DIGITAL PLENITUDE
  • Home
  • Chapters
    • Introduction
    • 1. The Great Divide
    • 2. Popular Modernism
    • 3. DIchotomies
    • 4. Catharsis
    • 5. Flow
    • 6. Remix
    • 7. Procedurality
    • 8. Social Media
    • Conclusion
    • References
  • Additional texts
    • Books in the Plenitude
  • About
  • Comments

6. Remix

Jay David Bolter. The Digital Plenitude: The Decline of Elite Culture and the Rise of New Media (MIT Press, 2019).  

Rap music was the earliest and most influential form of remix, but the practice of using digital technology to sample and recombine elements from earlier productions now extends to a variety of media (and multi- media) forms, including music, video, static images, and text. As Larry Lessig (2008) pointed out, remix—especially the mixing of borrowed video with recorded music—has now become a means of expression for a large population of (generally) young amateur digital producers.  

Rap as remix

JAY-Z's Hard Knock Life (1998), an excellent example of rap as remix. ​
Blondie's Rapture (1980) was an early example of the "mainstreaming" of rap.
Mariah Carey's Fantasy (1995), a later example of the integration of pop and rap.

Remix culture

Larry Lessig's Ted Talk on Creativity and Remix 
The remix trailer for Sleepless in Seattle as a stalker film.
Media theorist Henry Jenkins on participatory culture
One of the Downfall remix videos: Hitler informed that parody videos are considered fair use. This is an ironically self-referential instance of this parody genre.

Good musicians copy; great musicians remix

Brett Gaylor’s RIP! Right to Remix Manifesto (2008), a documentary.
Remix artist Girl Talk's live performance in New York City in 2017.

Remix and modernism

Imagine This, a political mashup

This site is a companion to The Digital Plenitude: The Decline of Elite Culture and the Rise of New Media (MIT Press, 2019).  

Contact Jay David Bolter at jdbolter@icloud.com
  • Home
  • Chapters
    • Introduction
    • 1. The Great Divide
    • 2. Popular Modernism
    • 3. DIchotomies
    • 4. Catharsis
    • 5. Flow
    • 6. Remix
    • 7. Procedurality
    • 8. Social Media
    • Conclusion
    • References
  • Additional texts
    • Books in the Plenitude
  • About
  • Comments