Rethinking the Rhetoric of remix in Media International Australia

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Rethinking the Rhetoric of Remix
Media International Australia
No. 141, pp. 17-25

Abstract: How did 'remix', a post-production technique and compositional form in dance music, come to describe digital culture? Is it an apt metaphor? This article considers the rhetorical use of remix in Lawrence Lessig's case for copyright reform in Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (2008). I argue that Lessig's understanding of remix is problematic, as it seems unable to accommodate its musical namesake and obscures the particular history of media use in recent music culture. Drawing on qualitative analysis of popular music cultures, I argue that the conceptualisation of remix as any media made from pre-existing media is problematic. The origins of remix, I argue, provides a lens for thinking critically about the rhetorical uses of the term in current discourse and forces us to ponder materialities. My aim is not to dispute the word's contemporary meaning or attempt to establish a correct usage of the term - clearly a wide variety of creators call their work remix; instead, this article considers the rhetorical work that remix is asked to perform as a way of probing the assumptions and aspirations that lurk behind Lessig's argument.


Note: I've expanded on this thesis substantially since writing this essay in June/July 2010 and revising in November 2010 (thanks to the wise words of two anonymous peer reviewers!) More recently I've traced changes in the way the word remix functions in popular discourse since the 1970s and also looked at how the metaphors functions in academic discourse. I will post a link here when this work is published.




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Disco Edits and Their Discontents: The Persistence of the Analog in a Digital Era

I'm pleased to announce the online publication of "Disco Edits and Their Discontents: The Persistence of the Analog in a Digital Era", my scholarly consideration of Disco Edits in New Media and Society. (Access via a research library or by subscription. Email me if you don't have access to either.)

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Disco edits and their discontents: The persistence of the analog in a digital era

Margie Borschke
margaret.borschke@unsw.edu.au
University of New South Wales

Abstract

This article foregrounds the distinction between two compositional forms and creative strategies in dance music – edits and remixes – as a way to gain a better understanding of the relationship between media use and media content, between producers and users, artifacts and events. It considers how the earliest disco edits in the 1970s were shaped by listeners (DJs and dancers) working in tandem with the material qualities and functional properties of vinyl records and other analog technologies and argues that while contemporary edits are made with digital tools, they continue to be in debt to their analog antecedents. In doing so this article critiques the enthusiastic adoption of ‘remix’ as a metaphor to describe digital culture and questions whether this rhetorical usage overshadows the aesthetic priorities and political implications of a variety of creative strategies that involve media use and re-use.


This essay takes a media studies approach to the subject, and I'm particularly interested in how media formats shape media content.

For those interested in Walter Gibbons, please see Tim Lawrence's work on Gibbons.

For those interested in disco acetates (and their collectors), see Disco Patrick.

For interest in contemporary edits:
A short documentary, Nu Disco (Re-edit Yourself) from The Art Pack, a video mag from France.

Andy Beta's "Disco Inferno 2.0" in The village Voice.

Or ask your local record store.

And many thanks to all the DJs, producers, dancers, and collectors for many spirited and enlightening discussions about edits in person and online.

Earlier versions of this article were given at the following conferences and workshops:


What’s it worth? ‘Value’ and Popular Music
Annual Conference of IASPM-ANZ
International Association for the Study of Popular Music
Australia-New Zealand branch
27-29 November 2009

and

ARC Cultural Research Network's Obsolescence Research Workshop
Obsolescence: Media history, policy and aesthetics Project
University of Wollongong
1 & 2 October 2009




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