In my first blog post from the 21. August 2009 I talk about exactly the same problem, I find myself face to face now, the definition problem. After the class I have written this kind of definition:
In our class DIKULT 204 at the University of Bergen we’ve been talking of Remixes as something that uses already existing resources to transfer them into something new. We’ve had a look at several examples and most of them took several different sources to be put together into one new something for example a youtube video. But there was one example where an artist took something that was already there and only transferred it into a new context (Marcel Duchamp took an urinal, signed it under a different name and gave it to an exhibition where it was presented as the fountain).
But the example of the urinal still falls out of that whole scheme. And already in that first blog post I have also asked this question:
Or what about movies which adapt for example Shakespearian plays? Most of the time only the main themes and plot are used and a lot of new stuff is added to transfer the “old play” into the “modern world”. Are those movies Remixes?
Which I have answered myself with “yes” over the next few weeks. But today at my presentation this “yes” was put into question again by people in class and I realized that I have no single source to support that idea. So where do I get that from? How can I argue that using Shakespeare as a source for a movie is indeed a Remix? It makes me a bit desperate not quite knowing what to do now, as I really should get on with writing. But this is an essential question for my research paper, so I need to get it answered before I can move on to the real writing…
Ooh, just in general, be careful about putting off writing until you have the answer to a big question – I’ve been there, done that, and it tends to end badly! Just forge ahead and write the bits that you CAN write at this point.
I think perhaps the sources you need discuss MUSIC remix? Many dj remixes take one source and change it. What you need to do is think about what you think remix means – and as we’ve discussed, it’s a pretty loosely defined and often undefined term – and argue that She’s the Man is an example of a remix of Shakespeare. Or just say that it’s an adaptation of Twelfth Night (adaptation is what we would have called it ten or twenty years ago) but that it’s useful to look at adaptations as a form of remix – because they always force new interpretations of meanings that might have been present in the original but that weren’t obvious. Actually, that might be an interesting way to go in your paper. The Buffy/Twilight remix makes the slightly creepy/misogynistic aspects of Twlight more visible. Political remixes make you see politicians’ speeches, for instance, in a different way, because they emphasise parts of them differently than the original. DJ remixes of songs in night clubs give weight to different parts of the song than the original – a guitar riff for instance, that may not have been as prominent in the original. Does She’s the Man make you re-interpret Twelfth Night in the same way that remixes make you re-interpret their originals?
Oh, and look at Eduardo Navas definition: “To understand Remix as a cultural phenomenon, we must first define it in music. A music remix, in general, is a reinterpretation of a pre-existing song, meaning that the “aura” of the original will be dominant in the remixed version. ” That’s pretty much exactly what She’s the Man does – well, depending on how you define “aura”, which is a whole different problem. I’m not sure that this definition is ideal for all remixes we’ve looked at, but it’s probably pretty much the original definition for music remixes.
Pingback: jill/txt » remix culture: pulling it all togehter
It looks like you are a true expert. Did you study about the theme? *lol*
Have you not read my blog?
That is what it’s about. Yes, I have researched and studied the topic half a year…
But I wouldn’t quite say I’m an expert yet. But it was a lot of fun researching about it.