MUTYALA KUSHAL 7(Final)
02/9/2023
Word count: 1841
Remix breaks creative bounds
“I remixed a remix, it was back to normal” (Mitch Hedberg). We live in the world where
everything that our five senses can sense is a remix. The fundamentals of remix and recreation
are divergent. Recreation defines to the process, or the action taken to create the original again;
whereas remix is an act of modifying something to an extent to create something new and yet the
same. Life’s greatest breakthroughs and innovations are caused by a remix. Today’s technology,
arts, science have not come this far by just recreating, they have been remixed. Pieces of history
were congregated and modified to create what we have now. As Henry Ford said, “I invented
nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of
work … progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is
inevitable.” (Ford) (n.p) portrays development and evolution and success of human life through
remix. Remix allows you to break past the creative limit and bloom to the latest era. This
ideology is expressed in the writings of Lawrence Lessig’s book,” Remix.” and the article
“Origami design secrets” by Robert J. Lang; a famous origami artist. This ideology is expressed
in the writing of Lawrence Lessig’s book,” Remix.” The main idea of the book is the ability to
create something different, but this particular excerpt highlights that the use of remix is a vastly
used strategy in the reading and writing section. It is also highlighted in the article, “Origami
design secrets” by Robert J. Lang a famous origami artist; this article talks about the evolution of
origami and Robert's own experience with origami. Remix grants the ability to surpass creative
limits as well as grants success.
Lessig in his excerpt talks about the writing style of his closest friend Ben. His writing
style was entirely a remix. He says, “but he built the argument by clipping quotes from the
authors he was discussing. Their words made his argument.” (Lessig)(p.g.55) This quote
highlights the fundamentals of remix: congregating the pieces of history and modifying them. By
doing so, Ben was able to create a new literature art and was able to succeed in conveying the
message that his words or the quotes alone wouldn’t have expressed the meaning. This shows
that Ben was able to break the limits of his creativity of his writing by remixing. His skill and
style of his literature allowed him to develop and evolve into a lawyer where he takes his
remixing skills to the next level. Lessig says, “everything is drawn from cases that went before,
presented as if the argument now presented is in fact nothing new.” This shows that a great law
brief uses the fundamentals of remix. This can be further proved by the quote, “Old cases are
remixed.” His remixing skills allowed him to be a lawyer successfully. He succeeded. He broke
the creative limit. He remixed.
Another place where Lessig shows the signs of remixing fundamentals is when he talks about the
RO and RW culture. Here he cites Negativeland Hosler saying, “Of course human beings build
on what came before them in anything they create. That’s just obvious.” Following that Lessig
says, “We have encouraged them to build up on it. We have forced them to acquire a “literacy”
about the culture around them. We test our kids on the basis of that “literacy”; we reward the
“literate” of every generation. We reward “writing””. This highlights that the RW culture follows
remix and remixing grants you success which is explained by the “we reward the “literate” of
every generation. We reward “writing”” part of the quote.
A remix isn’t bound to just writing, it can take forms in a variety of platforms, a prime
example of remixing is the art of “Origami.” Remix has embodied in this Japanese art of folding
paper into boundless shapes and figures. Robert J. Lang, a famous origami artist; in his excerpt
talks about Alain Georgeot a French artist who conducted an exhibition of 88 paper-folded
elephants. His unusual devotion to elephant origami leads him to create 88 different versions of
the original (origami elephant). Each model has its name like, Albertino, Biddle, Cerceda 1 and
Cerceda 2, and more. Despite that, they all represent one thing an elephant (original). Lang says,
“Most of these thousands of designs have one thing in common, however: Nearly all were
invented in the las 50 years. Thus, origami is both old art and a young art.” (Lang)(n.p)This
shows that the origami we have now is a remix of the old origami art, this is further proved by
Lang who says, “The past 60 years in Japan, and 40 years worldwide, have seen a renaissance in
the world of origami and an acceleration of its evolution.” This shows that the origami follows
the fundamentals of remix and due to that it has evolved and succeeded. To further support this
claim, Lang also says, “My own approach to design has followed what I suspect is a not
uncommon pattern; it evolved over the years from simply playing around with the paper, through
somewhat more directed playing, to systematic folding.” This quote shows the evolution of
origami over the years which is carried through remixes. By doing so, we have evolved in the
area of Origami and now, Lang can make complicated origami models that take hundreds of
moves and hours. This can be connected to Lessig’s writing as both Ben’s writing style and the
Origami culture use the fundamentals of remix and by remixing the art in both areas have
evolved.
I have remixed in my life. My hobby and passion are playing guitar, and I love music
such as pop and rock music a lot. Whenever I hear a song that I love I would search on YouTube
for any remixes that are out there of that particular song. I have been doing this for many years
and it motivated me to create a remix of my own, either by adding a solo or changing the base
note. Doing so helped me a lot in my past endeavors. In my 9th grade summer, I entered a
competition with my band. This competition was important to me as this would allow me to get
into another competition in Europe. To win the competition, my band and I started off by
brainstorming on what kind of music we should play. At this point we had a month left for the
competition. We made a list of songs from every different genre from rock music to classical
music that sounded good to play in the competition. Nothing sounded unique and catchy to play
as we knew other bands will also play similar songs.
One day, we couldn’t figure out what song to play so we decided to play our individual
music that practice session. I was playing my guitar songs and the pianist was practicing her
songs for trinity exams, the drummer was playing different popular songs to impress some girls
in his class, and we never really got to practice together as a band. The time was up, and
everyone started to wind things up and head out home. While we all were packing, the drummer
decided to play a little bit more for the girls, what he played then lit up a lightbulb in my head.
He played the counting stars and the believer back-to-back on the same tuning. This gave me an
idea; we can play a remix! That was when I gathered the band and explained my idea. I said,
“guys we should play a remix of counting stars and believer back-to-back on the same C major
scale.” My band loved this idea. We started practicing the song in the next session.
Days passed, and we were able to mash up both songs together, but I felt as if something
was missing, however, we didn’t have time to try something new. On the day of the competition,
we had so many teams from different schools participating. Every song by each band was
marvelous. It was time, our turn to play is right after the Rockville school, which is currently
playing; their song shocked us. It was the same song idea we had; they were also having a mashup. This created self-doubt in us as the repetitive songs will be graded lower. It was time for us
to play, we went on the stage ignoring what others have played and focusing on our song. But I
was still thinking about it because I must win. As we went on the stage, I whispered in
everyone’s ears saying, “at the beat drop don’t play anything until I say so.” Everyone was
uncertain but decided to support me. This is where remix saved me, all these years of me
watching YouTube and people making a remix of a popular song and me trying to make my own
remix has come in clutch. At the beat drop, everyone stopped playing and I implemented a solo
after that beat drop. My band members were surprised and the judges along with the crowd were
impressed by it. We won!! Implementing a remix into another remix has got us the ticket to the
Europe competition. I evolved. I grew into a better musician. I took pieces of previous artifacts
and manipulated them. I remixed. In this way, I can be related to Ben and Alain Georgeot and,
Robert J. Lang. We all have surpassed the creative barrier and succeeded. Instead of recreating
we remixed and evolved.
This ideology and the relation to the readings is accompanied by the popular series,
“Everything is a remix” by Kirby Ferguson who is a popular filmmaker whose work discloses
creative works and popular culture. In his series he explains that whatever the human race creates
is inspired by something that has already existed. He compiles a mound of data to support this
claim, including everything from straightforward appropriation to our convoluted legal
framework, which downplays the derivative nature of innovation. Ferguson and I are on the same
wavelength, he says, “The most dramatic results can happen when ideas are combined. By
connecting ideas together, creative leaps can be made, producing some of history’s biggest
breakthroughs.” (Ferguson)(n.p) I support what Ferguson is saying as I do believe so because of
my experience at the competition; as well as what both writings say.
I believe Remix is how we evolve and grow; the fundamentals of remix is the reason to
what have grown. I believe that remix breaks the creative limit and grants us success> Ben was
able to become a successful lawyer and win cases due to his remixing skills and the law briefs
have the fundamental of remix, Lang and Georgeot was able to succeed in the area of origami
due to the years of origami remixing and I was able to win my competition due to the remixing
habits. Remix grants the ability to surpass creative limits as well as grants success.
Bibliography
Ferguson, Kirby. Everything is a Remix, Part 3: The Elements of Creativity. 20 06 2011.
<https://www.themarginalian.org/2011/06/20/everything-is-a-remix-3/>.
Ford, Henry. Ted Blog. n.d. <https://blog.ted.com/14-brilliant-quotes-on-remixing/>.
Lang, Robert J. "Origami design secrets." Lang, Robert J. Origami design secrets. n.d. 1-6.
Lessig, Lawrence. "RW, Revived." Lessig, Lawrence. Remix. n.d. 51-53.