reflection post nr. 6

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Copyright, Lawrence Lessig, reflection post, Remix, research

Lawrence Lessig: Remix – Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy (2008) p.1-105

Lawrence Lessig is a professor for law at Stanford law school. He is not against copyright, but sees certain disadvantages in the law towards what he calls RW. He uses the term RW (read – write) to clarify his idea about Remix culture. In this culture you read/listen/watch something and are able to respond to it, by remixing it for example (there are other ways of responding, e.g. in a blog there is the possibility to leave a comment to a blog entry). The contrary to RW is RO (read – only), in which the audience is expected to only consume the art. Lessig thinks both those cultural forms necessary, but sees RW culture oppressed by the current law. In his book he argues why RW culture is so important for us. His two main reasons are: communication and education. Through remixing readymade material one can communicate a new point, because “their meaning comes not from the content of what they say; it comes from the references, which is expressible only if it is the original that gets used.” (p.74)

Something I found very interesting while reading his book is the difference he points out between written work and none written work. Nobody thinks of asking permission for quoting written work (I don’t send Mr. Lessig an email, asking whether I can use quotes from his book for my reading reflection), but when it comes to quoting something none written: “[…] the norms governing them today are very different.” (p. 53). Lessig sees one reason in the fact that writing is something that is taught to everyone, while filmmaking or record making used to be the domain of professionals and has only become more and more popular with amateurs, as the techniques to do so were developed, became better with time and became also better accessible. But Lessig thinks that quoting in none written work should be allowed as well, as it offers a wide range of creativity. He talks about some examples to emphasise this point, one is from the artist Johan Söderberg: “As Johan Söderberg says, “To me, it is just like cooking. In your cupboard in your kitchen you have lots of different things and you try to connect different tastes together to create something interesting.” The remix artist does the same thing with bits of culture found in his digital cupboard.” (p. 71) And I totally agree with Lawrence Lessig in that point. Remixing has become such a big part of our culture and offers the possibility to parody/critique/analyse the original source, to communicate a certain point of view, to make people think, that it would be a great loss, if laws continued to forbid and oppress it.

reflection post nr. 5

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author, Michel Foucault, reflection post, Remix, research

Michel Foucault: What is an author? (1970)

Michel Foucault writes about the author and his historical development from evolving out of anonymity over individuality to his (literal) death. He examines different parts of the author, one is the work and what that actually is, another is the authors name and what it stands for and what it indicates. He also tries to sketch out what an author makes an author and nothing else. He for example says: “A private letter may well have a signer – it does not have an author […]”. But I do not agree with that, especially because he himself uses the term “private letter” (were he talking about a business letter I would agree)! But I do think that private letters have an author. Think of all those famous authors (e.g. Goethe) whose private letters have become part of their work, so they are the author of those letters. But also “ordinary” people like me are the authors from their own private letters. I am a passionate letter writer and I claim that I am the author of those letters. I am certainly not only the signer, as Foucault suggests, as I have written the context, as I put my thoughts into the letter and sometimes those letters even develop a narrative story comparable to a short story. So it is definitely a creative process which goes on, when writing a letter and that creative process is far more than only signing it. I might not be an author in terms of Foucault, rather a writer, but I am indeed not only a signer!

Foucault also says about the author, that “[…] he is a certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes and chooses […].” Here again I don’t completely agree with Foucault. Is that something we really want to? Limit the meaning of a literary work through the author or some other function? He might be right about the fact that it is often done, but I for myself don’t want to limit literature under such circumstances. Most of the time, I don’t care about who the author of the book I read is. In school we had to care, especially when we read some classical novel. But then we always had to ask the very tiring question: “What does the author want to say with that?” When I read in my free time, I don’t care who has actually written the book I read. Only if I have some personal relationship with the author I care about it, otherwise I want to enjoy the literal content and explore the field of creativity someone opened. And do we really want to limit that field of creativity? Trying to capture that in a few simple words, breaking it down to its most crucial thing? I am not sure about that.

reflection post nr. 4

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reflection post, research, Roland Barthes, The death of the author, the-original-never-been-thing

Roland Barthes: The death of the author (1967)

In The death of the author Roland Barthes critiques that “[…] the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is tyrannically centred on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions […]”. He tries to contradict this general belief by reducing the author to someone who writes and nothing else: “[…] just as I is no more than the man who says I: language knows a “subject,” not a “person”[…]”.

Barthes starts his article by asking the question of “who is speaking” in a text. Is it the author, the hero, a truth generally acknowledged? His answer is, that “[…] it is the language which speaks, not the author.” He replaces the author by the language, saying that the hand of the author is “[…] detached from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin — or which, at least, has no other origin than language itself […]”. So the author is no longer a genius producing something that has never been there, but uses a readymade dictionary of words which come from thousands sources of culture. This fact has a huge impact on the interpretation of a text. One can no longer ask: “What does the author wants to say?” – as the author is not there anymore. He is replaced by a modern scripteur, who has no life before the text and no life after the text, but only lives as long as he is writing. This limitation of time is very interesting in terms of the author not being able to think about the text before he starts writing, as he is not existent yet. That is why the author can’t put a meaning other than language and the assembling of words from different backgrounds into the text.

Barthes points out that “[…] a text consists of multiple writings, issuing from several cultures and entering into dialogue with each other, into parody, into contestation; but there is one place where this multiplicity is collected, united, and this place is not the author, as we have hitherto said it was, but the reader […]”. So the reader, as a general person not an individual, is now the instance of creating a meaning to the text.

I find Barthes thoughts very interesting. They are very radical as he doesn’t allow the text to have anything from the author in it, which I personally think is not possible. As the author can only use a context and culture of words he knows. But I like his questioning the genius of the author. I like how the language itself is the most important thing for him. Considering my research topic Shakespeare, I start wondering what it is that people really like about his work. Is it the fact that they have been written by a man called Shakespeare? I don’t think so, because it is not even sure whether the man we think has written all those plays, has actually really written them. I think what really is interesting, is the things Shakespeare wrote about and especially how he wrote about them. He assembled language together in a very fascinating way, playing with double meanings, being very poetical. I think it is rather that what people like about those plays. But it doesn’t really matter whether a man born in Stratford-upon-Avon made this word puzzle or whether it was someone else. So this text is really interesting for my research question and I will definitely come back to it again later.

reflection post nr. 3

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reflection post, research, the Gutenberg Parenthesis, Tom Pettitt

Tom Pettitt: The Gutenberg parenthesis and cultural differences  (2005)

Tom Pettitt talks about the Gutenberg Parenthesis a phase where everything is stable, original and individual, speaking in terms of culture e.g. literature. The Gutenberg Parenthesis has a pre-parenthetical and a post-parenthetical period in which things are not stable. Pettit says about it: “[…] I am particularly attracted by the way “parenthesis” suggests development over time: a before, a during and an after, with the implication that the post-parenthetical period after and the pre-parenthetical period before may have more in common with each other than either has with the parenthetical phase that came in between […]” Pettitt goes even so far as to say that the post-parenthetical period is a mirror from the pre-parenthetical period as in both periods things are unstable and rather collective than individual. He points out that some things enter the parenthesis later than other things and gives an example from the Elizabethan time: poetry was already in the parenthesis as it was published with the authors name, but plays were just on the verge of entering it because they were usually published without the name, but started being sometimes published with the authors name.

Something I don’t understand about the whole construction is why it has actually any significance. What is the point in categorising things under one or the other phase? It is interesting to know that there are changes like that during time and that especially in the time of electronic media everything becomes more unstable again as people use ready-made things to make it their own, to create something new with it.

And interesting is also the comparison Tom Pettitt draws to illustrate that point by saying that Elizabethan theatre was like today’s Remix culture as he points out that Elizabethan theatre treated plays in a way which can be described as remixing, sampling, borrowing, reshaping, appropriating and recontextualizing, in short using ready-made materials to make something else out of it. This is actually exactly what I want to point out with my research topic, that Shakespeare himself remixed.  So in this point I totally agree with Tom Pettitt and as for the rest I might get closer to it through the discussion in class.

reflection post nr. 2

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Aura, reflection post, research, Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (1936)

I found it quite hard to reflect about Walter Benjamins text, because at times it is a bit confusing and even though I read it in the German Original I find it very hard to summaries his ideas. When we were asked in class to discuss his main point the discussion of my group evolved around his understanding of film, but I’m not sure whether that really is his main point or whether such a main point is even existent. So I decided to kind of summarise his work in the same way he did it, within chapters to get closer to his work.

I

In the first chapter Benjamin talks about the history of reproduction. He argues that: “Das Kunstwerk ist grundsätzlich immer reproduzierbar gewesen.” (Artwork has always been reproducible.) But the technical reproduction was new and developed over the centuries with some revolutionary methods as the printing press, the photographical picture and then the film with sound.

II

Benjamin introduces the idea of the “Aura” by saying that through technical reproduction an artwork loses its most essential thing, its aura. The “Here and now” is still relevant for art, but through technical reproduction it has been taken away from its tradition of being unique. Another change that has taken place through technical reproduction is that the art can adopt to each new situation, can refresh itself through reproduction.

III

In the course of history the cognition of mankind keeps on changing. Benjamin sees in his times a corruption of the aura which he leads back to two main causes which both involve the crowd. Firstly there is the need to bring things closer to oneself and secondly to overcome uniqueness by reproduction.

IV

The uniqueness from a piece of art is identical with its tradition, says Benjamin. He comes to the conclusion that this tradition underlies changes instead of being stable. But its uniqueness and through this its aura didn’t change before the time of technical reproduction.

V

The artwork can be classified through two diametrical opposed categories. One is its cultic value and the other is its possibility to be exhibited. The exhibition value has become more and more relevant through the process of technical reproduction.

VI

Benjamin sees the photographic picture as something where the exhibition value has become more important than the cultic value. But he thinks that in portrait photographs the aura is still sense able, which gives those photographs a higher cultic value than an exhibition value. He writes that for the first time pictures need to be labelled to show their context.

VII

Benjamin mentions the medium of the film and talks about how people see in it some kind of art, but he does not share that opinion!

VIII

He compares the actor on stage with the film actor. Whereas the actor on stage plays for the audience and can adjust his actions to the audiences, the film actor plays for a machine which doesn’t present his work objectively, but voices an opinion through the cameraman and the cutter. The audience watching a movie has to adopt to a machine rather than a human being.

IX

As the aura is bound to its “here and now” the film actor has to leave it behind, even though he as a human being posses such an aura. But the machine is not able to capture that aura: “Es gibt kein Abbild von ihr.” (Because there is no copy of the aura.) (I’m wondering whether he contradicts himself there, as before he spoke of the aura of a portrait photograph.) He also writes about the filming process and how it changes the acting of the actor.

X

Benjamin argues that in the current development of film everybody could become an actor, even an ordinary person.

XI

“Dessen [des Filmes] illusionäre Natur ist eine Natur zweiten Grades; sie ist ein Ergebnis des Schnitts.” (Its [the movies] illusionary nature is that of the second degree, the result of cutting.) Benjamin argues that the cameraman penetrates deeply into his web and through this extracts many different little pieces which are brought together under a new law.

XII

Benjamin compares paintings with film. He writes that paintings were created to be seen by a small group of people at one time only and that the art has been troubled by technical reproduction as now a crowd consumes the art collectively which doesn’t do credit to the paintings. Film on the other hand has been created to be watched by many people at a time.

XIII

In this chapter Walter Benjamin writes about the possibilities of film. That film gives the opportunity to see the everyday life and world in a completely whole new perspective.

XIV

Because film images keep on moving and changing the whole time, the audience doesn’t have time to put a meaning into them.

XV

“Das Publikum ist ein Examinator, doch ein zerstreuter.” (The audience is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.)

I think that in some chapters I forgot to summarise some aspects Walter Benjamin wrote about, but I tried to break it down to more understandable terms for myself and to focus on what I found interesting. So this is not at all complete. And something I haven’t considered at all is the time when this has been written and what historical changes were taking place during that time.

reflection post nr. 1

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Fan Music Video, Henry Jenkins, reflection post, research

Henry Jenkins “Layers of Meaning”: Fan Music Video and the Poetics of Poaching (1993)

Henry Jenkins analysed fan music videos in 1993 as a cultural phenomenon and comes to the conclusion that it is: “[…] rather, a unique form [of art], ideally suited to demands of fan culture, depending for its significance upon the careful welding of words and images to comment on the series narrative.” He reflects on the transition of the original towards the new meaning, which is achieved by rearranging different footage and by adding songs to those newly created sequences. Jenkins says that there are different aims of those videos: they either want to critique, parody aspects of the original series, shift the focus from the “series privileged male leads onto secondary characters” or create new meaning.

Jenkins also writes about the audience of fan music videos. There is on the one hand the fan community of a series and on the other hand ordinary people who have not been in touch with that special series or only know little about it. For that reason he distinguishes between two kinds of videos: “[…] convention videos, which need to be broadly drawn to allow immediate recognition from a wide range of fans, and “living-room videos”, made for a more select and analytic audience familiar with the community’s interpretive conventions.”

At one point he compares MTV music videos with fan music videos, as in both formats the music is the most evident. But he comes to the conclusion that they are quite different, as in MTV music videos images are not used to tell a story, but rather to center the concentration towards the singer, whereas in fan music videos the narrative structure is the most important part. The music only helps emerging the meaning they want to create, so that it doesn’t matter at all who actually sings the song they use.

What I find the most interesting about Jenkins work is, that he wrote it in 1993 but that it still applies to todays culture of rearranging things together and sharing the outcome with a broad range of audience. One big change that has taken place is that today it is much easier to create such a video and to make it public as there are formats like youtube.

But there is one point I don’t completely agree with Jenkins. It is the point about MTV music videos. There are still videos today without a narrative structure, but more and more videos tell a story and move away from the glorification of the singer.

For the general research about Remix culture this aspect was very interesting and useful, but for my special Research question about Shakespeare it is not really helpful, as it goes in a completely different direction in comparison to what I intend on researching about.

reading reflections blog posts

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reflection post, research

We have started a more theoretical part of our course in which we read different articles about relevant topics for our research projects and discuss them in class. As homework we have to write a reading reflection about the articles we’ve discussed in class and post them to our blog so that they can be read by everybody else in the course.