Above: “The Rise Of Dubstep | Documentary”, included in the resource selections below.
List of online resources and music selection for week 6 of Hip-Hop to Dubstep, taught during the summer of 2013 at The New School’s Media Studies, Department of Communication. I will be releasing brief notes based on my class lectures in the near future. If interested in looking at the actual class webpage with all the weekly selections at once, feel free to peruse this link: http://navasse.net/NS/NCOM3039A/. My notes will not be available on the class webpage, only on each corresponding entry here on Remix Theory. Please note that links may become broken. If and when this happens, the best thing to do is to search for the source by name. And do let me know if anything is broken and I will look into it.
24 Hours Experience – “Together” (1994) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjz6Nz9HGq0 Note that this is basically a house record. This a transitional song towards UK Garage as it came to eventually evolved in the well-known MJ Cole “Sincere” (see below).
24 Hour Experience – Together (Robbie Styles Remix) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBSKDx8f0aE
Above: “portishead – documentaire – 1998 (welcome to portishead)”, included in the resource selections below.
List of online resources and music selection for week 5 of Hip-Hop to Dubstep, taught during the summer of 2013 at The New School’s Media Studies, Department of Communication. I will be releasing brief notes based on my class lectures in the near future. If interested in looking at the actual class webpage with all the weekly selections at once, feel free to peruse this link: http://navasse.net/NS/NCOM3039A/. My notes will not be available on the class webpage, only on each corresponding entry here on Remix Theory. Please note that links may become broken. If and when this happens, the best thing to do is to search for the source by name. And do let me know if anything is broken and I will look into it.
Coldcut – “Say Kids What time is it?” (1987) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOlI-pi3Zug Coldcut – “Beats and Pieces” (1987) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyIQ2Nzcx_E (Coldcut remixed Eric B & Rakim’s “Paid in Full” thanks to the recognition of the two tracks above. See week 4 for links that explain more about “Paid in full.”)
Coldcut was heavily influenced by the aesthetics of cut & paste as performed on the turntables by Grandmaster Flash on his well-known “Grandmaster
Flash’s Adventures on the Wheels of Steel” (1981) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXNzMVLqIHg
Worth considering how Massive Attack’s cover gets remixed to fit the dialogue of a film (pay attention to how the verses get rearranged to complement the film): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU4EnYbCHJM
Above: “Pump Up the Volume – Part 1, The History of House Music”, included in the resource selections below.
List of online resources and music selection for week 4 of Hip-Hop to Dubstep, taught during the summer of 2013 at The New School’s Media Studies, Department of Communication. I will be releasing brief notes based on my class lectures in the near future. If interested in looking at the actual class webpage with all the weekly selections at once, feel free to peruse this link: http://navasse.net/NS/NCOM3039A/. My notes will not be available on the class webpage, only on each corresponding entry here on Remix Theory. Please note that links may become broken. If and when this happens, the best thing to do is to search for the source by name. And do let me know if anything is broken and I will look into it.
The Salsoul Orchestra. “Ooh, I Love It (Love Break)”. 12″ Original Remix Shep Pettibone. (1982) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkDmbJegNpw Short version (break mix): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynSP04nUThk (Note that in the above mixes you can already hear the drum arrangement that Frankie Bones would come to perfect with drum machines.)
On The House – “Move Your Body” (1986) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enyh56-Q_Cs (First record to use a piano in house music. Became a house anthem because it uses the word “house” in the lyrics)
Jungle Brothers – “I’ll House You” (1989) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFGhQSiGHWM (The above crosses over to what came to be called “hip-house.” Some house purists did not like rap combined with house. Often times only the dub or instrumental versions of this record was remixed on the dancefloor.) One of various intrumental versions that were released:
“Richie Rich Instrumental” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0k1qLGVjsM
Inner City – “The Good Life” (1988) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUwfOOdg4eE Inner City – “Big Fun” (1988) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omfiVkkJ1OU Inner City is a crossover act, and is not necessarily considered a techno group, even though Kevin Saunderson is one of the three founders of Techno in Detroit. The songs by Inner City were also mixed with Freestyle and some Electro-Funk, depending on the club.
Joey Beltram – “Energy Flash” (1990) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALsHox5sYCk Considered a pivotal track in defining the sound of techno particulary in Europe. It is one of the compositions that also opened the door for the aesthetics of trance. Beltram considered his composition to be part of house music, but it eventually became labeled as techno in Europe for selling purposes.
Above: The Amen Break documentary by Nate Harrison, included in the resource selections below.
List of online resources and music selection for week 3 of Hip-Hop to Dubstep, taught during the summer of 2013 at The New School’s Media Studies, Department of Communication. I will be releasing brief notes based on my class lectures in the near future. If interested in looking at the actual class webpage with all the weekly selections at once, feel free to peruse this link: http://navasse.net/NS/NCOM3039A/. My notes will not be available on the class webpage, only on each corresponding entry here on Remix Theory. Please note that links may become broken. If and when this happens, the best thing to do is to search for the source by name. And do let me know if anything is broken and I will look into it.
Newcleus was clearly influenced by the sound coming out of Germany. “Push the Button makes this quite evident.” Also note that while Newcleus were very much experimenting with electro-funk, they also would rap, as you will notice one of their most successful songs is included under the rap section below.
Kid Frost – La Raza (1990) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ8AS300WH4
(See disco section for the original song “Viva Tirado” by El Chicano to hear the source of melody and percussion samples)
Graphic by Ben Jackson and Chris Ritter as credited on Buzzfeed
The chart above was posted on Buzzfeed back in October of 2012. It was linked to an article titled “Why Remix Culture Needs New Copyright Laws.” The article revisits many of the issues that are still prevalent in 2013 in terms of remix. One would expect major changes at this stage of media production, especially with social media, but the chart reminds independent media producers that there is much work that needs to be done.
I received a tweet with the image above. I think it’s a good remix in its own right. It appropriates not only the title of my book but also the concept behind the sound of music quite well.
Note: This text was written for the peer review Journal AnthroVision 1.1 | 2012 : First issue. It was published in September of 2012. It is released here with permission from the editors. A special thanks to Nadine Wanono and the peer reviewers for all their support in the process of revising and publishing the text.This essay is the first formal release of my post-doc research for The Department of Information Science and Media Studies at The University of Bergen, Norway in collaboration with The Software Studies Lab at Calit2, University of California, San Diego during the period of 2010-2012. I will be releasing more of my research in the near future. For now, you may also look over related material, available under Projects.
For proper text citation use:
Référence électronique
Eduardo Navas, « Modular Complexity and Remix: The Collapse of Time and Space into Search », Anthrovision [En ligne], 1.1 | 2012, mis en ligne le 01 septembre 2012, consulté le 15 mars 2013. URL : http://lodel.revues.org/10/anthrovision/324
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Excerpt:
If postmodernity consisted of the collapse of time into space, then the time of globalization at the beginning of the twenty-first century consists of the collapse of time and space into search. Culture has entered a stage in which time and space are redefined by modular access to knowledge in unprecedented fashion with the use of search engines. Search redefines the way people come to terms with historical developments that are constantly recycled and remixed with the use of new media technology. A search is usually performed with engines such as Google and Bing; technology that is founded on research that brings together private and public interests.
This text is a reflection on the implications behind search algorithms that provide people with material that is relevant in correlation to a hierarchy of supposed importance that may reach great popularity, and perhaps even go viral (large circulation online) according to the use of key terms known as meta-data. This text is an evaluation of the aesthetics of search made possible because of what I call modular complexity; meaning, the ability to function within a system of modules that are autonomous but that also effectively inform and redefine each other.[1] This, in effect, leads to the collapse of time and space into search; meaning, if the postmodern gave way to a sense of historical dismissal, such attitude is fully at play in networked culture as ahistoricity. This shift, which informs emerging markets on the global network, repurposes interdisciplinary methodologies across fields of research in the social sciences as well as the humanities.
[1] I first introduce the concept of Modular Complexity in the Essay “Remix: The Ethics of Modular Complexity in Sustainability,” written for CSPA Journal’s Spring 2010 issue. See: https://remixtheory.net/?p=461
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Back in October of 2012 Simon Reynolds wrote a passionate piece on Remix Culture for Slate magazine titled “Your Are not a Switch” in which he calls out mainly scholars who are using the reference of the DJ and remixing to discuss issues of originality, and especially in his view, questioning the concept of the “genius.” For me what is striking about Reynolds’s position is that he goes over much of the literature that has been produced for the last few years claiming that all of the authors (amazing that all of them, a bit essentialist on his part disappointingly), especially those in academia are guilty of dismantling the originality in creativity. To make a sweeping statement like this is troublesome enough but there is more.
As much as I like Reynolds’s research, including his most recent book titled Retromania, I have to say that his article is long-winded and does not contribute anything new, not even a strong counter-argument against the authors he calls out. Reynolds appears to want to celebrate the artist as genius, and to do this he claims at the end of his article that there is something to the process of coming up with new material based on a unique interpretation. Well, this is not so different from what some of the authors that he is critiquing are saying. In fact, this is the whole point of the books, such as Synreich’s Mashed up, or Amerika’s Remixthebook. Perhaps it’s the “academic” or (I prefer) the systematic and rigorous approach of some of the publications that may come off as a way of killing the potential of creativity that is misread by Reynolds. But to understand the grammar of a process, to understand the history, to understand the politics of a cultural activity does not mean that such an activity, in this case creativity, will whither. It simply means that we will understand it better and we need to because the process of borrowing from and being inspired by others now has turned into a material conflict that is finely tuned with economics.
I’m talking about copyright conflicts, of course. We need to understand the process of creativity because we need to make sure that it keeps flowing as it always has. With new technology we are able to archive more of that process and all that is archived becomes commodity in some way. This is really what is at play at the moment in, yes, all of the books and essays Reynolds is critical of; they are contributions to overcoming such an impasse. And is creativity or the concept of the genius being redefined in this process? Yes. But all things change, they evolve. It’s the way we function. We cannot hold on to some idea of genius or originality as it functioned in the past. Just like photography redefined painting, just like the computer redefined just about every aspect of daily life, the concepts of the genius and originality are also being redefined. And this is not a bad thing at all.
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I share a couple of paragraphs from Reynolds’s text below:
Many of these polemics make allusions to DJ culture in their titles:Mark Amerika’sremixthebook, Kirby Ferguson’s video essays and website Everything Is A Remix, Arram Sinnreich’s Mashed Up.Remixing and mashups are familiar—indeed, somewhat tired—notions in dance culture, but incritical circles they enjoy modish currency because they seem to capture something essential about the cut-and-paste sensibility fostered by digital culture. Likewise, the Internet’s gigantic archive of image, sound, text, and design has encouraged a view of the artist as primarily a curator, someone whose principal modes of operation involve recontextualization and connection-making.
As a neutral description of the current state of the art in many fields, this would be fine. But recreativists don’t just champion these practices, they make grand claims about the essentially recycled nature of all art. In Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling, authors Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola quote the DJ Matt Black’s assertion that “humans are just sampling machines … that’s how we learn to paint and make music.” In an opinion piece for NPR, Alva Noë discussed contemporary anxieties about plagiarism in a cut-and-paste era and defended quotation as an artistic practice. But instead of stopping there, he also asserted that “sampling is nothing new, not in art, and not in life … Evolution, whether in biology, or in technology and culture, is never anything other than a redeployment of old means in new circumstances.* We use the old to make the new and the new is always old.” Much the same idea crops up in Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist, a sort of self-help manual for modern creatives. Kleon moves quickly from “every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas” to insisting that “you are the sum of your influences” and that “you’re a remix of your mom and dad.”
Note: Very happy to be participating in the upcoming exhibition, ” Reuse Aloud.” Information below.
Directly from the basic.fm blog:
Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema and The NewBridge Project present Reuse Aloud, a month-long exhibition and radio broadcast throughout March 2013 featuring work from national and international artists, musicians and writers.
The project will be hosted in The NewBridge Project Space on New Bridge Street West and broadcast on Tyneside Cinema’s online radio station basic.fm as part of its digital arts programme, Pixel Palace.
Reuse Aloud is curated by Will Strong and Rosanna Skett and will examine the art of using old and existing compositions to make something new, and ask questions about originality in the digital age.
It will do this through an ambitious schedule of live and pre-recorded work with contributions from artists and musicians from across the globe, including critically acclaimed artists Frank Nora, Eduardo Navas and Natalia Skobeeva, DJs and mashup pioneers Z-trip and Girl Talk, and award-winning Canadian rap artist Baba Brinkman.
Throughout March a radio booth will be installed in the NewBridge Project Space and it will broadcast 24 hours a day on basic.fm.
Reuse Aloud will open to the public at 5pm on Friday 1 March with a preview event featuring new work from artists Andy Ingamells, Sam Christie, Jess Rose, Rachel Magdeburg and Joe Pochciol.
The project space will be open to the public Monday-Friday, 12noon–6pm throughout March and will culminate in a live 24-hour broadcast marathon starting at 6pm, Friday 29 March and running until 6pm, Saturday 30 March.
This essay is a critical overview of the New Aesthetic in the context of what I define as The Framework of Culture. The New Aesthetic relies heavily on principles of remixing, and for this reason it is not so much a movement, but arguably more of an attitude towards media production that is overtly aware of computing processes that are embedded in every aspect of daily life. Material considered part of The New Aesthetic often, though not always, consists of pixilated designs that make reference to digital manipulation of contemporary media.
One of the The New Aesthetic’s resonating issues is that by using the word “new” it appears invested in the recontextualization of cultural production that is aware of its materialization through the use of digital technology. At the same time, it also appears to be revisiting much of what new media already examined during the early stages of networked communication beginning in the mid-nineties. [1] The subject of interest in this text is not whether The New Aesthetic may be something actually “new,” or simply a trend revisiting cultural variables already well defined by previous stages of media production. Rather, what is relevant is that The New Aesthetic makes evident how recycling of concepts and materials is at play in ways that differ from previous forms of production.
