Remix Culture.
The readymades of Marcel
Duchamp in the appropriation
that everything from print
ads to commercial packaging
and cartoon prevalent in pop art
provide the historical backbone
of new media.
While contemporary new media
strategies are influenced
by remix culture which includes
the use of sound samples
from popular music edited into
new works of hip-hop, dub,
electronica, and
contemporary dance music.
Remix strategies range
from borrowing samples
to complete new versions
of familiar songs.
Another example of remixes
borrow from video games
and mash up unlike genres.
One example of media works
that have mixed repeatedly
are Olia Liliana's
"My Boyfriend Came Back from the
War," which has been redone over
and over again, in
different ways.
Some new media artist even apply
this strategy to their own work,
such as "Bust Down
the Door Again!"
"Gates of Hell" Victoria
Version.
Young-Hae Chang
"Heavy Industries" replaces
the original works background,
alters the text color,
changes the sound track
and adds a Korean translation.
Remix as new media
strategy, sometimes cuts
across many genres
boundaries, such as the work
by popular performer, writer
and theorist Paul
Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky.
DJ Spooky's "Rebirth of a
Nation" in 2002 was a series
of five performances
where Miller remixed D.W.
Griffith's decidedly racist
film; Miller uses his
contemporary sampling,
sound layering, and
remixing techniques
to assemble an alternative
sound track.
One of the criticisms of early
new media based artists was the
tendency to ignore or not be
aware of historical antecedents
that proceeded their
generation of artists.
New media art has roots in
pop, dada, and other movements.
Some new media artists are aware
of history and have made a point
of including it in their work.
Reworking and reinterpreting
works from the 1960's and 70's
in light of new technologies
and cultural developments
such as MTAA software program
that updates and reintroduces
on Kawara's conceptual
date paintings
in on Kawara's update in 2001.
Other examples of contemporary
new media artists updating
historical artworks include
Wolfgang Steels web cam redacts
of Andy's Warhol's eight
hour long film Empire,
starting the Empire
State building
and John's Simon's Every Icon.
The tendency of these artists
to work collaboratively
and use the strategy of media
archaeology for appropriation
in art making represents
the shift from the idea
of authorial integrity central
to modernism to an approach
that downplays original
authorship as an element
of culture production.
This language is
more about editing
and manipulating historical
content to produce art instead
of producing something
from whole cloth.
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy use
databases to reinterpret films
such as "Project 201:
A Space Algorithm."
Their version of
Stanley Kubrick's 2001:
A Space Odyssey is
editable by the user
who logs into their website.
New media artworks
often respond to
and are facilitated
by technology.
Since technology developed
at such a rapid rate,
obsolete technology
has become cheap to use
and technological
nostalgia becomes part
of the language artists
like Cory Arcangel,
who's Super Mario clouds remixes
the early video game Super
Mario Brothers.
Homages to early video
games are a popular subject
for new media artist such as
Natalie Bookchin, The Intruder
and Keith and Mindi
Obadike, The Pink Stealth.
Alexis Shogun strategy
is hardware based
and uses obsolete PC's to
perform classic pop songs.
The tendency to use
clunky, crude,
and obsolete technologies
contrasts with clean lines
of contemporary technology
often used in new media
and sometimes is
characterized as dirt style.
