Everything is art/nothing is art-When is video remix art?

Everything is art/ nothing is art- When is video remix art?

Remix has had many names and purposes in the past, as it does today.  It has come from many sources, diverse backgrounds and has been produced in a multitude of cultural forms.  Video remix is the latest form of remix and is pervasive throughout the internet. Although academics, artists and theorists discuss, argue and publish theory on the status of video remix the art form, the rest of the online world is continuing to express their fan passion for television/film characters,  music performers or just mashing up and remixing for the sheer fun of it and if their work goes viral, 15 minutes of fame.  The title ‘Everything is art/nothing is art’ is not a cynical jibe at remix artists and theorists, it is a response to the belief that it is true, which is as pervasive as video remix itself. If everything was art, then the amount of puerile inanity is a frightening indictment on western society. If nothing is art then it’s a sad reflection on our lack of thought and insight, but the statement is moot, as art does exist, in all forms, including video remix.

On the whole, video remix is not art and not every person who edits together video clips is an artist ; remix culture is many other things, political satire, pop cultural communication, ‘…bottom-up creativity and intelligence in a new medium…’ (Naughton, 2010), an active fan response, but not art. This essay will discuss when video remix is art by looking at some of the history, heritage and practice of the cultural phenomena ‘remix’ and specifically video remix.

Firstly, as this essay is going to discuss when video remix is art, it is essential to attempt to define what art is in the first place, to hang the discussion on.  The definition of art is controversial and no two theories agree definitively. Art definitions have evolved with the changes and developments throughout history from; Traditional Definition, Conventionalist Definition, Institutional Definition, Historic Definition and Functional Definition, as catalogued in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. (Adajian, 2007) Although these definitions vary in their philosophical approach, there are still some basic tenets behind each definition. Extrapolated and simplified the following definition will suffice for the purpose of this essay.  Art is a consciously created object or experience, intended to be art and expressed through skill using aesthetic properties and considerations, with the intention to convey a concept or emotion. The ‘consciously’ is a very important aspect as it determines the artist’s intent, medium and attitude to the communication that differentiates art from day to day creativity and expression. Video remix art has an innovative ancestry, found in the annals of early electronic art, video art, to media art and the investigation into the potential of digital production as a tool and the internet as space for art.  Along the way some incredible works have been produced, for instance a contemporary piece by Christian Marclay, The Clock (2010), encapsulates the multi-layered depth and beauty of video remix art at its best. The work is 24 hours long and constructed of spliced together footage from cinema showing every minute of the day through the film’s multitude of characters and their experience with time. At any given minute of the day the film will reflect that time as it perfectly synchronised with reality once started. (Cube, 2010)

Historically, remix in art has had many names or in some cases no name at all, just a function, as in the apprentice and the master paradigm. Imitation, appropriation and iteration, have been the norm in the practice of art throughout history. For example, Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494) an early Renaissance painter was commissioned to paint two frescos in the Chapel of Santa Fina, San Gimignano in 1475.  Appropriating elements from admired artists was common practice at the time and Ghirlandaio referenced both works from the well known artist Filippo Lippi (1406-1469).  (Britiannica, Domenico Ghirlandaio) Due to the large commission and short time he had to complete the work, Ghirlandaio employed highly trained assistants to work on the frescos, blurring the line between, the original artist’s work and his apprentice’s, one of whom was believed to be the young Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 -1564), who would later go on to become one of western arts most famous and admired (copied, appropriated…remixed) artists.
Another example, this time of early modern remix, is the collage and photomontage of the Berlin Dadaists (1915-1922) particularly,  Raoul Hausmann (1886-1971), John Heartfield (1891 -1968) and Hannah Hoch (1889- 1978). (Chilvers, 1996) Like the others, Heartfield produced powerful works with the reuse of media images to comment on politics and specifically Hilter’s actions prior to and during World War Two.  For instance the composite photographic image Kaiser Adolph: the man against Europe (1932) depicts Hitler in the guise of Kaiser Wilhelm II, an image which says the power has changed hands but nothing has changed and is a clever, subtle piece of manipulation. (Evans, 2011)  One of the most often referenced influences of current visual remix is Marcel Duchamp (1887– 1968) with his blatant cynicism toward the art establishment demonstrated by works like L.H.O.O.Q (1919), a mass produced poster of the Mona Lisa with moustache and goatee, the French title translates to ‘She has a hot arse’ or ‘There is fire down below’, a succinct way to strip the sacredness away from the famous painting and comment on the value of art in the new century. (Mundy, 2008) Although amusing, L.H.O.O.Q’s punch and intent is clear and it, with Duchamp’s other readymade (remixed) pieces signalled a new direction in artistic expression. (aiwaz.net, 2008)

As briefly demonstrated, visual artists have historically reused other artist’s ideas, styles or images and with the development of mass media, photography and cinema, artists have had more material to further comment on their changing society and place in it. The access to images obviously wasn’t limited to artists and they weren’t the only people using the new media as a way to comment, either satirically or politically.  By the 1970’s, remix culture was alive and well, with the media, advertisers, satirical magazines and political activists  remixing images and styles to produce both continuity in ideas and to strengthen new looks through the application of the familiar or to shock and amuse.  Art has been the vanguard in transparent visual remix and artists’ have utilised technology as a tool to create and comment on the purpose and function of art and life. With the exponential advancement of technologies and access to unlimited material there has been shift in how the image and digital video content is communicated, what’s been communicated and who’s communicating.
While the visual arts has its own history with remix and impact on video remix as a medium of expression, the real precursor to video remix as it is today is literary remix and subsequent fandom.
Like the visual arts, the history of literary remix is long; one could go back to the first writings to see evidence of early iteration, but for the purpose of this essay, the fifteenth century will be early enough.  Circa 1441, the English monk and poet John Lydgate (c1370-c1451) took it upon himself to write a ‘continuation’ of Chaucer’s  The Canterbury Tales, wherein his protagonist meets the pilgrims in Canterbury and accompanies them back to London, at which time he recounts The Siege of Thebes, an epic of over 4,000 lines. (Cat) In another work the Fall of Princes, Lydgate uses Boccaccio’s Casibus Virorum Illustrium as inspiration and a template. (Mortimer, 2005) By the twentieth century the adaptation of written  works was common as evidenced by the dozens of sequels and reworking of Jane Austin’s books, by fans known collectively as Janeites, for example, Rosina Filippi’s, The Bennets 1901, Sybil Brinton’s: Old Friends and New Fancies - An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen (London: Holden and Hardingham, 1914), L.Oulton’s: The Watsons - A Fragment by Jane Austen Concluded (New York: Hutchinson, 1923) and A.A Milne’s: Miss Elizabeth Bennet - A Play from Pride and Prejudice (London: Chatto & Windus, 1936) (Bruer).

The rewriting of character, plot and endings of famous works has become known as fan fiction (fanfic) and it was well established as a fan response by the nineteen seventies. Fans were no longer content with the passivity of just reading and became active as produces and to some extent demonstrating ownership over the admired canon.

With the popularity of television and the broadcasting of accessible thirty/sixty minute weekly programs, huge fan bases developed around the characters and shows.  The response by many fans was to enter into the character world and actively engage, by changing storylines, enlarging the emotional range of the characters and sharing their new stories with other fans, creating a network of fan fiction archives, which were subsequently made into fanzines and further distributed by members of the fandom. (Jenkins, What Happened Before YouTube, 2009)

In the late nineteen sixties and early seventies one of the largest fandoms was Star Trek, which produced dozens of different fanzines and gatherings and had a flourishing following and hundreds of fanfic producers. A new and shocking addition to Star Trek fanfic occurred in the mid seventies with the first homoerotic retelling of the show; it depicted a love affair between Captain Kirk and Mr Spock. This genre of fanfic, which depicts specifically male characters engaged in romantic and sexual relationships, was later to become known as ‘slash’, due to the slash sign (/) which separates the two names, e.g. Kirk/Spock.  Star Trek slash fanfic became increasingly popular and developed a large fan base of its own and was to influence people in other fandoms to explore the sexual potential of their TV shows. (Jenkins, Fans, Bloggers and Gamers- Exploring Participatory Culture, 2006)

In 1975, Kandy Fong a member of the Phoenix Star Trek club was putting discarded footage into slide shows timed with music;  her first was ‘What do you do with a drunken Vulcan?’ and in 1980 she made a slash love video ‘From both sides now’ with Joni Mitchell’s lyrics sung coincidently by Leonard Nimoy. The slide show was later filmed on VHS and shown to packed houses (Coppa, Women, Star Trek, and the early development of fannish vidding, 2008) This very early example demonstrates the emergence of slash video remix, also known as vidding, which continued to thrive through the decades with greater access to video and digital technology.  Over time more and more slash vids were produced, following an established form and were shown at conventions and clubs.  Vidding has moved from the early days of Star Trek and is now being created by fans of a majority of television shows and uploaded on dozens of fanfic and slash websites.   Interestingly, like fanfic most slash and vidding has been produced by women and has a context, historically, sexually and politically from which it was generally viewed and that context is now unknown to a majority of internet users; making the original purpose irrelevant and in some cases providing material for homophobic remixes and interpretation, a disturbing ethical flip of the original and a negative product of video remix culture and internet impunity (Coppa, Women, Star Trek, and the early development of fannish vidding, 2008)

The other very important influence to cultural remix has been the changes in music production over time.  The creative power of the early hip hop artists, the introduction of music video clips, the cult of the DJ and video DJ have changed how music and the image work together. Music’s popularity and enormous fan base has ensured remix’s exposure to millions of people throughout the world. Today, there are hundreds of websites dedicated to music remix and music video remix.

In summary, there are two categories of remix, remix culture which includes video remix and remix art which also includes video remix.  There is no line separating them and there is blurring, but it is clear the heritage of video remix is of a cultural influence; a development from peoples’ (fans) reactions to literature, music, cinema and television as popular culture, the works are often humorous, political or nothing much at all.  Video remix art continues the thread of consciously created works attempting to communicate a concept or emotion through manipulation of images and sound to comment on society at large.  The change from passive reader to active participant with text through the rewriting/remixing of material and the development of technology and software has galvanised social communication and made available masses of data to retell realities and shape social reflections for both artists and non-artists.

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