April 15, 2005

Reality is being Remixed on CC Mixter

Looks like the remix project is officially under way, as there have already been five remixes of Language of My Reality at CC Mixter. I guess there is a need in that community for solid acapella recordings (Calling all Spoken Word artists, join CC Mixter to submit work).

One interesting thing about the remixes is how each person interpretted the tone of my piece, and how much liberty they took in cutting up and remixing the actual words. I think my favorite version of the full piece is the version by phusion, but I also like how Teru sampled some of the words without changing the direction of the meaning.

However, the most interesting piece is "Just Like Me" by Pat Chilla the Beat Gorilla, which cuts up words from my poem and actually changes the meaning. I mentioned in a review of the piece that people have been asking me what I'd do if someone re-edited my work to change the meaning, and I thanked him for giving me a real live example. He replied, "I actually had a small quibble with myself about that, mostly because your piece seemed to be introspective and I didn't want to seem disrespectful."

Not disrespectful at all. By choosing to engage in this new mixter space, I'm encouraging this kind of thing, which is cool. I also like that there seems to be an inherent respect among good musicians, and I appreciate those that try to keep the spirit of the work going. Let's keep building.

Posted by Colin at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2005

Fill out a Fair Use Survey

The good folks at the Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP), part of the  Brennan Center for Justice, are conducting a study to learn how well "fair use" - an important defense under U.S. copyright  law - is working for artists of all kinds, including writers, filmmakers, "culture jammers" and other media producers. Fair use allows limited borrowing of copyright-protected works without permission, for purposes such as parody and commentary. Please help by going to the FEPP Web site and filling out their Fair Use Survey. Check out the intro

Posted by Colin at 10:23 PM

March 18, 2005

The first Remix

In only a few hours, John Holowach of Tryad has already submitted the first of hopefully many remixes of Language of My Reality from the remix project. Now let's hope we can get some designers to start mixing up the images. Spread the word.

Posted by Colin at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2005

Introducing the Remix Project

In the spirit of free culture, today we are launching the first phase of the remix project, which will encourage people to remix images and/or sounds from the Free Culture Tour.

The first is the spoken word piece from the show, Language of My Reality, which includes mostly Colin's photographs, but does include some from the commons and some from copyrighted sources. Can you help improve either the audio or visual elements of this piece? Can you help make it completely of the creative commons so we don't have to deal with legal issues? Check out the project page, download the mp3 and the images (28 MB zip file), remix, and send me your updates by email at remix@activefreemedia.com. Also, special thanks for Pravin Sathe of Solid Hang for the design and all around support.

Posted by Colin at 06:45 PM | Comments (0)