Preliminary thoughts on RemixAmerica.org

"To the eye of the consumer [ . . . ] the global media oligopoly is not visible...Newsstands still display rows of newspapers and magazines, in a dazzling array of colors and subjects...Throughout the world, broadcast and cable channels continue to multiply, as do video cassettes and music recordings. But...if this bright kaleidoscope suddenly disappeared and was replaced by the corporate colophons of those who own this output, the collage would go gray with the names of the few multinationals that now command the field.”

- Ben Bagdikian, "Lords of the Global Village," The Nation, June 12, 1989, p. 819.

"My whole thing with this was I didn't want to mess up the Beatles song either, [. . . ] I don't want to disrespect the Beatles. A lot of people thought it was sacrilege in the first place. I knew that would be something, but I didn't know it was going to be [distributed] on a wide scale. I knew my friends wouldn't think it was sacrilege, so I just made sure it was something I would dig myself."

– Danger Mouse, on the Grey Album [interview excerpt from MTV.com]

RemixAmerica.org is a non-profit website attempting to foster political discourse on the Internet. It appears to be Youtube in a microcosm, with a focus on political content. Its most notable innovation is the inclusion of a large existing archive of footage, all immediately compatible with an online editor. Though users may source their own material and edit on their local machines, the creators of RemixAmerica have tried to remove all barriers to the technologically unsavvy.

The site maintains that it is non-partisan, and there is nothing inherently evident in the content/framework of the site to indicate otherwise. It should be noted, however, that a majority of the highlighted videos are left-of-center, indicating either editorial intent or a limited demographic of users. The site is based in Los Angeles, CA.

A primary benefactor is Norman Lear, writer and producer of television sitcoms such as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Maude. His other philanthropic activities include People for the American Way and The Norman Lear Center at USC Annenberg School for Communication. RemxAmerica.org’s executive director is Fred Graver, also a writer and TV producer. He’s worked on National Lampoon, Late Night with David Letterman, and In Living Color.

Users provide content by two primary means: the “Mash Up” and the “Talk Back.” The mash up, or specifically video mash up, incorporates existing content and almost without fail has a political agenda of varying discernability. The “Talk Back” is a vlog comment, recorded by the user, and is often a rant.

My primary focus is on the Mash Up. Is this really the liberating medium its advocates proclaim it to be? Since advent of affordable video, the medium has had a distinctly commercial bent. Something about the disposable nature of it as a format, and the preponderance of TV by the early 70’s intertwined video with consumerism. Witness an early work by William Wegman:

Other video artist dealing directly with consumerism via video include Dan Graham and Bruce Nauman. Though video art would seem to grow out of experimental film as well, works from ManRay through Michael Snow don’t share the undercurrent of consumption.

As video editing became cheaper over the ensuing decades, obvious progenitors to the present day “mash up” emerged. Witness this example from 1994:

More to come . . .