Remixing Reality: Art and Literature for the 21st Century
Kenneth Taylor

17 August 2014

本周是“重新融合现实——21世纪的艺术与文学”。混音最近很流行。有些人声称一切都是混音的。当然，如果这是真的，那就意味着再也没有新的东西被创造出来了。但从某种意义上说，混音是一种新事物。remix是一种新事物，它源于对旧事物的创造性改造。虽然人们倾向于认为混音是21世纪特有的东西，但伟大的创作者实际上永远都在制作混音。认为詹姆斯·乔伊斯。奥斯卡·王尔德。甚至莎士比亚。 Every single one of them was a remixer.

Of course, one huge differences between then and now is that 21stcentury technology makes it so easy to make remixes. You could see that as a negative. One of its consequences is that you don’t have to be a great artist anymore to produces remixes. In fact, you don’t have to any kind of artist. Any kid with a music collection can compose a mash-up and post it on youtube. And you might think that there's little if any creativity or originality involved in that.

On the other hand, you could see as a positive thing. Art has been democratized, but that doesn’t mean it’s less creative. I recently heard amash-up of Adele’s “Set fire to the Rain” and Daft Punk’s “Something About us”真是太棒了!

但混音怀疑论者会说，我敢肯定，每一个好的混搭，都有数百个混乱。在怀疑者看来，整个混音的事情似乎是无休止的诉讼和衍生伪艺术的配方。这是好莱坞病。如今的好莱坞拍续集接续集，再拍再拍，再拍再拍。他们想不出任何新的故事来讲述。创意都去哪儿了?

Now if you are a fan of remix, on the other hand, you are likely to hear in such complaints the faint whisper of some outmoded and romantic ideas about creativity and originality in what I just said. According to an old-fashioned view about creativity and genius, creativity, genius, originality are all the products of the singular individual, the creative genius, with a unique voice and vision all his or her own.

That's certainly a romantic ideal. But why think that it's outmoded? Well because creativity and originality just don’t work that way -- not now, anyway, but perhaps they never have. Even the most creative genius, is just a point of convergence for multiple lines of influence. Here’s an analogy. Compare writing a novel or composing a piece of music to curating a museum exhibit. We wouldn’t deny the originality and creativity of the curator just because she arranges other people’s artwork. The exhibit itself is a work of art – a new and distinctive work of art. Sure it contains other works of art. But it isn’t reducible to them. Mutatis mutandis for novels or poems or music! Artists are merely curators. When they create a work, they’re just putting on display various lines of influence. Some are just more explicit and open about it.

现在我承认，这里也有一个巨大的反类比。博物馆展览的馆长不会剽窃任何人的作品。策展人的创造性工作和被策展作品的创造性之间有一条非常清晰的界线。直接融入他人作品的小说、电影或音乐模糊了这些界限——有时是故意的。这可能是个问题——尤其是考虑到版权法的现状。不过，总体观点还是成立的。撇开法律不谈，艺术的形而上学并没有阻止全新的艺术作品建立在其他艺术作品的基础上，甚至直接结合其他艺术作品。无论如何，许多人现在似乎相信了这一点，并以创造更多此类艺术的名义越过了旧的创造性和法律边界。就个人而言，它认为有必要摆脱法律的束缚，允许他们根据自己的想法重新制作内容。然后我们可以看到它们出现了什么。 And only then should we pass final judgment on this burgeoning new movement.

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Tuesday, September 30, 2014 -- 5:00 PM

Aesthetics is one of those

美学是我没有涉足的领域之一。我没有太多的接触，所以我觉得这个讨论更吸引人!听着这个节目，我想起了最近读到的大卫·福斯特·华莱士(David Foster Wallace)的一篇文章:极度夸张?最初是为《哈佛书评》写的，但后来在《华莱士?这应该是一件有趣的事情?i’我再也不会这样做了。虽然这是一篇最简单的书评，但在更深层次上，这篇文章探讨了作者的问题。她在决定她所创作的文本的文学意义方面所起的作用。虽然一开始这似乎和这个节目有些许关系，但我认为作者的问题?S的角色后期制作是在混音辩论的几个核心之一。如果我们认为作者身份延伸到所有的艺术学科，例如，作者?的作用?它是否存在?在确定一件作品的意义时，可能会使它的起源无关紧要。相反，如果我们把作者从她的作品中分离出来，我们就创造了一个更容易重视一件作品的空间。S起源，即质疑它们是否应该在我们对那项工作的评估中算数。
In a different vein, throughout the show, Shields made clear his point that ?art is incendiary? and removed from the world of ?sober scholarship,? supporting the absence of proper citations in these new remix works. I wonder, however, what Shields would say in response to the objection that abstaining from citation makes all the easier cultural appropriation; moreover, to remove citation is to remove from a work its marker within the timeline of our history. How are we to orient a piece within the context in which it was created, to track its effects on future works?both, I would argue, crucial to developing a deeper understanding of the work?if not for citations? Additionally, we might ask as to art?s role in our society. Is it a force for social change, does it lag behind and follow, is it contemporary with, or does it draw on aspects of all of these? Tracking works allows us a better grasp on their relationship with our society at large. But maybe here is where we draw the line between popular remix culture and academic work.
For the moment, despite an attractive line of argument from David Shields, I find myself siding with Ken and John. Perhaps this view is a product of the milieu of a college education in the humanities, or perhaps there?s something more to it. Regardless, this show now has me thinking about aesthetics and about all the ways in which our philosophy of art can enter those parts of our lives that we generally consider absent of it. Certainly another topic to add to the reading list!