MTD1Notes WEEK 11

Remix

presentation by Mindy Faber

DJ Spooky

Why is there a hole in the middle of the book?

What is originality and why do we value it so highly?

quote/paraphrases for discussion:

Everything is a mix including our identity, our consciousness

Any sound can be you. It's an emotion of abstraction and attention deficit disorder

Dj culture, and the hlp-hop zone are founded on ancestor worship

People can become so unreflective in their usual media-habits that any kind of systemic renewal takes a long time to succeed

connections between Derrida’s deconstructions and turntablism's mixes

being uncertain which direction to move, is actually a good thing, because it forces me to go back to the basic Issues.

Scratch the surface-level homogeneity and America's deep ethnic schizophrenia is going surface. No one can escape an identity clash If they bounce of off the "received culture" of commercialized Information, not even WASPs. Identity is about creating an environment where you can make the world act as your own reflection

African American culture went through a cycle of extreme flux during the slave period to create milieu where everything, down even to the words spoken, were the equivalent of a "found object:'

The multiplex consciousness

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American Transcendentalist poet, philosopher, lecturer, and essayist: "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote!' And, he goes on to note something that conservative critics of hip-hop will never understand: "It Is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent!'

Taking elements of our own alienated consciousness and recombining them to create new languages from old (and in doing so to reflect the chaotic turbulent reality we all call home), just might be a way of seeking to reconcile the damage rapid technological advances have wrought on our collective consciousness

Glenn Gould: “… this whole situation of individuality in the creative situation - the process through which the creative act results from, absorbs, and re-forms individual opinion - will be subjected to a radical reconsideration!”

St. Columba and copyright violation – ownership by force

Today's notion of creativity and originality are configured by velocity: it is a blur, a constellation of styles, a knowledge and pleasure in the play of surfaces, a reiection of history as objective force in favor of subjective interpretations of its residue, a relish for copies and repetition, and so on. We inhabit a cultural zone … where the subjective, multiple interpretations of information lead us to take the real as a kind of consensual, manufactured situation.

"Who speaks through you?"

Meme: unit of cultural transmission

Ch. 11, Selfish Gene, Dawkins

Basis for life is competition

Genes can be thought of as having a selfish "desire" for immortality through survival and reproduction and as Dawkins states: "The predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness".

What distinguishes us as a species is culture – patterns of behavior that change, progress, mutate over time

• Language
• Fashion/dress
• Diet
• Ceremonies & customs
• Art, architecture
• Engineering, technology

Spurt since dark ages, beginning with renaissance (14th to the 17th century) (like genetic mutations, can progress in spurts, not always at a regular rate)

Ideas evolve by mutations – including mistranslations, misinterpretations

Gene is not the sole basis for evolution

Animals also have patterns of behavior which can be transmitted.

What is it about the idea of god that gives it such sustained success in the meme pool?

• Answers deep and troubling questions
• Suggests that there will be justice in next world
• Suggests comforting parental being

Traits of successful memes:

• Longevity (of particular copies, of the meme itself)
• Fecundity (fertility) (much more important than longevity of particular copies)
• Copying-fidelity (memes are subject to continuous mutation and blending with other memes)

An idea-meme might be defined as an entity that is capable of being transmitted from one brain to another.

The idea of purpose (genes or memes having a purposeful desire to continue to exist, to replicate) is a metaphor. Selfish or ruthless – figure of speech.

Groups of memes can mutually reinforce one another, and those with deep psychological impact have greater survival value. Selection favors memes that exploit their cultural environment TO THEIR OWN ADVANTAGE.

Memes are more important, potentially have more effect than genes. Your own contribution to the gene pool is halved with each generation and doesn’t take long to become negligible, whereas an idea may live on and have a significant effect for many generations.

Ends optimistically: We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can cultivate altruism.