Remixing, as I have come to understand from class discussions, is not just derived from music as a medium, but multiple mediums.  It is how we can take an original copy of any sort of medium and turn it into our own critique of the matter.  A new product is thus created.  For instance, Lessig’s Remix mentions a college friend who excelled in writing.  He did so by incorporating quotes into his works.  So, he took original pieces, or in this case phrases, and turned it into his own original work.

                Musically, I enjoy it when an artist from one genre remixes the work of an artist from a totally different genre.  As of this week, our discussions about Beyoncé as a cyborg by the definition of Donna Haraway have lead us into how her newest track has been remixed by many.  To my surprise, James Blake, a musician who is from the electronic genre, took Beyoncé’s track and remixed it to produce a totally different sound, but it of course incorporates the original work.  James Blake incorporates “ghosts” into his track based on Beyoncé’s voice or “Ooo”ing.  It’s a very interesting piece which is basically inspired by Beyoncé’s track rather than being a cover, which I feel anyone can do.  What James Blake comes up with is his own take on “Drunk in Love” which takes out the lyrics and focuses on the energy or the sexy feel of the song.

                Aside from music, art of many forms can be remixed.  Remixing is not the same as remediation.  Although I believe it is understandable how the two can easily be confused.  Both are “re-do”s.  Remediation redoes media.  One form of media is transformed into a new type of media.  Poems or songs can be revived into a painting or vice versa.  As noted in Bolter’s and Grusin’s book, Remediation: Understanding New Media, the clearest examples of digital hypermedia comes from music production and presentation.   Music was originally about the live performance and sounding “live”, but as time went on, it was more about the recording.  So, James Blake’s music would not have come into existence if there wasn’t a period in music history where the aim was to make the sound electronic or find various forms to play with the medium of sound and music.  So, for this example of remediation, music has gone from on stage to off.  There are even music documentaries made.  The one I am most excited about that comes out this coming week on On Demand and iTunes is my favorite band, The National.  The documentary is called, “Mistaken for Strangers”.  It’s about how two brothers, one a rock star and the other a roadie, are on tour together, but out in the “real world” no one would know they are related.  It showcases the brother of the rock star and his feelings on being in the shadow.  I cannot wait.  Thus, music is transformed from on stage to recording to a video documentary that can be found not only in exclusive theatres (Los Angeles, California), but through access of Cablevision and iTunes, TV or computer.

                Remixing, on the other hand, is not transforming into a whole new media, but rather editing an existing medium to be completely on its own (the same type of medium).  It is meant to change or improve the original.  The most alternative example I have come across is graffiti.  Artists interact and become inspired by their surrounding environment.  Graffiti allows the public to have certain images on a building.  Artists manipulate the surface or wall to display their own critique.  Banksy uses graffiti to bring social and political messages, oftentimes with dark humor.  Taking an environment and twisting it to make one’s own message would be remixing.  Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop would be an example of remediation, turning art to a video source of media.

Go figure that “It will rot your brain!” isn’t necessarily true.  Gee studies a six year old child to observe how he makes connections when playing video games such as Pikmin.  Reading Gee and knowing his previous works, he is big into social discourse.  His claim is that people are literate in a domain if they can recognize and/or produce meanings within the domain.

Gee makes excellent points comparing video games to any kind of fictional story.  There are characters, a problem/conflict to solve, an objective, the everlasting theme of good verses evil.  But the one thing that video games have that a novel doesn’t contain is motivation.  How many books motivate you to try again and do better in the very same environment?

The six year old is learning to strategize and become a problem solver who does not see mistakes as errors but as opportunities for reflection and learning.  We see this many times in the educational field.  Or, at least, we should. Do we get opportunities to find a new way to solve a problem?  I believe this is a sort of intelligence if one can find a different outlet to get a desired result.  A teacher would most certainly be proud!

Gee observes that this young child is learning in a variety of ways.  A game like Pikrim encourages the child to explore, to test out a hypothesis, to take a risk, to persist past the failure, and to have the positive mindset to figure out what went wrong and try to do it better.  Sounds like a scientific theory, but it’s a “brain rotting” video game!

Learning actively and critically is what we expect from our educational systems, but it is seen in video games.  Players are learning to experience the world in a new way; collaboate with a new affinity group; developing resources fotr future learning in the semiotic domain; learning how to think about semiotic domains as design spaces.  Two things help the player in achieving this learning style: internal design and semiotic domains.  Internal design encourages metareflective thinking about the design.  Semiotic domains connects to other semiotic domains such as knowledge of a domain can be a good precursor of learning a new one.

So, how do you learn best?  Gee emphasizes that humans learn, think, and solve problems by reflecting on previous experiences in the world.  Human thinking is deeply rooted in an embodied experience of the world.  To illustrate, people have experiences, store these experiences, and finally make connections or associations among them.  Same holds true when the six year old plays Pikrim and observes the world around him and repeats the same scenery and challenges several times until mastery.

What video games have influenced you?  What game took a long time to master the skill?  Did you have to get a cheat magazine to figure out special moves?  My brother was very big into video games and would show me how to do special moves or enter certain rooms (domains) because he read the gamers’ magazine.  But, you got to be quick!