“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Pablo Picasso
The ability to remix has given birth to a new way in which consumers use media. Consumers aren’t forced to just sit back, relax and view/hear media, now they can alter the media and create a new piece of art.
Remixing is all made possible and easier with the improved fast internet speeds, ease of access to media and also less restrictive ways to download media. People can now change media to personally suit them and their audience; this can be both positive and negative for the original creator of this media piece.
The positive side is that it may bring more publicity to the original piece, for example the song “Forever Young” by Alphaville has been remixed many times, most famously by the band ‘Youth group’ and by the rapper ‘Jay Z’. I heard the remix before the original and my likening for the remixes got me interested in the original which I ended up liking even more then the remixes.
A negative side to this remix is that I may not have heard that these were remixes and falsely credited the remixes as being originals
In the lecture Andrew Whelan related remixing to the word détournement. The word détournement relates to changing the meaning of a media work and presenting a new idea, hence its relationship to remixing
One of the big issues/ benefits of remixing are that it can change the whole meaning of a piece of media. The example used in our lecture was a YouTube video remix of Buffy (the vampire slayer) versus Edward (from Twilight); this remix undermines the original ideologies of both media pieces. The remix video completely changes the way the audience view Edward. In the remix he is creepy, obsessive and annoying; this is a massive contrast to the twilight films where he is romantic, charming and determined.
The Good, the Bad and the Published 