Since the beginning of the year I have been part of an online seminar ‘Remix Theory and Praxis’ established by Owen Gallagher of Total Recut discussing the merits of ‘Remix Culture’. Through meetings over Skype and email, Mette Birk, Eli Horwatt, Martin Leduc, Eduardo Navas, Tara Zepell, Owen & myself discussed relevant academic texts and ideas which relate to the subject as well as sharing examples demonstrating the rise of remix as the tools of production became affordable to the wider public outside of the media industry. This has led to an explosion of creativity which has filtered back into the media itself with the discovery of new techniques of storytelling brought about by wider experimentation.

One of the things we set out to do as a group was to create a remixed text whereby we all wrote a bit about our ideas of remix culture and put it up and mixed it together in a wiki to form part of the Networked Book project (a networked book about networked art). It not exactly a Brion Gysin / William S. Burroughs cut-up approach, but it is interesting to see a multi-authored piece of text come together cohesively. The result is a piece which which is challenging to our perception of creative culture and highlights the problems with copyright in a world so consumed by mass media. It is only natural for people to use these media sources as reference points in studies of modern culture or as a language in itself to tell new and unique stories. This text analysing these perspectives is now available on the site and is organic in form in that it can be further remixed and expanded upon within the text itself and discussed in comments alongside.

The group will be taking part in show and tell panel and screening sessions “Theory of Remix” in this year’s Open Video Conference (October 1st & 2nd) in New York City. I was to be participating in this but I could not secure funding to travel and could not afford to go otherwise. I had thought about crowd-funding my trip, but at that stage it would have been too late to get it organised properly and I didn’t want to dilute my plans for crowd-funding something else (which I will announce soon). It’s a pity I can’t be there as it’s something I was really looking forward to being a part of and to meeting those in the group whom I haven’t yet met in person. There’s a swarm of interesting offerings at this years conference including “EFF vs Burning Man”, “When YouTube Killed the Hitler Meme”, “Building Solutions for Human Rights Video” as well as sessions on HTML5 video, open journalism and lot’s of other open source inspired goodness as well as a great selection of speakers. Check out the schedule of the site fro more info. Most of OVC will be streamed live, so I will be able to attend virtually. Now to finish off that mega remix I have been dragging out way too long!

Last week I took a trip out west to film a gig for Laoise Kelly for the launch of her new album Ceis in her home town of Westport.

My girlfriend, Anne-Marie and myself hopped on the train on Wednesday afternoon and took a well needed excursion out of Dublin over to the beautiful coastal town of Westport in Co. Mayo. The gig was on in Matt Molloy’s (of The Chieftains fame) and it packed in a full house of eager ears to listen to Laoise’s wonderfully captivating playing of the Harp. She played a magical set of tunes, showcasing some from her new album and was joined on stage for a few by Matt Molloy himself on the Flute and later by her brother Mick on the Djembe.

The next day we were treated by our hostess to some of the awe inspiring scenery the west has to offer, firstly on a lovely boat trip out in Clew Bay with her uncle David (and I even got behind the helm for a while!), then on to Croagh Patrick.. no, no not to the top, just far enough to say hello to the statue of St. Pat! (Will have to make that climb sometime). We then drove south through Doo Lough Valley passing the Twelve Bens and witnessing some amazing harsh landscape and ominous clouds hanging low into the valley. Onwards towards Leenane on Killary Harbour, location of the pub from The Field and then back to Westport for a few scoops.

Time flew quick and we were up early from our our lodgings (the very nice Boulevard Guesthouse on the South Mall) to catch the 7am train back to Dublin.

It was a wonderful experience all round.. a big hello and thanks to everyone we met and special thanks to Laoise for being our host.

The recording of the gig went very well (thanks to Martin for getting the audio down) and you will see some of it soon on Laoise’s brand new, just launched website (which I built for her, by the way!). Check it out and find out where you can get the opportunity to have the pleasure of hearing her play live and where you can get a copy of the new album.

🙂