Lessig views the internet as an opportunity to revive a "read-write" culture in which the consumers also create. I responded to his comments about remix being the language of youth in two ways: first, I wondered where exactly the types of video/music remixes he used as examples came from (whose idea was it to create something like that? As far as I know, the genre came into the spotlight of recognition along with youtube, but who did it first and why?), and second, I grew slightly defensive of my generation in that he didn't seem to give the internet babies the credit for creating new things. "This is who your children are," he says (or something to that affect)--but I know that's not really who I am. I'm not a technology person.
A different approach to Lessig's points is to think back to Andy Warhol, many of whose creations were contested as possibly not his own. Pop art comments on or reuses what is already there, so could we send Lessig back through a time machine and allow him to deliver the same speech, using for examples Brillo boxes instead of anime mashes? Maybe so. Maybe this remix/sharing/community artistry was always where we were headed. They say that there are no longer any new ideas in the universe, and everything is recycled. But I'm not so sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment