Essay 4: Remixing Composition
Introduction and Context: You're probably familiar with the term "remix" as it's been applied to music. Wikipedia notes that the term "may also refer to a non-linear re-interpretation of a given work or media other than audio. Such as a hybridizing process combining fragments of various works. The process of combining and re-contextualizing will often produce unique results independent of the intentions and vision of the original designer/artist. Thus the concept of a remix can be applied to visual or video arts, and even things farther afield" ("Broader context").
This essay assignment asks you to find a text of your choosing -- written, visual, audio, video, or some combination -- and analyze its essential characteristics. You'll then creatively remix some of those characteristics in order to produce a new text. Finally, you'll reflect on your remix, analyzing its relationship to the original and how your own work and the work of the original authors interacted to produce something entirely different in character.
Here are some initial examples of remixes. We'll examine others in class.
Original Pepsi/Apple iTunes Commercial
Remixed Parody Commercial
Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII
Howard Moss's version
Extended trailer for The Shining (Link removed because of filesize and copyright concerns; e-mail me if you're curious.)
In 30 seconds with bunnies
Parody trailer
Simple Version: First, find a text you can do stuff with. The text can be in any medium you like: written, video, music, visual -- anything. Second, write a brief analysis of the text; what it does and how it works. Third: Do creative stuff to the text and change it around. (See above examples; again, your remix can be in any medium or genre.) Finally, write about what you did and what your intentions were. Tell how your remixed text does different things and works in different ways.
Not-So-Simple Version, with Pedagogical Rationale: The focus in this assignment is on self-consciously combining the meaning-making act of careful and analytical reading (what we might call textual consumption; closely examining the text you're going to remix) with the creative or originary meaning-making act of composing (what we might call textual production; remixing that text into something new) and then explaining the new text produced by that combination. Note that these notions of production and consumption raise questions of textual ownership, and also make explicit the concerns of authorship and collaboration that were implicit in the work with citations in essays 2 and 3. With that in mind, I'll ask you to explore the possibilities of remixing texts made explicitly available for such use under a Creative Commons license and publishing your remixed work with its own such license (although you're not required to do so), so that you might consider contributing the product of your collaborative authorial work as something for others after you to build upon, and so participate in a broad networked community of authors and creators: in short, if you so choose, to be a public intellectual.
Step 1: Think about the types of texts you might like to eventually produce for this assignment, as well as the types of texts that might yield the most productive and engaging possibilities for remixing. (Because of intellectual property concerns, one good place to start looking for texts to remix is the Creative Commons site mentioned above, where many other authors and artists offer their texts for remixing. However, keep in mind as well that remixing a text -- especially with properly attributed sources in service of an academic project -- may be protected by the fair use provisions of American copyright law.) Anyway: once you've found a text that you know you want to do something with, write a brief analytical piece describing your reasons for choosing it, its formal characteristics, and how you interpret its meaning or message. (This will be somewhat similar to the analysis you did for essay 2, but shorter.)
Step 2: Remix the text. Your remix can change the text's genre, alter its formal or stylistic characteristics, or revise its meaning or message, but there should remain at least some recognizable characteristics of the original, so that the collaborative aspect of your work will be visible to your readers. The remixes we examine in class may give you some inspiration, but beyond those examples, you might also:
- rewrite an essay or series of weblog entries as a photo essay or comic strip, using either "found" pictures from free online photo-sharing services like Flickr, or photos you take or pictures you draw on your own;
- take a movie or play and write a script treatment that significantly revises or updates it, as with Leonard Bernstein's revision of Romeo and Juliet into West Side Story, and then Baz Luhrman's modern-dress updating of the play, with Leonardo diCaprio and Claire Danes;
- ask a classmate's permission to remix something that they wrote (maybe from one of the class magazines or a weblog entry) into a different form or genre or medium (note, as well, that I'm a big fan of collaborative writing, and you're welcome to remix anything I've done, as well);
- describe, as carefully as you can, an image, and in so doing write an essay, story, or poem around what it depicts;
- come up with a project entirely your own.
Keep in mind that projects dealing with certain media such as film and music may require specialized vocabularies, for which I'm happy to offer resources. I'm also happy to offer what technical assistance I can: I can show you some sophisticated applications of image-editing programs like Photoshop and Web authoring technologies like Dreamweaver, and I've got some knowledge of Apple's music- and film-editing programs like GarageBand and iMovie, as well as with Flash, Macromedia's Web animation application.
Step 3: Finally, write a brief retrospective analysis of the effects of your remix. What were you able to change; how does the text you produced differ from the original; what are the effects of those differences?
To do now: Start thinking over the weekend about what you might like to remix and how. Toss around some ideas on your weblog. Do some Googling and some Web browsing for possible sources. Come to class Tuesday with at least three ideas for things you might try.
Acknowledgements: I'm grateful to my colleagues Amber Engelson and Amanda Carr for the assignments they suggested that led to this remix of their pedagogical ideas.