Homework 5.3. Reading 'Remix'
Modern popular culture is inundated with remixes, from music to movies to television to visual culture. Budding artists in schools prolifically trace images, mimic cartoons, and shuffle around tracks of music to create their own works, which can often be looked down upon by educators and 'true artists' alike. "How do we discourage kids from just copying?" we lament. However, one might argue that this copying, this remaking, this making anew, is not necessarily simply a crutch, but is actually a powerful tool that students can use in order to build their own artistic practice.
As Lankshear and Knobel argue in Chapter Four of their book New Literacies (2011), the remixing of creative content and material is essential to both personal and societal concepts of culture, especially in today's increasingly digital age. I think that as young people and adults alike continue to embrace technologies and platforms like Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Photoshop, SoundCloud, iMovie, YouTube, and more, remixing has become more accessible, available, and popular; it seems to be almost second nature now for teens to download images and audio from the Internet and respond with their own take on it, with some form of their own 'remixed' version.
However, it is important to remix things appropriately, and in a way that drives creative practice forward, rather than simply reiterating existing thought. I think that as educators, it is not necessarily a bad thing to see our students reappropriating source material from the media or other artists, but it is also our responsibility to encourage them to push these sources further or to incorporate them as inspiration into original material. As we so poignantly heard from The Act of Listening podcast, people, including our students, really do want their stories to be heard, and really do want to be listened to. Below, I've included a chart from the book How to Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Cleon, that suggests ways to encourage students to remix (and draw further inspiration from) the creative and visual media that they are likely already remixing for themselves on a regular basis. (Additional information on this book and author here and here.)
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| Image sourced from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/290834088415398230/ |
As Lankshear and Knobel argue in Chapter Four of their book New Literacies (2011), the remixing of creative content and material is essential to both personal and societal concepts of culture, especially in today's increasingly digital age. I think that as young people and adults alike continue to embrace technologies and platforms like Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Photoshop, SoundCloud, iMovie, YouTube, and more, remixing has become more accessible, available, and popular; it seems to be almost second nature now for teens to download images and audio from the Internet and respond with their own take on it, with some form of their own 'remixed' version.
However, it is important to remix things appropriately, and in a way that drives creative practice forward, rather than simply reiterating existing thought. I think that as educators, it is not necessarily a bad thing to see our students reappropriating source material from the media or other artists, but it is also our responsibility to encourage them to push these sources further or to incorporate them as inspiration into original material. As we so poignantly heard from The Act of Listening podcast, people, including our students, really do want their stories to be heard, and really do want to be listened to. Below, I've included a chart from the book How to Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Cleon, that suggests ways to encourage students to remix (and draw further inspiration from) the creative and visual media that they are likely already remixing for themselves on a regular basis. (Additional information on this book and author here and here.)
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| Image sourced from https://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/08/steal-like-an-artist-austin-kleon-book/ |
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