Creativity, originality

and the remix

in art and culture

Some difficult ckv questions

and some even more tricky answers.

4 TTO - CKV

Creativity, originality and the remix in art and culture

Let’s start with something not too difficult though…..

Suppose, on a dark, winter night in the middle of November you spent three hours writing a long ckv report about a theatre show that you had seen. After much thought and a great deal of typing the report is finished and you print it out and carefully put it in to a folder, ready to be handed in the next day.

However, during break time the following morning you leave your bag unattended and a fellow ckv pupil notices the report and ‘borrows’ it for a few minutes. They run off to the copy machine and quickly make a copy and then return it to the bag. Having got the copy the pupil then takes it home with them that evening, types their own short introduction and final paragraph, but for the middle 90% of the report they simply copy everything that you have written.

The following day they too hand ‘their’ report in.

A week later your alert and conscientious ckv teacher has spotted the problem. You (both) are told to stay behind after the lesson. You of course know nothing of the problem, but your teacher soon fills you in on the problem.

This situation raises a number of questions:

• How does this make you feel?

• What do you think of your fellow pupil?

• Has the pupil actually broken any school rules?

• Has the pupil actually broken the law?

Creativity, originality and the remix- key terminology

Before we get too far with our investigation into these very complex issues it is perhaps important to get to grips with some of the key terms and terminology that will come up. You will be needing to understand and be able to use these words in order to complete the CKV assignments in this booklet.

Below are eleven words, working with the person sitting next to you, try and work out which one belongs with which definition. Write your answers down in pencil so that you can correct them if you are wrong.

Homage Citation Fair use Copy

Remix Sample Transcription Copyright

Quotation Pastiche Intellectual rights

_______________________ : produce a different version of (a musical recording) by altering the balance of the separate tracks _______________________ : the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material _______________________ : record or extract (a small piece of music or sound) digitally for reuse as part of a composition or song _______________________ : a thing made to be similar or identical to another _______________________ : an arrangement of a piece of music for a different instrument, voice, or group of these. Also in visual art, a new version of an existing work _______________________ : a short text, musical passage or visual image taken from one piece of music or work of art and used in another _______________________ : a quotation from or reference to a book, paper, or author, especially in a scholarly work _______________________ : a right that is had by a person or by a company to have exclusive rights to use its own plans, ideas, or other intangible assets without the worry of competition, at least for a specific period of time _______________________ : the idea that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder _______________________ : generally used to mean any public show of respect to someone to whom one feels indebted. In this sense, a reference within a creative work to someone who greatly influenced the artist would be homage _______________________ : an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period

What does it mean to be creative?

Do we have to produce something completely new in order to be creative? Is it acceptable to 'borrow' from the work of others? Is copying OK? Are you still being original if you simply rearrange the work of others? How does searching with Google for your source material compare with a box of paints in terms of creativity? These are the sorts of questions that we will be addressing in the forth-coming ckv lessons.

The Assignments

There now follow three assignments (5a, 5b and 5c). You are to work by yourself. You must choose to complete one of the three. Read all three assignments through and choose the one that is most suited to you. They all are practical assignment s that will take you into the areas of copyright and re-use of the work of others that we have been looking at. First though a brief summary of the sorts of assignment they are: Assignment 1a Assignment 1a is a graphic design assignment that will be carried out on the computer and will require you to be able to use Photoshop. (A little knowledge of Paint is not enough!) Assignment 1b Assignment 1b is a graphic design assignment that will be carried out by hand. It will involve using glue, scissors and paper to produce a design. It will also involve a little computer use in order to print out material to the size that you require. Assignment 1c Assignment 1c is perhaps the most technically challenging of the three assignments. It involves producing your own musical remix on the computer.

ASSIGNMENT 1a Assignment 1a is a graphic design assignment that will be carried out on the computer and will require you to be able to use Photoshop. (A little knowledge of Paint is not enough!)

You will be given a selection of images in digital form. It is a diverse collection, photographs, graphic designs and patterns. These are your raw materials to produce a poster for a rock festival that is going to be taking place in an urban, city setting on a piece of waste ground in the harbour area of London. The setting for the festival and the fact that it is a rock festival have been taken into account when selecting the picture material that you have been given. The rules:

You must do all your design work using Photoshop.

You may use as much or as little of the material that you have been given as you like.

You are allowed to add NO other images or pictures.

You are allowed to use parts of the pictures, rework them, re-colour them, enlarge or reduce them, flip them over, layer them up on each other and so on.

You may add text, or areas of simple colour, as a background to part of the image for example.

The poster must include the following information:

- City Rhythms (the name of the festival)

- A festival of modern music in an urban setting (a sort of sub-title to the festival)

- 6 pm – 2 am - 18 July 2012 - St Mary’s Dock

Newlynn Road London E17

- Tickets ₤ 50.00 – 75.00 The final poster should be A4 format and be printed out in colour. Before you start, one small but very important piece of design advice….do not be afraid to have empty or nearly empty parts in your design….it often makes for the best results!

ASSIGNMENT 1b Assignment 1b is a graphic design assignment that will be carried out by hand. It will involve using glue, scissors and paper to produce a design. It will also involve a little computer use in order to print out material to the size that you require.

You will be given a selection of images in digital form. It is a diverse collection, photographs, graphic designs and patterns. These are you raw materials to produce a poster for a rock festival that is going to be taking place in an urban, city setting on a piece of waste ground in the harbour area of London. The setting for the festival and the fact that it is a rock festival have been taken into account when selecting the picture material that you have been given. The rules:

You are going to produce a hand-made collage design making use of the images and pictures that you have been given.

You may use as much or as little of the material that you have been given as you like.

You are allowed to add NO other images or pictures.

You may resize them (on the copy machine or the computer), you may cut them up and only use pieces of them, you may layer them up over each other or colour, shade or draw over them.

You may add text, or areas of simple colour, as a background to part of the image for example.

The poster must include the following information:

o City Rhythms (the name of the festival)

o A festival of modern music in an urban setting (a sort of sub-title to the festival)

o 6 pm – 2 am o 18 July 2012 o St Mary’s Dock

Newlynn Road London E17

o Tickets ₤ 50.00 – 75.00

The final poster should be A3 format and be printed out in colour Before you start, one small but very important piece of design advice….do not be afraid to have empty or nearly empty parts in your design….it often makes for the best results! On the following page are the 14 images that you have been given to use to make your poster design for assignments 2a and 2b. AND NO OTHER PICTURES OR PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ALLOWED!!!

ASSIGNMENT 1c Assignment 1c is perhaps the most technically challenging of the three assignments. It involves producing your own musical remix on the computer.

For this assignment you will be creating your own remix of music using fragments of music taken from a library of sounds. A little musical knowledge will undoubtedly be useful as will trying to find your way round an unfamiliar piece of software. However with a little effort and experimentation great things are possible! Follow the steps below:

Go to: http://www.soundation.com/

Click to launch the mixing studios. This will take you to the start page of the mixing studio, This is the software you will be using for the assignment. At this point you have the option to watch a tutorial film to help you find you way…..watch it, it is very helpful, and less than five minutes long!

After that it really is just a question of making a start. Don’t expect a masterpiece in ten minutes. Be patient and think carefully about what you are doing

Your finished piece of work should be one minute in length, have an introduction, a middle passage and a definite ending. Do not forget to save your work as you go along, to do this you have to create an account (it’s free), so that you can save what you have made onto the website. Next time you have to log in and then you can reopen what you have made.

….time for some reflection The purpose of this module was to get you to think a little deeper about the cultural world we live in. It is a fast moving, multimedia environment where so much is possible, so easily. The main message of Brett Gaylor’s film, RIP, a remix manifesto is that even though an artist or a film maker or a musician may be drawing on (or directly using) other peoples’ material they are still being creative in a very important and modern way. It should also be clear to you by now that the laws of copyright are often very complicated, and that ultimately some very big companies and some very large amounts of money are involved.

ASSIGNMENT 2

This module has at its core two main themes:

The laws of copyright and how they are implemented and effect the world of art and culture.

The occurrence of remixing of the work of others in the world of art and culture, be that in music, film, visual art or design.

What position do you take in these areas, what are your own opinions? Write a text in which you express your own thoughts and opinions about how copyright works in the area of art and culture. Consider how it affects you and whether you think the balance of intellectual property rights versus the free use of material for creative purposes is about right or not. The text that you write should clearly state your opinion on the way copyright tries to protect intellectual ownership. Do you understand the aims of copyright, do you think it is justified, is it working well, should creative people should be protected? The text that you write should clearly state your opinion on the level creativity of the artists, designers, filmmakers and musicians who produce remixes in their forms. Are they being as creative as others taking a more traditional approach? Considering some of the questions below may also help:

When you were working on assignment 1a, 1b or 1c you were working with someone else’s original work in order to produce your own work. While you were doing this did you feel like you were being creative? Explain you answer, how can you relate this experience to the bigger picture of remix and creativity in art and culture?

How long do you think artworks, photographs or music should be protected before it should be allowed to become open access? Explain your ideas.

Does your own breaking of copyright laws (assuming you do break them) worry you?

What is the effect of the digital and computer world on this whole ‘remix’ discussion?

Do you see ‘remix’ art, be it music, graphic design, film, etc to be equal to ‘non-remix’, ‘totally original’ art? Is there a difference in your opinion?

Have your opinions and ideas attached to copyright issues and ‘remix’ art changed or developed whilst completing this module? Explain how the have or indeed why they have not.

This is quite a complex written assignment. You need to present your own opinions and then explain them clearly and concisely. Use examples to illustrate your opinions, be consistent, AND AVOID CONTRADICTING YOURSELF! Read your work through carefully before you hand it in. You are expected to write a minimum of 800 words