Minima Moralia Redux is a selective remix by Eduardo Navas of Theodor Adorno’s Minima Moralia. Starting on October 16, 2011, an entry a week will be rewritten until the 153 aphorisms of Minima Moralia become part of the blog.
Theodor Adorno’s aphorisms are carefully analyzed and reinterpreted in order to explore the principles of the selective remix, often found in music and video. The selective remix consists of adding to or subtracting material from a pre-existing source.
Minima Moralia Redux is the result of a long term post-doctoral analysis in cultural analytics performed for The Department of Information Science and Media Studies http://www.uib.no/infomedia/en at the University of Bergen, Norway, in collaboration with Software Studies Lab http://lab.softwarestudies.com/ at the University of California, San Diego.
I will be presenting my research on Remix and cultural analytics at the University of Lumiére in Lyon, France on November 24. Program and other information availlable.
A brief note on my presentation:
I will discuss the evolution of remixing in a three case study, with particular emphasis on when and how the video remixes were produced. This is done in order to reflect on the initial uploads of material and subsequent remixes as important vehicles of communication and creative practice.
What cultural analytics can bring to anthropology, and other fields that adopt it, is the ability to attain a balanced approach based on quantitative and qualitative analysis.
I contributed an essay on my project Traceblog to the book publication Net Works: Case Studies in Web Art and Design, edited by Xtine Burrough. I want to thank Xtine for the opportunity to share my ideas. Below are excerpts from my chapter contribution, which is titled after the actual online project as “Traceblog.” After the excerpts you will find the table of contents, which, in my view, includes an impressive list of contemporary new media artists. Excerpts from my chapter contribution:
[…] Traceblog was developed in reaction to one of my previous projects titled Diary of a Star (2004-07), a blog that appropriated entries from The Andy Warhol Diaries. As exciting as Diary of a Star was for me to produce, it consumed more time than I expected because entries had to be carefully written and took much longer to compose than average blog posts. Soon after I finished the Warhol project I began to think about the changes that had taken place with the shift to Web 2.0, and how blogging had changed since 2004. I realized that keeping track of people’s surfing activity had become an important element for private, public, and state organizations to data-mine patterns of communication and consumption online. The term “social media” began to be used more often when discussing the growth of early networks such as Orkut, and Friendster around 2004, the period when I began to develop Diary of a Star.
I evaluated the changes in online activity since 2004 and decided to develop Traceblog to reflect on the new stage that global culture was entering in 2008, during which millions of people around the world willingly shared information about themselves online, via social networks such as Facebook, Flickr, and Myspace, as well as YouTube, not to mention thousands of blogs, which by such time were conventional tools of communication for average Internet users. The result of the social media frenzy is an attitude of sharing that is ubiquitous in 2010, the time of this writing.
[…] Traceblog is a direct result of my ongoing practice as artist and media researcher. It makes the most of the default state of works of art in new media practice as informational forms, not defined by physical presentation. Traceblog and similar online works function in a state of flux defined by the growing archive and its relation to the ever-present: the now.
This is part 2 of a series of posts in which I introduce three case studies of YouTube video remixes. My first case study is the Charleston Style remixes.
Radiohead uploaded their original official music video on February 16, 2011. The video consists of Thom Yorke, the band’s lead singer, dancing and singing in an empty garage-like space. The footage includes close-ups, mid and long shots of Yorke improvising his dance. When viewing the original video it is evident that Yorke’s quirkiness in part is the reason why the footage was a readymade for a viral meme. The remixes began to appear, just two days after the original was uploaded, on February 18. The range of songs that replaced Radiohead’s original include well known musical classics from Zorba the Greek, pop songs from the Venga Boys, as well top ten hits by Lady Gaga, among others. Below are some of the videos analyzed.
This remix consists of footage taken from the original Radiohead video, which was re-edited to match the song “All the Single Ladies” by Beyonce, uploaded on February 18, 2011.
This video is titled “Thom Yorke Goes Bananas.” In this case, the video footage of Lotus Flower was selectively re-edited to match a samba composition. It was uploaded on February 18, 2011.
This video is titled “Thom Yorke Does the Macarena!” In this case, the video footage of Lotus Flower was selectively re-edited to match the Macarena song and video. It was uploaded on February 18, 2011.
Following the method of analysis of my first case study on the Charleston Style, I first looked at the montage of the videos.
This is the video grid montage of “Thom Yorke Does the Macarena.”
When viewing these grids it becomes evident that the remixers, from the very beginning, took the liberty to edit the footage selectively to match particular songs. This is a different approach in contrast with the Charleston remixes, which, for the most part, leave the video footage intact. The exception is the occasional time adjustment to match the beat of a song.
When slicing the video frames, it becomes clear which video sections are remixed. Compare the slices of the original video (above) with the slices of the three other videos, which follow below.
These are slices of “Thom Yorke Does the Macarena.”
The slice visualizations have been adjusted to fit this blog’s design. Many of the remixes are much shorter than the original video by Radiohead, this is because the footage is re-edited to match the length of the songs selected. One of the shortest is the Macarena remix, which is just over a minute.
As mentioned before, this is my second case study. After the introduction of my third case study, I will compare the three memes in order to evaluate the patterns of the remixes.
Abstract:
This essay examines the complexity of contemporary electronic literary practice. It evaluates how electronic literature borrows from, and also influences, the reception of the textual message in other forms of communication that efficiently combine image, sound and text as binary data, as information that is compiled in any format of choice with the use of the computer. The text aims to assess what it means to write in literary fashion in a time when crossing over from one creative field to another is ubiquitous and transparent in cultural production. To accomplish this, I relate electronic literature to the concept of intertextuality as defined by Fredric Jameson in postmodernism, and assess the complexity of writing not only with words, but also with other forms of communication, particularly video. I also discuss Roland Barthes’s principles of digital and analogical code to recontextualize intertextuality in electronic writing as a practice part of new media. Moreover, I discuss a few examples of electronic literature in relation to mass media logo production, and relate them to the concept of remix. The act of remixing has played an important role in the definition of literature in electronic media. All this leads to a recurring question that is relevant in all arts: how does originality and its relationship to authorship take effect in a time when the death of the author is often cited due to the growing amount of collaboration taking place in networked culture?
Note: The following is an excerpt of a concise summary of the history and theory of Remix:
How have artists critically appropriated the concept of copyright in their works? In this course we will take a closer look at remix culture from the perspectives of text, image and music, and how different artists over considerable time have related to the idea of using already copyrighted materials. We will also investigate some of the different software programs that have, and are, important in the process of creating contemporary remix culture.
Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. Copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression. In most jurisdictions copyright arises upon fixation and does not need to be registered. Copyright owners have the exclusive statutory right to exercise control over copying and other exploitation of the works for a specific period of time, after which the work is said to enter the public domain. Uses covered under limitations and exceptions to copyright, such as fair use, do not require permission from the copyright owner. All other uses require permission. Copyright owners can license or permanently transfer or assign their exclusive rights to others.
“The Ethics of Modular Complexity in Sustainability” was published in the CSPA Quarterly, Spring 2010 Issue. My text is available online according to a Creative Commons License adopted by the CSPA Journal. The content may be copied, distributed, and displayed as long as proper credit is given to the CSPA and the individual author(s), and as long as these contents are used by others for noncommercial purposes only. Any derivative works that result from these contents must also be shared alike.
The journal is the print publication for The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, a non-profit that supports artists and organizations in the process of becoming ecologically and economically sustainable while maintaining artistic excellence.
Editor statement for Spring 2010 issue:
In this issue, we’re working against the stereotypes of the form, and attempting to broaden its term. As always, we’re exploring our chosen theme across disciplines and were delighted to include sculpture, visual art, theater, public art, and media art in the following pages. Instead of asking for work based on waste materials, we asked for work built from objects that already exist.
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Abstract: “Remix: The Ethics of Modular Complexity in Sustainability” evaluates sustainability in networked culture. It considers how the flow of information in terms of immaterial production and its relation to knowledge play a role in a fourth economic layer supported by the growing ubiquity of globalization. It revisits and expands, yet again, on my interest in Jacques Attali’s concepts of noise and music to propose a critical position fully embedded in pervasive connectivity.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This text was written as a testing ground for my growing interest in the concepts of volume and module, as explored in vodule.com. Consequently, this text uses the term modular complexity, but does not define it. I consider this text as part of my process to develop a precise definition of modular complexity in social and cultural terms. The interests that inform this text are also relevant to my current research on Remix and Cultural Analytics. Future writings will make clear the interrelation of all these ongoing projects.
This online version contains minor edits made in order to clarify the argument.
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At the beginning of the twenty-first century, sustainability can be read with a double meaning: to be self-supportive while socially conscious. This is because specialized fields (and individuals who work in these fields) need to be aware of their interconnectivity if they are to subsist in global culture. Sustainability is relevant in the arts and media according to the interrelation of material and intellectual production, given that such relation supports specialized fields. Sustainability, when linked to social consciousness, modifies how the recycling of material becomes relevant in culture at large. One could promote a philosophy of sustainability, which embodies critical awareness of the politics of intellectual and material property with real consequences in daily life. This is relevant in all areas of culture, even when one may produce strictly in the realm of aesthetics, and other specialized spaces that appear distanced from politics and economy.
The double signification of sustainability also shares principles of recycling with Remix as a form of discourse. This is because Remix expands across culture from music to ecology: from immaterial pleasure to material responsibility. The act of remixing has become common due to the rise of information exchange dependent on cut/copy and paste, which is an act of sampling data in all forms. It enables individuals to apply the attitude of recombining in the realms of aesthetics and material reality, albeit with different results. To be able to critically understand how such attitude functions in the symbolic and the material is the very challenge of sustainability.
Image: Composite image of four YouTube video remixes. From top left to bottom right appear thumbnail montages of Charleston — Original Al & Leon Style!!, Charles Style, Charleston Mirror, and Charleston Mix. Larger images of the montages with proper explanation are included below as part of this introduction to my initial research on viral videos.
What follows is a brief introduction of my preliminary interest on video remixes and how I plan to use cultural analytics to evaluate their evolution on YouTube. My current research consists of various elements, some which I will not introduce at length today, but will only mention to contextualize the use of video grid montage as an analytical tool.
The following are videos from a performance that took place on November 11, 2010 at the Cultural Center of Spain in El Salvador, for the Exhibition, A Modular Framework.
Brian Mackern performs his remix of the film, the Stalker by Tarkovsky
Arcangel Constantini remixes noises and video games live for the audience
Image: Still from Brian Mackern’s performance of Cinema.tik, in which he remixes film clips from Tarkovsky and Hitchcock among other directors. Performance took place on November 11, 2010 at the Cultural Center of Spain in El Salvador.
Besides the two openings for the exhibition, A Modular Framework, there were two extra days of events. On November 10, there was a panel discussion with the artists. And on November 11 there was a performance by Arcangel Constantini, Brian Mackern and Antonio Mendoza.
