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.
