Kirby Ferguson's video essay series 'Everything is a Remix' explores the
way that ideas and inventions over the years have followed a pattern of
copying and transformation to reach their goal. He thinks it's wrong that by law ideas are regarded as property and argues that all ideas are in some way derivative and don't arrive fully formed without some influence from what has come before.
He looks at artists who have got away with manipulating the
work of others and claiming it as their own (Led Zeppelin) and filmakers
who have made films where almost every shot has been lifted from
another film (Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill).
It's good to hear someone speaking about remix culture
in a positive light. Borrowing other people's ideas isn't a new
phenomena. The telephone, for instance, was not invented by a single
person but was the cumulation of many peoples ideas and experiments over
many years.
No comments:
Post a Comment