Video and music credits:
¤ The introduction by Dr Michio Kaku from BBC series: Visions of the Future – The Biotech Revolution.
¤ The ad for products by the biotech company Eppendorf International.
¤ D-Scape’s brilliant remix of Aphex Twin “On”

Man seem to be in a constant struggle against nature. We don’t want to wait for natural selection and evolution to present changes we have imagined. Some fights have been more successful than others, and the last decade have fostered initiatives that aim to work more closely with or build upon principles of nature. Science is turning to nature to deocde the source of various functionality that then are implemeted in human design.

For my academic paper in my Remix Culture class, I want to see to what extent remix culture as an activity has entered the natural domain.

This means that I need to find way to define remixing as a cultural activity, and for this I will draw on the curriculum and research we have explored in class (particularily the work of Jenkins, Barthes, Dawkins, Foucault, Lessig)
Based on these works and various discussions in class there seems to be some elements connected to this activity:

¤ Deconstruction: The ability to see new elemental pieces in a work, that carries their own specific beauty, intent or meaning.

¤ Reconstruction: The ability to choose specific parts for their meaning to construct a new narrative or context.

¤ Referral to the original work/s: The extent to which, and the various ways the remixed work is referring to the original.
Here I will explore the definitions provided by Eduardo Navas on his Remix Theory site, and Zachary McCune’s suggestion for a remix taxanomy. Both rely heavily on music as their source for definition and it is interesting to see how these definitions work in a greater realm of remix culture.

¤ Mixed media: with digital technologies, we see a a rise in mixed media remixes as well.

¤ Spreadability: the connection between the new narrative in a remix and its referral to the original seems to

¤ Amaterus and professionals: New media technologies have lowered the threshold for creation. Production equipment is not longer controlled and owned by professionals, and Internet has provided us with a forum for sharing that is unpresedented.

¤ Ethical framework: attribution, economic compensation, respect for the original work.

Having created a framework for understanding what “to remix” can entail, it is time to look into whether the current activity that exist in bio technology, bioengineering, gene technology etc. can be translated into remix.
I have found the best sources for exploration in the realm of biological art, where artists move into a domain previously occupied by specialised scientists, and will look into how their work introduces permanent or cosemtic changes in the biological setup of simple bacteria, plants, insects, animals and even humans.

DECONSTRUCTION

In terms of looking at deconstruction as an element of a remix activity in an biological realm, I have turned to the
various genome projects, especially the Human Genome Project, which is the highly ambisious scientific goal to identify the 20-25.000 genes in the human DNA, and their functionality, as well as tranferring this knowledge and technology to the private sector.
Scientists have already identified large parts of the genome of various animals (fully utilized in breeding technologies), insects (the fruit fly’s genome is now fully sequenced), even the neanderthals.

RECONSTRUCTION

Reconstruction in biological remix has to do the ability to bringing already isolated elements or qualities into a new composistion or maybe even narrative.
The performance artist Stelios Arcadiou aka Stelarc is preoccupied with the identity of the body, and in 2006 he comitted to surgery to have a third ear attached to his left arm. As he describes it “a facial feature has been replicated, relocated and will now be rewired for alternate capabilities”. This ear has the functions of the normal ear, and in one stage of the project (althoug now removed) a microphone was attached at the end of the ear (inside the arm) to transmitt the sounds caught by the ear.

REFERRING TO THE ORIGINAL

Here I am still looking for concrete sources to work from, although one can say that most reconstructions seem to be heavily relying on the source material. From works based on pure appropriation (e.g the DNA portrait visualizing your individual DNA sequences as visual art pieces, that you can buy, or Gary Schneider’s Genetic Self Portrait) to complete reformations of original intent of the building blocks, elements earlier viewed as part of a biological whole, are set together in new, cultural constellations based on the specific sets of functionality. One example is the student project led by assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF, Chris Voigt, creating living photographs produced through genetically re-engineering e.coli bacterias to respond as pixels in a SLR camera, the amount light exposure will trigger the production of pigment in the bacteria, thus producing the levels in a picture.

MIXED MEDIA

In terms of the question of mixed media, it might be frutiful to discuss interspecies mixes versus cross-species creations, or transgenic works basing itself in recombinant DNA technology – the composition of DNA sequenses that do not occus naturally together in a cell. This technology have been used to create insect resistant crops, to introduce genes from fireflies in tobacco plants for the plants to glow in the dark, to the latest creation of Eduardo Kac – the Natural History of Enigma, that he proudly names a plantimal – as this cross-hybrid Petunia (labeled the Eduania) expresses the genes of Kac in its red blood veins. There are discussion as to whether this is a true plantimal, as various bacteria and virus from different species explode and crash with our own human DNA (causing small, but often unimportant mutations). Here I need to find some good sources for discussion.

SPREADABILITY

Spreadability in biological remix might be transferred to the question of fertility. Whether the new work/creation is fertile and will live beyond its single appearance, or it the alteration is cosmetic, even superficial.
In case of the Eduania, this “plantimal” is fertile, its seed will give rise to a new series of Edunias.

AMATERUR/PROFESSIONAL

Biological engineering is no longer an activity reserved scientists. Although there are strict ethical guidelines framing the practise of biological research and engineering, off-lab organisations and networks of artist, hobby-biologists are forming, e.g. DIYBio who just held their DNA extraction Party and present themselves as:
“DIYbio is an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety”
or the more open source activist group Hackteria. Many of the projects in these groups are still simple in concept, and often concern with building the equipment required to work with micro-organisms in an off-lab setting. Still, they give an indication of bringing the technology, ethical guidelines and knowledge required to take nature’s potential in their own hands.

ETHICAL FRAMEWORK

I also want to look more closely into the ethical guidelines and discussion arised in the human genome project and will use discussion material presented in the project as a starting point.

Research material

I have benefitted from the article Gene Culture – The Molecule Metaphor in Visual Art by Suzanne Anker.
This article presents Anker’s research on how biological metaphors are appearing in visual arts, and how cultural hybrids (or “chimera’s” as she labels them) are appearing in biology through work of both scientists and artists. Particularily she is interested in how “genetic imaging operates as aesthetic signs” – and looks at examples of replication in art vs cloning (and other methods of copying gene material) and immaterial copyrights vs gene-patents. Of particular interest her presentation of bioartist George Gessert whose work have been labeled as genetic grafitti – where he let “fictional” genomes intervene in an ecosystem dominated by natural selection. (2000). She also touches upon the application of ethics that quite automatically seems to enter the conversation when biological engineering is focused on augmentation of man (e.g in the principles behind breeding versus eugenics).

Walter Benjamin:
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935)
Abstract: Introduces the notion of the “aura” of an orginal art piece – an how this aura is lost or distracted when losing it’s position in space/time thorugh mechanical reproduction. He further looks in to the differents between private media and public media and how this engages man in different ways.

JENKINS, HETROGLOSSIA AND FAN ARTISTS

Henry Jenkins starts of the chapter by introdusing Mikahail Bakhtin’s term “hetroglossia” – that refers to the inherent meaning that any word carries due to use in history. The true creation lies not in finding a new word, but rather to have the knowledge of the meanings a word carries and the ability to use the carried meaning into a new and desired context. Jenkins states that a fan artist main contribution lies in “the imaginative juxtaposition” of already produced content.

FAN ARTISTS AND THE CONNECTION TO A FAN COMMUNITY

The fan artist builds on the vast knowledge pool a fan community has on a subject, and plays on speculations and fantasies that already is hinted at within the community. The fan video is successfull if the artist manages to add perspectives, deepening the understanding of the fan universe, through his or her suggestions. In one way we might say that the fan artist is a critic, whose contribution serves as a starting point for new discussions within the community.
The skill of the fan artist is much like the skill of Mikahail Bakhtin’s writer, he or she needs to be knowledgeable about the meaning of each contenct piece, to be able to tailor them into a new narrative. An equally the work demand the pre-set knowledge of the fan community for it to convey its meaning.

PRIVATE AND PUBLIC MEDIA TYPES

Walter Benjamin talks about media that produces reflection and that these media are necessarily private, not public. The reading of book and viewing of a painting in a gallery are private in the sense that only one or few people can enjoy it at a given time. It is not a collective experience. Where that is not the case with architecture or film.

Jenkins looks into two forms of fan videos, the “living-room videos” and the “convention videos”, and opposes them to commercial music videos (ala MTV).
The living-room video is detaljed, complex and with many layers in the narrative. It is meant for individual viewing or viewing in small groups.
The convention videos need to be less complex as the group doesn’t “concentrate as deeply” and “want to laugh together”, the ability to reflect and participate to attach meaning to the material seems to be weakened.

The commercial music video on the other hand, Jenkins argues, is mostly without narrative – the mash-up of images and text the constitutes the video, have lost their original meaning. Instead of a narrative, the composistion and style is produced to distract the rational mind, and evoke emotions.

Although the convention video is created with a narrative, yet more simple, it still bear a lot of resembles to the commercial music video, with its focus on entertainment value.

Benjamin argues that film makers are constructing new realities with the film media, due to the possibilities presented in the media of filming in several shoots, cutting the filmed material. This cutting up of the reality gives the spectator an immediate experience of the reality presented, in form a shock. This experience of reality does not come from a reflection leading to an understanding -it is there to produce certain emotions and feeling is the viewer. This brings Jenkins notion of commercial music videos in mind, that he states “decenters and disorientates”.

COMMUNITY, PARTICIPATION AND MEDIA MANIPULATION

Benjamin also talks about the community aspect of media, that is adressing a group in this way. There is a room for all the participants to speak of their reaction to the film, a conversation that is of interest to all members, as it is based in this shared experience.

Jenkins emphasized the deep realtion ship between the communicty of fans and the work presented by a fan artist. The fan-artist suggests and critiques in his/her videos, and invites an already knowledgable group to partake in the discussion. The fan artist strengthens the bond that exist between an orginal piece of work and its fans.

Even though he doesn’t state it specifically, I get the sense that Jenkins doesn’t think a commercial music video gathers the same engaged audience.

Benjamin talks about the democratising effect of mechanical reproduction where all citizens can be part of the art piece. As a extra in a film, through a letter to the editor in a newspaper. Movies and print allows for new modes of participation in art.
But he also express concern in how media can be used as a tool for engaging a community of active followers in a certain way. Writing this article in 1935, as a communist an jew, the seeds of the Nazi propaganda must be all frightening.

In remix culture today, there are positive connotations to the ways technology has democratized media. We can all be creators, curators and distributors in a connected, digital world. What Benjamin fears might not be the active participation of man in cultural production, rather the monopoly or centralized control of a given media – the mass-broadcast whoose message is decided by a few, and a powerful few – a media manipulation of reality spreading desired narratives/opinions to a crowd.

Writing this a wonder it there is a closer connection between tconvention videos with its simple message (still narrative) and emotional evocations and the propaganda movies. Hmm.

RELATIONSHIP TO BIOLOGICAL REMIX

As I have decided to look into the strange realm of biological remix. The remix of either natural matter to create new lifeforms, or the mixing of cultural and natural content to create new identities, I will try to see how the notion of remix as presented by Jenkins related to my topic.

::: TXT WILL BE ADDED

Blender Foundation

A community of fans bought rights for a propriterary 3D animation software, turned it open source to be able to work freely with the development of the technology in film production. The Blender community is based in the Blender Foundation, and the films are equally an showcase for the current Blender technology (3D content creation suite).

Production:
¤ 2006: Elephant Dream
¤ 2009: Durian

Open source aspect: CC-license (BY-SA) of end-result and production files, the Blender technology, collaboration platform,
Economy: Consultation, pre-order, donation, collaboration

VEB FilmLebzig – Open Source Film Net Label

Production:
¤ 2004: 104 minutes Documentary/Road Movie „Route 66”.
Within a year the movie was downloaded over a million times and spread on 600.000 DVDs.
¤ 2009: Second feature film „The Last Drug”
Details: 20 Free Culture- & film enthusiasts and $450,000 budget.
¤ 2009: Open Source Documentary Road Movie „The Spirit of Motorcycling”.

Open source aspect: CC License (BY), providing the footage for remixes.
Economy: Donation, collaboration and DVD/CD sales.

Valkaama

Production:
The Valkaama open source film project

Open source aspect: CC License (BY-SA), open post-production server.
Economy: Donation and collaboration.

Wreck-a-movie

The web service Wreck-a-Movie offers a community platform for collaborative film making.

A Swarm of Angels

The Swarm of Angles collaborative film project is/was used a case study for Creative Commons.
The basic ideas is to attract ask a donation fee of min $25 to be able to participate in the project as decision-makers and contributers, with the first milestone of gathering 1000 members.

The project seems to be at a stand still close to a year, the last twitter entry from Juli 31st 2009 states:
“Latest on Swarm timeline: 1-3months: remix project up. 3-6 months: capsule project. Early 2010: absolute official (re)launch.”

So the first assumption for my exploration is:

Remix is the premise of all creativity

An idea is never yours alone, it spurs from the human collective, traditions, culture, personal encounters and experiences. Gilberto Gilm, former minister for Culture in Brazil aptly stated it: “Sharing is the nature of creation” (RIP:A Remix Manifesto).

We must allow for a sharing culture to advocate innovation. Beyond inspiring new musical compositions, sharing information to utilize the manpower of a global community to find solutions to global challenges – the cure for cancer, solving the energy crisis, space travel – is of utmost importance.
Having information and creative content locked up behind walls of copyright regulations and patents are not constructive in a interconnected world.

Second assumption:

Current copyright systems are not encouraging remix

Historic and current compensation systems are naturally set in place for a reason – and I would argue that reason first and foremost to be concerning the issue of attribution and economic compensation.
In terms of attribution, the system need to acknowlegde the creator behind a work, and furthermore the system is supposed to outline an economic model for compensating the creator for the time and resources invested in the production of a work.

On the economic side the traditional copyright system isn’t directly protecting the creator, rather the person, institution or orgransisation that represent the work and enforce the copyright, who then in turn compensate the creator they represent. I would call this body “the distributor”.
The distributor has traditionally also been in charge of the master copy and the copying machine, controlling the access to a product or work.
With the rise of Internet, the world biggest copy machine is unveiled, but it is not a copy machine that one distributor controls specifically.

Which takes me to the third assumption of my exploration:

Our current copyright system is not protecting the creator, but a business modell that is outdated

The cultural, social and technological development of any society offers an increase in demand for certain skill and type of occupations, and the decrease of others. Lots of current argumentation today in defense of of current copyright systems, seems to come from traditional distributors.
Internet with is inherent open-ended network structure and filesharing as its primus modus operandi has offered its participants to be more than just consumers. Everyone have the ability to share (distribute) close to any digital production with ease. Everyone is an distributor.

Fourth assumption:

The creator can no longer be protected by the distributor chain

And this is where it gets interesting.

What technological and legal compensation systems can ensure attribution and economic compensation for artists today?

In terms of legality Richard Stallmann introduced GPL (General Public Lisence), a free software license intending to ensure that software code can never turn proprietary and be fully shared fully among any project now and in the future. An alternative licensing system, the Creative Commons, initiated by Lawrence Lessig, is an appraoch to encompass the legal sharing of all creative work.
Both of these licenses advocate legal sharing of attributed works, yet none really address the economic consequenses of an creator freely sharing his/her work.

With the whole world as potential distributors of a given work, we need new models to ensure sustainable sharing, or put bluntly: How can we legally and economically open access to digital creative content?

A very incomplete and barely touched upon outline of some of the ideas that have been put forth as alternatives or part solutions:

DIFFERENTIATING NON-COMMERCIAL & COMMERCIAL USE

STATE REGULATED COMPENSATION SYSTEM
The state has a system for measuring the online traffic of individual users, and compensates the various creators accordingly. A fixed cultural fee on the use of internet is collected from each user.

OPEN BUSINESS MODELS
The digital copy is always free and openly available – each creator needs to find his/hers alternative source of income. The free, digital copy encourages distribution and in turn fame/familiarity. This direct connection to an audience is then utilized to push upgrades, related product/services, new collaboration opportunities that can be charged for.

WIKINOMICs AND THE ECONOMY OF PEER-PRODUCTION
The ideas on the economy of collaborative production (e.g. the idea of Wikinomics presented by Tapscott and Williams) seems to argue for the economics of online production, but not so much off-line production – work that demands time and resources from the individual creators outside a collaborative platform.
(The term “online” and “offline production” are presented by Matteo Pasquinelli in his critique of free culture: The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage (PDF)

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And then I got off track.
I feel like a robot assembling data to tell a story I am not sure I find so interesting.

EDIT:

It is actually not so much about feeling as a robot, more that the topic has such a wide range, that I am challenged in being specific.

Is it interesting to write a paper about potential compensation systems, on a global scale?
What happended to the notion of creativity?
How in depth should it be with the time I have available (medio November) and how original?
What about the more philosophical aspects of the public, the commons, the recursive commons, the creative anti-commons? Copyright versus copyleft in terms of stimulating an active, producing commons.
How can I make this topic be about more than just systems of copyright?

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