Digital Appropriation

1. Digital Appropriation Appropriation, n. In the arts, the adoption, borrowing, or theft of elements of one culture by another culture. Taking over another culture’s style or way of expressing itself for your own purposes. Taking something created by another person and making it your own.

2. Intellectual Property Rights

3. Speaking of love … Did anybody read my blog entry that was assigned reading last week: “It used to be about the music”?

4. Intellectual Property Rights “The past always tries to control the future.” A Remixer’s Manifesto, from RIP! • But is it really “the past” that we see trying to control things in the documentary? • Isn’t “the past” actually powerless in this struggle? • Isn’t it actually corporate Big Media that is trying to exert the control?

5. Capitalist Appropriation Culture (powered by profit) • Corporate appropriation(eg. “recontexts”) • Chinese knockoffs • Russian “Harry Potter” books

6. Gap Ad(early 2000s) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNesa12IL-o

7. Audrey Hepburn dancing in the movie Funny Face (1957) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JGCktc_FXU

8. Digital appropriation and postmodern de-contextualization • The intentions of the film maker or the scriptwriter • What the choreographer was trying to do with the dance • Who Audrey Hepburn thought she was when doing the dance – what either Audrey Hepburn’s character or Audrey Hepburn herself was dancing for No one cares about the original creators or the original context in which the work was created or presented.

9. Digital appropriation and postmodern de-contextualization • The intentions of AC/DC in writing and performing their song • Whether any of those people would like to be associated with each other or would like to promote The Gap No one cares about the original creators or the original context in which the work was created or presented.

10. Every case of appropriation involves an attitude toward the original, and twists the intentions and context of the original to a new intention and context. Do artists owe anything to the people who came before them, and those people’s intentions and contexts?

11. Appropriation in the 21st Century • Here is a track I “created” in literally about two minutes. • I found a recording on YouTube of a Muslim muzzein making the call to prayer from a minaret and I just stuck it on top of a eurodub track from a producer I like (Tosca, “John Lee Huber” (Rodney Hunter Dub)). • Should it be okay for me to do that? • From a legal point of view? • From a moral point of view? (ethically) • From a cultural appropriation point of view? (politically)

12. What do appropriators owe to the creators of the past? • Nothing • Royalties • Acknowledgement • Respect • Knowledge, true understanding

13. The People’s Appropriation (powered by love, ego, creativity, political resistance & critique) • Mashups • Fan fiction • Fanedits • Culture Jamming • Machinima • Slash • Etc etcetc.

16. Participatory Culture

17. Participatory Culture Compared to • Folk culture (participatory, but limited) • Mass culture (publishers, radio etc, non-participatory) • Consumer culture (tv, movies, records, etc, non-participatory)

18. Participatory Culture • Mixtapes • Zines • Mashups • Fan fiction • Fanedits • Culture Jamming • Machinima • Blogs • YouTube videos • Photo and artwork sharing sites • Opensource software • Wikipedia • and so on…..

19. Participatory Culture According to Henry Jenkins, a participatory culture is a culture • With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement • With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others • With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices • Where members believe that their contributions matter • Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created).

20. Jaron Lanier, “Digital Maoism” (highlighted by Dr Jim)