KB: How did the idea for the RE/Mixed Media Festival evolve? What goals were/are you hoping to accomplish?

TT: I started thinking about a festival for remixed art and media back in 2009.  Partly as a result of my being back in school to finish up my degree – and partly out of my experience as a digital media producer – I became quite interested in copyright reform and the global Free Culture movement. I was going to a lot

Hanna Hoch – “And When You Think the Moon is Setting” (photomontage, 1921)

of conferences, meetups, and other related events and one of the things that always kind of bothered me was that, while art was always *discussed* at these events, it was rarely represented. When there were artists present, they were usually sitting on a panel discussion, and they were almost always video artists who were remixing pop cultural artifacts (movies and tv) and recontextualizing them as political and/or cultural critique.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, and we support those artists, but these artists represent just a tiny fraction of the myriad artists of *all* disciplines that use creative appropriation in their work.   In fact, coming from a background in art and performance, it’s my contention that instead of “remix” being a new phenomenon enabled by digital technologies, it’s actually the way art, music, and culture has been created for centuries.  Shakespeare, for example, borrowed most of his plots from earlier work; the Dadaists pioneered the photomontage – the cutting up of newspapers and photographs and creating something new from them; the Situationists introduced us to the practice of détournement, a practice which has since evolved into contemporary culture-jamming and street art; pop art couldn’t even have existed without appropriation (think Warhol’s Marilyn or Lichtenstein’s Donald Duck); and sampling was a sine qua non of early hip-hop.  And these are just the obvious examples.  So my goal was to create an event that celebrated appropriation as the de facto means of artistic creation.  There has been so much hype in the last decade about piracy and DRM, etc. etc. that I felt people were beginning to think that sharing and using borrowed ideas and images was a BAD thing.  The bad thing is stealing, the bad thing is plagiarism – stealing something wholesale, claiming it’s yours and trying to make  a buck on it – but creative appropriation, aka remix, aka picking up the artifacts of your culture, playing with them and creating something NEW from them is, in fact, the way art has always been created.  My goal was to reverse the thinking propagated by the Culture industry (with a capital C) and their pals in the media, and help people see the reality of the situation.  A secondary goal was to create something that was truly a hybrid event, where we could get artists at the same proverbial table as policymakers and activists and allow them to be part of the conversation.

KB: How has the festival transitioned over the past three years? Any surprises or rewards?

TT: We’ve grown a lot since 2010, and I think the biggest difference between then and now is that, since we’ve now got a couple of years under our belt and people know us, it takes a lot less effort to find amazing artists to participate.  At the beginning, we weren’t known from a hole in the wall, so there had to be a lot of active outreach to artists.  Now, for the most part, they come to us and that’s really nice.  Also, one of the coolest things from the very beginning was how incredibly supportive the artistic and Free Culture communities have been.  In the very first year, Moby agreed to participate without batting an eyelash since copyright reform is something he’s passionate about.  After my keynote address in 2010, I was approached outside the venue by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) who wanted to be involved, and who then sat on our artistic advisory panel in 2011.  Last year Eclectic Method contacted us wanting to participate… it’s a good feeling to be acknowledged for something that others find valuable.   One of the biggest transitions for us has been our recent partnership with the MAshRome Film Festival in Italy.  They had invited me to Rome as a jury member for their festival in June, and we began talking about how our festivals have such similar goals and audiences that we should consider teaming up and sharing resources, which is what we’ve done.  At the festival on November 10th, they will be presenting an incredible and ambitious work called “Archet Hip-Hop: The Greek Theatre in Remix.”  The project features a re-edit of Pasolini’s 1956 film “Medea” and features the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto as well as live dancers on stage.  The Mashrome directors have been in NYC for a few weeks now putting it all together, and we’ve continued our discussions about how to move forward with the partnership, which may possibly include doing our festivals in other cities both here and in Europe in the coming years.

KB: Beyond your affiliation, what is The New School’s involvement in the festival? (I think there are other professors speaking?) 

TT: Yes, we have a number of New School people involved this year, which is really exciting for me since my time in the Media Studies program has really fueled my inspiration for this festival for the past few years.   Eduardo Navas, who I consider to be one of the leading thinkers/theorists of the Free Culture movement – and who just published a book on remix called: Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling – will be delivering this year’s keynote on the subject of “The Framework of Culture, Remix and Literature.”  Dr. Nitin Sawhney will be leading a discussion on “International Remix” later in the afternoon, and McKenzie (Ken) Wark will be sitting on the “Remix in Literature” Panel along with Dr. Navas, novelist Jonathan Ames, and literary critic Ed Champion.  Other professors have been extremely supportive, as have my fellow students – several of whom will be volunteering on the day of the fest.

KB: From my understanding, the RE/Mixed Media Festival seeks to push boundaries of remixed media, but could you define remixed?

TT: Sure – I mean, I think I covered a lot of this in the first question, but to me “remixed media” is anything that uses the artifacts in our cultural commons, and uses them as the building blocks to create something new and original.  To me, creativity isn’t about creating something brand new out of thin air in some kind of weird cultural vacuum.  It’s can’t be about that, because that’s impossible.  Creativity is about putting 2 things together that have never been associated, it’s about investigating those relationships.  EVERYone who creates ANYthing is, by definition, using the framework of their culture and their history and building upon it.  So in that sense, ‘Everything is a Remix’ as our friend Kirby Ferguson puts it.  If we want to define to define it a bit more tightly for the sake of festivals and whatnot, we can say that we mainly exhibit artists who work specifically with found items, pop culture, and cultural artifacts that are easily identified as appropriations.

KB: How has the digital age affected collaborative media, and the reassembling of media into new forms?

TT: Well, the digital age didn’t create collaborative media, but it sure made it a lot easier and put the tools into the hands of a lot more people – and that’s a good thing. The problems arose when the Culture Industry (big media) freaked out about it and thought that people using their content meant a loss of control of their brands (and money, by extension).  So they started slapping the word “piracy” on everything, and made very little differentiation between someone selling a video-cammed DVD recording of a movie, and someone who was taking bits and pieces of things and reassembling them into something new. And the media, that also has a horse in this race, supported their claims, by and large.  So digital media has been both good and bad for artists – it’s given them amazing new tools to work with, but those tools have also focused the spotlight on them and made them the victims of some really unfair practices at the hands of corporations.   And PS, Culture Industry – If you want young people to stop doing something, don’t call them “pirates” for crying out loud.  You may as well be calling them “rock stars.”   Ridiculous.

KB: The digital age has allowed mass consumers to participate in media construction and creation at a greater level than ever before. How has that influenced the field and industry?

TT: Well, I think it affects different things in different ways.  It’s definitely affected the art world – when I first moved to New York it was kind of rare and special to be called an artist, now everyone and their mother is an artist.  Some people (artists and otherwise) bemoan this, but I love it.  If someone is calling themselves an artist it means they identify as someone who has given him or herself the privilege and responsibility to create.  Those who are being playful with new technologies aren’t substantially different from those who first picked up a movie camera, or tinkered around and built a radio – in other words, they are no different than the pioneers in any media, who have always been amateurs, by definition.  What’s different is this incredible worldwide platform we now have, where someone’s experiment can go “viral” and fly around the world literally in minutes, creating new kinds of almost accidental media celebrities.  I think that with the number of images and messages that media injects into our consciousness everyday, it’s not just ok, but actually necessary that we’re empowered to take them and make something new out of them.

KB: Why use Kickstarter as a means of fundraising?

TT: Kickstarter, and crowdfunding in general, is a really brilliant innovation.  It allows you to begin actually *involving* your audience at a very early stage,  and making them part of the process allows them to feel like they have some kind of ownership.  Since our festival is about sharing and collaboration, that’s especially important to us.  We want our audiences to feel like this is their festival, something we’re creating with them, not just for them. Kickstarter is a really great tool to use to foster that level of involvement and buy-in.  That said, I’m not sure I’m going to be comfortable using Kickstarter forever.  There’s only so long you can continue asking friends and family to contribute their money to your labor of love.  One of our main goals now is to make the festival into something that is self-sustaining.  The challenge there is that that will require partnerships with ever larger organizations, and it’s important that we don’t let our ideas get watered down – or worse, censored – in the process.  We’ve been really picky about who we reach out to for sponsorship.  This year, we’re partnering with organizations like Yelp, Green Mountain Energy, Ableton, and Manhattan Beer Distributors, all very cool companies, but I know that if we want to be self sustaining we’ll need some larger partners as well.  Would I partner with someone like Verizon?  Probably not, but I think there are a ton of decent corporations out there – like Google, Intel, Mozilla, etc. – that would be beneficial for us to work with and who wouldn’t dilute our mission.

KB: Could you go into a bit more detail of what you mean by, and why, the festival seeks to ‘push the limits of copyright law’? Why is appropriation so important to the remix media field as it moves forward? I’ve always been under the impression that copyright laws are friends of media professionals.

TT: I would love to go into more detail about that. To understand our stance on copyright, I think it’s important to understand the history of copyright which was originally intended (according to the first copyright law – the Statute of Anne in England in 1709)  to protect publishers, not artists. Protecting artists came later.  The purpose of the first US copyright laws, which were introduced in 1790, was “to promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors, the exclusive Right to their Writings and Discoveries.”  The initial copyright term was 14 years, which the author could renew after another 14 if they wished (less than half did). This gave authors l limited monopoly on their work, after which it went into the cultural commons (aka public domain) for others to use and build upon.   This version of copyright it quite sane, encourages creation, and makes a lot of sense to us. It also encouraged artists to go out and create some more if their copyright was running out.   Copyright as it exists today, extends the monopoly by over 100 years in some cases, making it virtually impossible for anything to pass into the cultural commons while it’s still relevant.  This is an agenda pushed forward by big media, who don’t won’t anyone playing with their toys.  It’s about keeping a lock and key on their content so that they can continue making money on it in perpetuity.  To your point, this actually is good for media makers, but only if you happen to be one of the media giants.  Let’s say, instead, that you’re an independent filmmaker.  Let’s say there’s a scene in which you need The Simpsons playing on a TV in the background for 10 seconds.  It’s important that it’s the Simpsons because of the cultural meaning we’ve come to associate with that series or those characters, a meaning which has a parallel in your story.  So you call Fox, and they tell you that those 4 seconds will cost you $50,000, well outside of your budget.  This is a case, and there are many many real cases like this, where the small artist is not only at the mercy of big media, but are creatively hog-tied by them.  What’s ironic is that one of the biggest of the media behemoths is Disney, which got its start by, and built its reputation on,  appropriating works that are in the public domain (i.e. fairy tales). Now that they’ve sucked the commons dry for profit, they want to build a wall around it and keep those pesky small time media makers out.    That’s what we find unfair and what this festival is all about.

KB: What’s the audience of the festival?

TT: I love this question because one of the things I’m most proud of about this event is that it brings really different kinds of people together.  We get a lot of people who are involved in the free culture movement in some way, organizations like Open Video Alliance, Organization for Transformative Works, Public Knowledge, and Creative Commons have all been involved in the past.  We also get a lot of artists and people who are just really into experimental collaborative art.  We get lawyers and law students who are interested in copyright law.  We get filmmakers, people from the hacker/maker culture, from DJ culture, and from the downtown art scene.  It’s a really disparate group, and I love it because what inevitably happens is that one group comes to see something that’s within their range of interests, but the way the festival is structured, they are inevitably exposed to something else, and their view of remix becomes wider as a result.  That’s what we aim for, and I hope that continues to be the case as we move the festival into the future.

The post What is RE/Mixed Media? An Interview with Tom Tenney, Festival Director appeared first on RE/Mixed Media Festival 2012.

Archet-Hip-Hop, The Greek Theatre In Remix is a mashup of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 film Medea, based on the Greek tragedy by Euripides, featuring music by Ryuichi Sakamoto. This is the premier performance.

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s musical career began in the late 1970s as a keyboardist and vocalist for the highly influential electronic music act Yellow Magic Orchestra. The recording of his electronic music classic “Riot in Lagos” (1980) was named the sixth most important event in the history of dance music by The Guardian. The song was sampled in “The Message II (Survival)” by Melle Mel and Duke Bootee, “Magic’s Wand” by Whodini and Thomas Dolby, and Twilight 22’s “Electric Kingdom.”

He has scored many films and video games, including Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (in which he also starred), Pedro Almodóvar’s High Heels, Little Buddha, Wild Palms, Snake Eyes, Femme Fatale, The Sheltering Sky, and Babel. He won an Academy Award for his score for The Last Emperor.

Sakamoto is an outspoken critic of copyright laws, and is the founder of the Japanese record label Commmons, whose artist roster includes boredoms, Penguin Café Orchestra and Christian Fennesz.

Download the Press Release

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Abstract:

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 literary practice as well as 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. The presentation evaluates this change and its implication for creativity in contemporary cultural production.

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 principles of cultural analytics and digital humanities 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, and received his Ph.D. from the Department of Art and Media History, Theory, and Criticism at the University of California in San Diego.

NOTE: Navas will also be participating in the “Remix in Literature” panel discussion in the afternoon. 

The post Eduardo Navas to Deliver Keynote Address at RE/Mixed Media Festival appeared first on RE/Mixed Media Festival 2012.

“In the 1950s, Korea went through a drastic modernization process. After the Korean War ended, South Korea was firmly embedded in a Western cultural sphere, families were put into radically unexpected contexts, and the rise of independent women changed the face of society. The film was viewed as a metaphor of the harmful westernization of all traditions in post war Korea….”

Miller’s new score for a string quartet evokes the jazz of the nightclubs of the twenty-first century, and uses electronic music composed to create more dynamic tensions in the story, and to foreground the visual rhythm of the film’s editing techniques.

This evening’s screening will be accompanied by a live performance of the new score.”

You can get tickets here

Hope to see some of you there!

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Panel Description

A remix in literature can be as simple as an alternative version of a text or as complex as cut-ups, literary collages, or multimedia retellings of literary works. No matter what you call it, remix in literature has a history as long as that of literature itself. Nearly all of Shakespeare’s plots were “borrowed” (i.e. repurposed, retold, remixed) from other sources. In the 1920s, Tristan Tzara advocated a Dadaist poetry-writing technique of cutting up newspapers and rearranging the pieces. In the 1950s, the Situationist International (SI) developed the technique of détournement in which entire novels were cut up and recontextualized in order to turn media and capitalist culture against itself.  William Burroughs used Bryon Gysin’s cut-up technique to remix language in the 60s.

The tools of today’s digital culture makes it easy for artists to sample and manipulate selected source material through their own theoretical and artistic filters, with the resulting explosion of creativity engendering accusations of piracy and plagiarism.  Where do we draw the line between remix and plagiarism? Can an arrangement of letters and words be “owned” or is the concept of authorship “dead” as Barthes proclaimed in 1967? When does an expression become “original” and is the current method of protecting authorship valid in the 21st century? These are just some of the questions that may arise as our panel of experts engages in a discussion of remix and writing in the 21st century.

Panelist Bios

Jonathan Ames is the creator of the television show “Bored to Death” and is the author of eight books, includingWAKE UP, SIR! and THE EXTRA MAN, which was adapted into a film starring Kevin Kline and Paul Dano.


McKenzie Wark, Ph.D. is a professor of culture and media at Eugene Lang College, the New School for Liberal Arts in New York City.His  work focuses works on media theory, critical theory and new media,  with recent work exploring the art, writing, and politics of the   Situationist International (SI).  He is the author of The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the  Situationist International (2011).  His other works include A Hacker  Manifesto (2004) and Gamer Theory (2007).


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 principles of cultural analytics and digital humanities 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, and received his Ph.D. from the Department of Art and Media History, Theory, and Criticism at the University of California in San Diego.
He is the author of Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling.


Edward Champion is Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits, a Brooklyn-based outlet committed to independent cultural journalism. His work has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Chicago Sun-Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, The Philly Inquirer, Newsday, and numerous publications.
Miriam Aziz is a European composer / musician. Initially trained as a lawyer, she continued to experiment with different art genres, initially as a musician and then later combining dance and film. She has released three studio albums; We’re Inside Out (2007) - Tránsito (2009) and Muerte, Bailaremos (2010). She has performed in venues in Oslo, Ithaca, NY, Saint Louis, Missouri and New York City as well as the Womajazz Festival, Italy (in 2007) and the MELA world music festival in Oslo in August 2009. She is currently based in New York as a visiting scholar at Cardozo Law School working on a variety of law and humanities projects. She also contributed to a research project on Beyond Text in Legal Education based at the School of Law at Edinburgh University.

The post Jonathan Ames, McKenzie Wark, Edward Champion, and Eduardo Navas on ‘Remix in Literature’ Panel appeared first on RE/Mixed Media Festival 2012.

The Greek Theatre Meets Contemporary Arts: theatre, cinema, music, and dance mixed all together on the same stage, to give life to a new language.

The Greek Theatre In Remix: MEDEA By Euripides Through The Lens Of Pasolini
Pierpaolo Pasolini was an artist of eclectic, fascinating, and intense works. He picked the Greek tragedy written by Euripides as the starting point for interpreting the complexity of the modern society of the 20st century, and he chose new languages and mythology as the essential elements to represent modernity.  Medea undoubtedly is the most radical of his films inspired to Greek tragedy. In it Pasolini tried to create a timeless mythological language, almost dreamlike.

The performance

Director Mariangela Matarozzo

MAshRome wants to realize a new work revisited in a Remix version. “ARCHET-HIP-HOP : THE GREEK THEATRE IN REMIX” is an experimental work: cinema and theatre will tell the story of Medea on the stage and on the screen: the audiovisual screening  live together with the theatre act performance.

Director Alessandra Lo Russo

The  event is composed by 4 chapters taken from the Greek Tragedy “Medea” in the cinema version of the Italian director and poet Pierpaolo Pasolini with no audio and no subtitles.  Each chapter  will be the reference for the artists on stage and will lead the viewers in a different world, where languages, times, arts, and music genres, coexist in a skillful mix.   While the images are shown, with no audio nor subtitles, some keywords will appear like the former descriptions of mute films.

On stage, dancers (representing the Greek Chorus) will dance in a urban/street style, showcasing the connection between urban life and the temper of the heroine of the tragedy, thus underlining her internal conflict through the contrast with the city.

Festival info:
Mash Rome Film Fest - www.mashrome.org - info@mashrome.org- skype: MAshRome Film Fest

The post MAshRome Festival remixes Pasolini’s ‘Medea’ for RE/Mixed Media Fest appeared first on RE/Mixed Media Festival 2012.

Richard Sandler

Richard Sandler is a documentary filmmaker and a still photographer; his films include, ʺthe gods of times square (1999), ʺbrave new yorkʺ (2004), ʺSWAYʺ (2006), and ʺaka martha’s vineyard,ʺ (in post-production), for which he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 2006.

The post Richard Sandler to screen ‘Radioactive City’ at RE/Mixed Media 2012 appeared first on RE/Mixed Media Festival 2012.

Joining us in NYC from San Francisco for the event will be producers John Verrochi and Casey Lauderdale:

John Verrochi is a Freelance ACD with several years of experience in the advertising, music and tech industries. He is a frequent speaker at SXSW Music Festival and has been recognized by some of the top organizations in the advertising industry including the Art Directors Club, Cannes Lions and the One Show. John doesn’t smoke cigarettes or wear glasses.

Casey Lauderdale joined the SF Mixtape Society after attending the first event and loving it.  Having just moved to SF and needing something to do instead of watching another Law & Order: SVU marathon, joining in with SFMTS seemed to be a good fit, having been known as a playlist enthusiast.  Legend has it her compilations are still played during parties in the basement of Alpha Theta, her co-ed fraternity at Dartmouth College.

While not supporting the Society, Casey can be found working as the Admin & Systems Coordinator for Social Venture Network, an organization of over 500 socially responsible business entrepreneurs, helping to make the world a better place through business; reading fervently about urban development and civic technology; and, when time allows, pursuing hobbies like designing, coding, blogging, and knitting.

The post Bring your mixtapes to the festival on November 10th! appeared first on RE/Mixed Media Festival 2012.

S.T.D. is a new super-group featuring Cecil Sinclair (S), Jason Trachtenburg (T), and Matt Dallow (D) – a revolutionary, multi-media, educational film-strip, musical comedy extravaganza. S.T.D. takes found classroom educational film-strips from 1978-1984, and comically expose conformity, classism, consumerism, and general mind control propagated through the public school systems, through their own materials.

Artist Bios:

Cecil Sinclair is the comedy partner of Carla Rhodes, N.Y.C.’s leading rock and roll ventriloquist. She has appeared in countless magazines and nightclubs.

Jason Trachtenburg has been instrumental in multi-media as “The Dad” in the long running Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, appearing on “Late Nite w/ Conan O’Brien” and a multi-Edinburgh Festival Fringe Award Winner and TED Presenter. His current big-band is The Pendulum Swings.

Matt Dallow is in almost every band in N.Y.C., and is in very high demand as an accordionist and vaudeville performer. He leads the band “Amore Obscure.”

Save $ and get your tickets early by donating to our Kickstarter campaign!!

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Here’s a bit more about the artists:

Erin Gallagher is  a freelance illustrator and designer, native New Yorker and Brooklyn resident. She is a lover of cocktails, Jeffrey Campbell shoes, comics, gourmet sandwiches, quality television and film, Pearl Jam, Star Trek and lots more.  Check out her website, or follow her on tumblr at http://erinillustrates.tumblr.com/

Prospect Ink operates in South Park Slope, Brooklyn. They specialize in printing t-shirts, tote bags, posters and other materials for local bands & bars, schools & start-ups, weddings & whatnot. Whether you need one piece or one thousand, their press and squeegees are at the ready. Check out the website at http://www.prospect-ink.com

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