to tell a story only in language, the writer can practice using their senses to describe a scene. With Twitter, I could fall back on pictures and videos to do the talking. I am literally showing the reader/follower what I mean. Rather than having to qualify a movie or song reference I make, I can include a link for you to check out. This is certainly less challenging, but it is more fun for the reader. I conducted this experiment in the room of a friend. She would read a tweet, click a link, hear the song and start laughing. It was better than just reading "Culture Club," the follower could really hear my pain with the power of the internet. "Rhiremediation My dad's I-70 playlist: The Beatles, Yanni, Culture Club, and wait for it...Spice Girls. Lord forgive him. http://tinyurl.com/yawo9st"

I scoured Google images and YouTube looking for footage to include with my tweets. I wanted to add a visual element and make the story more authentic. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find believable pictures, and I didn't want Ryan to know I was lying. This whole story would have been greatly enhanced by more pictures and video of the tornado. I imagine seeing footage of the funnels would have added a lot more drama to the story. For the followers that knew this was fake, they attempted to tweet what they guessed they would say. Ryan was tweeting from his heart. After seeing the picture I posted (and had to alter in Photoshop to look like mine), he asked "arveem @Rhiremediation http://twitpic.com/13il2i - Whoah... is that safe?"

Tweeting the story during the experience allows for immediacy, and the inclusion of pictures, audio and video creates hypermediacy. I am constantly sending followers on different paths to enhance my tweet. If my tweets are compelling enough; however, they should come back to get an update. Immediacy works well with a dramatic story, as mine wanted to be. As Ryan tweeted, it was like network news coverage, so he refreshed the page for new tweets just as he did for CNN. This way of experiencing my writing is like being told an anecdote rather than reading a story. Followers approached the story at different points depending on when they logged onto Twitter or checked their phones. My story is not suited for a rhizome characterization, however, because the follower has to scroll back to get context. Each tweet does not stand alone. I tried to reply to followers while maintaining autonomy by referencing partially what I am responding to. I believe the genre was maintained in the sense that the voice and purpose were the same. I was trying to entertain the audience, so I kept the humor and tried to hold onto my followers' attention through compelling pictures.

Conclusion
The tweets were more fun and easier to write than the short story. The short story was already written, so I could condense the language into funny statements. My original already had a cynical, tongue-in-cheek tone which made it appropriate for the new medium. I enjoyed writing the tweets that preceded the experiment more than the ones I made in real time. I had more time to choose my language and sculpt the message. I felt rushed to keep the momentum going, so I began talking more like I would in an instant message to my followers. My writing regression took away the rewarding part of composition. I imagine with more practice, I would be able to write off-the-cuff statements I loved too, but something is definitely lost in the instantaneous nature of live story telling. This type of story telling did not allow for sustained reflection. I had to weave my tale back into the comments amongst all the jokes and nonsense that my followers posted. As a writer trying to control the stream of the story, I would have to refrain from commenting back to followers or create a separate space to do so. The audience's ability to comment can really shape the form and tone of a story, for better or worse. This remediation project improved certain aspects of the short story. I included multimedia, made the story more interactive and used immediacy to my advantage. I think they are different stories; however, so one is not better than the other.