There were a lot of really cool, funny, and intriguing ideas that stemmed from our final presentations, but one of the ones that caught my attention and I feel was really interesting in its way of remixing ideas from the first and second half of the semester was John Notturno's Bioshock Audio Diary Remix
For a refresher, you can listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ei-GA3qwI
First of all -- it's just a really, freaking, cool audio track. I haven't played Bioshock myself, so I have absolutely no idea what the actual context of any of the clips are, but I thought the way they were remixed together along with the music was very powerful.
However, the reason I bring it up here is that I also thought it was an interesting remix and representation of some of the themes we've been talking about this semester.
First of all, obviously it's relevant to our discussions about remixing. Again, without knowing the context of the clips, it's hard to comment for sure about how different the order of these clips are compared to the context of the game, but as a remix I'm guessing he has changed the order or at least the timing that these clips appear in the game. Through the pace and order of the clips, as well as the music chosen to back them up, he has likely created a new or at least different meaning to these clips in his remix. Now in the eyes of most, this remix would be seen as illegal to really distribute, since it's entirely created using the material of another. According to some of the other authors we have seen, such as Letham, the remixers featured in "Copyright Criminals," and possibly Lessig, because the meaning of the original content is being shown in a new way, John's remix is an entirely new piece that can be distributed. So in this sense, the video brings up that constant argument of what can be remixed and shared.
It is also reminiscent of some of our other early themes, mainly our discussions regarding copyright communists, copyright liberals, copyright conservatives, and copyright libertarians. From the different voices we hear in the audio track, we get an idea of what some of these classes would sound like. One common theme referred to "parasites," something not unlike how copyright conservatives and copyright libertarians might refer to those in the remix culture. If someone is more worried about the original artist receiving profit than creative rights, then it is easy to see remixers as parasites -- lower lifeforms who lack in creativity, who look for a quick and easy way to leech off of someone else's work to make a few bucks. Meanwhile the copyright liberals and conservatives are more concerned about creativity than the market, in creating "a new kind of beauty" and feel that the market can survive strain.
John mentioned that Stiglitz's as another inspiration for his work, and I can see how it can be tied in. Stiglitz's article can relate to what I just spoke of about copyright conservatives/libertarians particularly. In the first section of the class, we discussed what these various classes of copyright enthusiasts/naysayers would think, but Stiglitz's article details how the information economy works, and lends some insight to why copyright conservatives and libertarians might think how they think. As Stiglitz says, "The fact that markets with imperfect information do not work perfectly provides a rationale for potential government actions." Remixes are very hard to understand and track in the current economy, as we have seen in large during the first half of the semester, and with Stiglitz's article it does make some sense how some of these copyright classes could see remixing and looser copyright standards as potentially being a threat to the market.
Overall, the reason why John's project stood out to me is that not only does it consider how information is distributed in our current digital culture, but it also speaks of, even if it's not in exactly his own words, some of the mindsets that exist today towards copyright and information sharing, and how this could lead to certain and extreme social and political consequences.
