Project the Third : ReMixing the Digital Public

Genre/Assignment Details: Your third project offers you a choice in the media that you employ to reach your audience. Either you can compose a traditional essay, or you can compose a piece in the digital media of your choice. As with the previous project, you may compose a digital media piece as a group, and regardless of which choices you make above, you must complete the Reflective Component found at the end of this assignment sheet. Traditional Essay: If you choose to write a traditional essay (one more like our first assignment than our second), you will compose a written piece of approximately 2000 2500 words. Multimedia project: If you choose to compose a multimedia project (more like our second assignment than our first), it should be roughly 5 6 minutes in length and should be a project that you compose through the remix model. In other words, it would look more like A Fair(y) Use Tale or the Lets Talk Girl Talk piece than the Reclaiming Fair use piece. No matter which option you choose above, the expectations are that you will compose a rigorous piece of work that is thoughtful, clear, and revised. We will examine written, video, and musical examples pertinent to this assignment. These examples are listed below in the Associated Readings section below. Additionally, I am currently writing a conference paper that is similar to this assignment, so I will share my composing process with you while it is in action. Associated Readings/Viewings/Listenings for This Assignment: Why game makers need to embrace their copycats (online article) A Fair(y) Use Tale (Youtube video; Original link) Lets Talk Girl Talk (student video from The JUMP) Reclaiming Fair Use (PDF on Blackboard) Why Study Genre (Word .doc on Blackboard) Fair Use Doctrine, (linked from United States Copyright Office) Purdue OWLs APA Style Guide Purdue OWLs MLA Style Guide Listenings For This Project: To listen to these files, login to portfolio.du.edu (Login to Portfolio the same way that you login to Blackboard). Once logged in, go to my Portfolio page, http://portfolio.du.edu/mhill30, and look for the music files under the Teaching section. Note: You do not have to include anything from the albums below. I am providing them as another source if you choose to use them. Girl Talk, Night Ripper Danger Mouse, The Grey Album 1

 Rhetorical Situation: Our first project asked you to summarize material about the public good and argue about which modern tools are necessary for being a citizen in the 21st century. The second project asked you to compose a video argument about a contemporary issue and the public good. This third project has several goals in mind: 1. To build from the earlier projects and allow you to compose a more in-depth analysis of a public problem. The earlier concepts include the following: rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos), an awareness of ones audience, summarizing source material carefully and critically, attending rhetorically to the timeliness (kairos) of an event. 2. To practice the use of outside sources in preparation for WRIT 1133: Writing & Research. 3. To think critically about the ethical concerns surrounding the proper use of sources. 4. To investigate the usefulness of writing in and about different genres of discourse. Your job now is to compose a project that addresses the above criteria as well as your own that you develop during your composing. Here are some questions to get you started for this project. Please note that these are not the only answers that are of value. They are a beginning point and a model for the type of questioning that you should engage in for this project. You should develop at least two other questions that help you craft an appropriate composition for this project. 1. What is the value of remix culture? 2. Why should the average citizen care about copyright? Or, what is at stake for the public good when considering the public good? 3. Is remix its own genre akin to other genres such as academic writing (including subgenres such as lab reports, rhetorical analyses, commencement addresses, and so on) movies (including genres such as documentaries, horror, film noir, and so on) and video games (such as first- person shooters, platformers, and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing games, aka, MMORPG), to name but a few.

Monday 2/13 Wednesday 2/15 Lets Talk Girl Talk (student video from The JUMP) Why Study Genre (Word .doc on Blackboard) Draft of your summary and interpretation of Reclaiming Fair Use (roughly 300 words) Monday 2/20 Draft of project for in-class workshop Fair Use Doctrine, (United States Copyright Office link) Why game makers need to embrace their copycats (online) Wednesday 2/22 Production day Monday 2/27 Draft of project for peer review Final project and reflective component (see description below) emailed to me by 10 p.m. tonight Also, please remember to begin drafting your reflective component from the beginning. Keep track of and take notes on the entire process surrounding the composing of this project, no matter how small or insignificant the work seems at the time. Criteria Brings draft to all draft days Grammar/Mechanics/Style Total Points /20 /20 /20 /20 /10 /10 /100

Project Timeline Watch A Fair(Y) Use Tale (Youtube vide) Read Reclaiming Fair Use (Blackboard < Documents < Readings/Viewings/Listenings

Beginning Monday 2/13, we will develop the grading rubric as a class. The table above offers a template, but we will determine what will be most useful for our purposes with project #3.

REFLECTIVE COMPONENT (NOTE: IVE REVISED THIS SHEET SINCE PROJECT 2)

Associated Readings/Viewings/Listenings for This Assignment Giles, Sandra. Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking? In Writing Spaces, pp. 191 204. For the final three major assignments you complete for 1122, you will include this reflective document. I have crafted this document based on the Sandra Giles piece (Reflective Writing and the Revision Process) that we read for our first peer response session. This assignment could serve many purposes but its main purpose is to let you discuss what you were thinking about as you composed the project. Essentially, this reflective component allows you to make visible those invisible aspects of composition. In other words, it should be clear in a written essay, a video argument, or an audio documentary what the purpose, audience, and context of those respective pieces of communication should be. However, one thing that I ask you to do in this class is to push yourself out of your communicative comfort zones and experiment with media and ideas in new ways. My request of you then means you might have to work with unfamiliar technologies, unfamiliar patterns of thought, or unfamiliar styles of communication (for example, video essays or audio documentaries). The goal of this reflective component is for you to document the processes that you followed as you composed your projects and to help you learn about what processes help you compose successfully. This reflection helps you understand how what you are doing in this project will transfer into other courses and areas of your life. The Picky Stuff The reflection for each project should be about 1000 words (roughly 2 3 pages), depending on the length of the project. For example, the third project is substantially longer than the others and would likely require more writing. The following list describes what you must include in the reflective component: 1. Describe the audience for the assignment. Why do you think they might be engaging with your composition? To learn something? To enter into a debate? To hear your opinion? To be entertained? More than one of the above? 2. What do you think your audience would do with your composition? In other words, what is the purpose of your work? 3. Describe the process behind the composing of your project? How did you narrow down the topic? How did you plan the project? What steps did you take to complete the project? 4

4. What changes did you make throughout the project? What challenges did you face in the composition of your project? 5. How did comments from your peers, friends (if you sought their feedback), and from me aid you in your project? Why did you decide to use or not use the feedback that you received? 6. How did any activities on style or editing help you in your project? 7. How will what you learned in this project transfer to other aspects of your school life and beyond? Things to consider here include: how will specific composing practices such as drafting, considering the needs of my audience, and revising based on feedback seemingly be useful outside of this specific writing course? Group Project? If this reflective component is for a group project (and everyone will do at least one group project), then please include the following additional criteria: Describe in detail what you contributed to the project. Your contribution could include all or some of the following: writing text, gathering moving or still images, recording sound and/or music, composing images, and so on. In other words, what original work did you create for the project? How did you help the group revise the project? Did you contribute more or less work to the project than other group members? Explain how. Did any group members contribute more or less than the rest of the group? Explain how. Tips and Process The main tip for succeeding in this project is applicable for all projects in this class (and elsewhere): start immediately and bring drafts to class every day. We will spend much of our class time providing feedback and discussing revision possibilities for everyones work, looking at examples, and getting out of the classroom to look at the world. Successful writing projects consume much time and rely upon thinking, rethinking, and revising our writing as much as possible. In relation to the point above, be willing to listen to and critically accept feedback and suggestions for revisions. The writing is yours, but it is important to know that you write as part of a community. However, it is to your benefit to be open to what others have to say as they offer some insight that you may have overlooked. The point of criticism is not to be negative or hurtful about each others work. Instead, productive criticism should help an author challenger her or his presumptions about the work in order to strengthen that work.

Through Avalanches of Meaning Before I begin, Id like to play a short video that I made followed by a much shorter audio clip. The audio is 10 seconds from The Avalanches. I will discuss each clip later in my talk. Each clip embodies the notion of remix culture, which is at the heart of my talk today. The Avalanches, a precursor to contemporary DJ/musician Girl Talk, crafted

their debut album Since I Left You from over 4,000 samples, most of which come from music and film (In case there are other music geeks here, I am referring to The Avalanches out of Australia, not the 1960s, ski/surf band comprised of LA studio musicians). My interest in the Avalanches allows me to explore the tensions between the roles of writer and editor in the composition field. I am interested in understanding what is at stake by incorporating a remix model of composition into the writing classroom. My goal today is to build from an understanding of how producers compose blends of original music by splicing and amplifying other songs. I use the term blend instead of the more common mash up because I prefer the implications of blending disparate ideas together with a clear purpose in mind. Mash up does not imply such an idea. The blend is akin to the tactics of other writers of various stripes, such as Shakespeare, Carlos Mencia, and Quentin Tarantino. These authors have been accused of (re)assembling texts by previous authors and passing off such texts as their own. However, it is possible that these writers work within a more cento-driven tradition, one which values the production of new texts via the building from previous texts. My fugue builds from Sean

Zwaggermans 2008 call in CCC for a more nuanced understanding of plagiarism in order to posit remixing as an appropriate techne for the composition classroom. In that piece, Zwaggerman does not make an explicit connection to remixing, or assemblage, or to similar topics, so you will not see me remixing any of his material. That connection to remix is mine alone here. What Zwaggerman does offer is a compelling reason for writing teachers to question the place of plagiarism in the academy and the reasons for why it is seen as the pervasive weed that it is (or isnt). But first, some history. Further precursors of remix culture include the cut and paste technique used

by author William S. Burroughs and the 1960s films of Japanese New Wave director Seijun Suzuki (one clear influence for the cutting and pasting by Quentin Tarantino). The techniques employed by William Burroughs are a bit different than the cut and paste techniques of todays DJs. Where Burroughs would include his own words along with the words of others, most contemporary DJs use already existing material from other sources as the base for a new sound. One such technique, sampling, is not what I am mostly referring to here. Typically, a sample will be a simple melody or perhaps a break beat from a song that a DJ will loop throughout the length of the track. While this technique is still a common tool in remix culture, modern DJs will often layer longer segments of a song against segments of other songs. From such longer segments, the DJ will overlay numerous samples from various other pieces, sometimes a dozen or so at a time. The DJ uses samples and longer segments as the notes or chords by which he or she builds the track.

These textual precedents behind remix culture are important to note, but I

feel it prudent to reveal my personal experiences and potential biases here. Such a discussion sheds some contextual light on why I buy more readily into the concept of remix culture as legitimate textual production. I was born in the early 1970s and was part of the early, white, suburban male audience who listened to and loved hip- hop and rap as it hit radio in the early to mid 1980s. For example, I technically could have heard Bobby Byrds I Know You Got Soul when it was a radio hit, but I first heard it through the samples used by Eric B and Rakim, Salt-N-Peppa, Special Ed, and Public Enemy. I was, from a relatively early age, attuned to sample culture and its value as an art form. Remix culture, as Lawrence Lessig repeatedly asserts, requires that

composition teachers understand the often intricate nature of copyright; specifically, we need to know more about the fair use provision of copyright that may allow for the production of new texts from previous texts. Fair use provides for several occasions by which a copyrighted text may be used by the non-copyright holder, and I will focus mainly on fair use as tool for critique. Recall the video and Avalanches clip that began my talk. Each of these pieces relies on interpretations of one of the key components of the fair use provision: the nature of the use of copyrighted materials. Such use has been characterized in many ways, most often having to do with the amount of copyrighted work used. There is no set amount of work allowed, so I do not find this to be the most useful way of determining the nature of the use. Instead, I favor work that attempts to re-contextualize the previous work into a new and original context. This approach has the added bonus 8

of probably meeting another test for fair use, the effect of the derivative text on the market value of the original text. My video samples heavily from Eric Fadens A Fair(y) Use Tale. In that

video, Faden neither uses substantial clips from Disney movies nor does the video infringe upon the market values of the movies, and the clip is a clear example of using copyrighted material as a form of criticism (three of the fair use tests). Traditionally, we may conceive of criticism as the literary critic writing a review by citing passages from a novel or of a film critic reviewing a new film by showing clips from the reviewed film. However, Faden demonstrates how to construct a critique through nothing but the art of remix. In other words, like the DJs who use bits of other texts as the notes and chords for new compositions, Faden uses Disney clips as the words to compose his critique about aggressive copyright restrictions and Disneys role in aggressive copyright battles. While Fadens goal as a critic is to draw attention to a cultural practice that

he sees as problematic, that is not the only goal of criticism. In Digital Lyrical, Geoffrey Sirc and Steph Cesaro offer another take on criticism, one that involves the following: Learning to succinctly engineer sound and other non-discursive compositional material is becoming an increasingly crucial part of multimodal composing practices writ large. But as we will demonstrate in the next section, the ability to compose with concisionto pack a mean rhetorical punchis not solely beneficial or unique to digital composition. Sound is not only important, in itself, as compositional genre and heuristic, but sound can be important, materially, as a component to the standard scene of verbal composition. (Sirc, & Ceraso Digital Lyrical). 9

 Sirc and Cerasos desire to compose with concision, to succinctly punch us with meaning depends on a definition of criticism as should I investigate further? This offers one take on criticism and a common goal of the critic. The short form can certainly work, and the short form criticism of Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, and Spin magazines one-word record reviews from the 1980s are legitimate forms of criticism. However, if we adopt a different definition of criticism, does the short form still hold? If we think of criticism as a way to think through texts, is there a way to allow for a short form review? Or, does criticism as a form of meditation as opposed to mediationrequire more of us as thinkers, writers, and composers? According to film critic Roger Ebert, criticism is a productive art that aims to

enhance the object that it is critiquing. For instance, Ebert cites French critic Pierre Rissient who claims that his role as a critic is to support only the works of which he approves. Ebert further clarifies saying That sounds like critical snobbery, but [it] is profoundly true. I don't think Pierre is referring only to his reasons. I think he's saying you must know why you like a film, and be able to explain why, so that others can learn from an opinion not their own. It is not important to be "right" or "wrong." It is important to know why you hold an opinion, understand how it emerged from the universe of all your

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opinions, and help others to form their own opinions. There is no correct answer. There is simply the correct process. (Ebert) By correct process, I think Ebert means one that works in particular situations at particular times, and not an all-encompassing process that works for all times. In chiming a similar note, Sirc and Ceraso trace musical composition with written composition during the post-Civil War years, claiming that each yearned for an Aristotelian desire for coherence and unity. Due to the nature of the Civil War, it seems perfectly sensible that Americans wanted compositions that were harmonious and cohesive. Similarly, in the Rhetoric, Aristotle claims that, There is a fault in the syllables if the indications of sound are unpleasant (224) and that such faults produce frigidites and absurdities (228) in public discourse. Such a desire for harmony amid a chaotic world remains to this day, despite interventions by the likes of Arnold Schoenberg, Ornette Coleman, Lydia Lunch, or the Avalanches. The Avalanches provides a different example. At first, when one hears that

the band compiled over 4,000 samples for their Since I Left You album, it might be tempting to expect 46 minutes of chaos. Discord. Displeasure. In essence, it seems that there might be too much meaning to wade through in such a composition. Still there is something that works, something pleasurable, in the blending of Hall & Oates with Ol Dirty Bastard with Bob Dylan with The Beatles, and so on. Listeners can hear a clear sense in the progression of ideas as The Avalanches build the composition further. It is not chronological or even genre-driven. The piece at times sounds like a pop song and at other times sounds like a record collectors collage.

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The band encourages a different type of listening, one that is built upon the collection of feeling and on intellectual curiosity. Music and cultural critic Simon Reynolds would assert that instead of interpretation for meaning, the listener to remix culture should instead ask, how the music works. Instead of parsing lyrics, one is more interested in how a particular rhythm stirs an affective response in us (9). Ultimately, I argue that remix culture is an act of critical destruction but a

destruction that actively produces. It is with this statement in mind that composition instructors should embrace the notion of fair use as a practice of criticism in the classroom. Not only should we allow students to criticize the very products that they use, but they should be able to use those products as a form of criticism in and of themselves. Remix culture presents at least two ethical dilemmas that I will briefly

address. First, as a fan of most types of music and as someone who wants as fair a world as possible, I wonder how my understanding of remix culture affects my response to some historical injustices surrounding the stealing of blues styles, mostly from African-American culture. While the courts have generally exonerated bands such as ZZ Top and Led Zeppelin, I have historically sided with the black artists who have accused white musicians of appropriating blues songs and profiting handsomely from said appropriation. As an advocate of remix culture and of the legal distinction that ideas cannot be copyrighted, only the expressed forms of ideas, do I have to rethink my ethical position on the appropriation of blues styles by

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white culture for its own economic gain? Well, I asked the question, so yes Id say I do, but I do not see an anomaly in advocating for remix culture while not advocating for the outright appropriation of other cultures for profit. Remix culture usually includes, as a minimum, a significant rearticulation of the original product and the free distribution of the remixed product (share alike in Creative Commons lingo). In other words, the remixer must significantly change the nature of the original product and must not profit financially from the remix. Neither of these criteria were met with the earlier misappropriations of black American music, so I dont see an ethical conundrum in my advocacy for fair use. For example, if Peter Gabriel wants to pull songs from Rush Limbaughs show due to ethical conflict, then Gabriel should be allowed to do so. Second, I dont want you to think that I advocate remix culture as the only or

best form of composition that we should pursue. As tempting as it may be to think of samples as words or phrases, as notes or chords, samples are neither. A sample depends on a previously composed component, so we need to continue to value composing from an original space. That backbeat from When the Levee Breaks wont compose itself, nor will the glass floor shots in Tokyo Drifter. When the Levee Breaks has driven many pop songs, from the Beastie Boys (appropriately enough in Rhymin and Stealin) to Enigma to Eminem, and Tokyo Drifter has provided some exciting shots for the penultimate battle in Kill Bill Vol. 1. The same is true of textual production, and we need to value the consumption and production of original texts in the composition classroom along with valuing the production of texts through a remix model, itself a process with a long and important history. 13

Finally, I have enabled textual and video commenting on my Youtube video.

Presuming it continues to stay up, please feel free to post textual or video comments or both to my project. Works Cited Aristotle. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans. George Kennedy. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Print.

Avalanches, The. Since I Left You. Modular Recordings, 2000. mp3. Ebert, Roger. Critic is a Four-letter Word. Roger Eberts Journal. In Chicago Sun- Times. 18 September 2008. Web. 21 March 2012.

Reynolds, Simon. Generation Ecstasy. New York: Routledge, 1999. Sirc, Geoffrey and Steph Ceraso. Digital Lyrical. Writing with Sound. Spec. issue of Currents in Electronic Literacy (2011): n pag. Web. 21 March 2012.

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