2/10 New Literacies

Takeaway 1

New Literacies 

In the past decade, artists have begun to use readymade resources heavily as their creative materials, not only in art making, but also in music remixing for leisure, professional or commercial purposes. Remixing is a newer ideology that has happened, and has become an inherent part of our current culture. As Lawrence Lessig (2008) observes, “every single act of reading and choosing and criticizing and praising culture is in this sense remix. And it is through this general practice that cultures get made.” He also brought up the term ‘Read/Only’ (RO) and ‘Read/Write’ (RW). Read/Only culture focuses on the usage of professionally produced artifacts, and are produced to view, read and listen to. R/O also includes remixing as one talks about a movie or share our culture with others. On the other hand, Read/Write is a culture when one reads the culture and “add to the culture they read by creating and re-creating the culture around them…” According to Sousa, the actual quality of the music is not as important as creating music culture itself. It would never be exactly the same as the original: “There is always some degree of interpretation, making do, revision of, building upon, experimentation, and so on.” In addition to remixing music, the possibility of remixing writing, digital images and costumes in cost play are also prevalent. While digital remix become artifacts or fragmented hybrids, music remix that contains a large range of usable technologies and resources is also becoming a new form of composing and expression. In addition, the remixing of application programming interfaces (APIs), termed ‘mashup’ is now widely applied that creates new software. 

Lankshear. C & Knobel. M. New Literacies, Third Edition

Takeaway 2

TED Radio Hour – The Act of Listening

Just like looking at images under a microscope, listening to inaudible sounds, such as the sound of the planets, provides us with new ways of interpreting perceiving the world. As visual artists, or even normal human beings, we normally put emphasis on the perception of our eyes instead of our ears. A simple “ding dong” percussion sound that proceeds from the first note to the second instantly produces music. Such example can also be manipulated into different colors, tones and textures. Sound is a crucial element movie making, video, MTV and in our everyday lives. By being more aware of the sounds happening around us can open up our minds and become more acutely aware of ourselves.