Remixing is an incredibly powerful method that can be used to discover and create new artifacts and ideas. We can remix the entire realm of knowledge to expand the boundaries of what we know, and how we know it. Below, some adventures in remixing.
WE ARE SCIENCE! collaborated with the Pink Line Project to create an interactive experience for the Phillips Collection’s “This is not That” cafe. We took 12 artists from the collection, sampled their statements about art, and broke them down into cards that participants could use to remix their own statements, filling in the blank in “Art is _____”. I was struck by how engaged people were in the experience, and how the simplicity and playfulness of the concept opened up remarkable creativity.
New remix, improvised knowledge project in which I create 10 true statements by a writer by improvisationally remixing their writing.
First two attempts below: Robert Smithson and John Dewey.
Grand Wizard Theodore was said to have accidentally discovered the scratch when his mother yelled at him to stop playing records so loud. He put his hand directly on the record to stop it, heard the sound that resulted, and started playing around. Here’s a decent reenactment of that crucial moment.
How can we “scratch” our objects of thought? Texts, statements, definitions, theories?
Two more sessions of remixing Seed magazine to discover new potential truths and avenues for exploration.
Session 003- Yet a common division of linkages will sort data into their own tones and juices…
Session 004- Sometimes the only way to understand the light / dark core at the heart of deciphering is to register the descendants of each moment of revelation…
From Seed is a new object-oriented thought project in which I conduct quick, improvised remixes of Seed magazine, in order to discover new meanings and possible directions for future knowledge. Noticing what emerges from seed, we enter strange, uncharted fields and domains for further exploration and refinition.
Session 001 – The big idea is a music that can understand a structure…
Session 002 – These ideas … can take one into a particular means to test the illumination. A small current of options flows through the garden…
the event concluded in a relative state.
from previous walls, it was evident that
the motion doubled as an experiment.
a direction has volume.
a single wave has effects upon conclusions.
the importance of the pure figure as clouds of possible structure.
Here they are, the basic methods of improvised object-oriented thought.
Method 1
Select a source.
Improvise through it.
Record the results.
Method 2
Collect some fragments.
Improvise through them.
Record the results.
Method 3
Connect to a structure.
Improvise through it.
Record the results.
…and what to do with the results, the “thought-objects” that you’ve discovered and created? First, make sure they are recorded in an open structure that lends itself well to perpetual re-use (I like to use spreadsheets or lists). Then, you can channel them into other forms, such as poems, zen koans, flash interactives, etc, or re-mix them with other thought-objects you’ve collected. Happy thought-ing.
Functional Improvised Recombinancein which a recombinance, or remix, is channeled into a structure for further use
An interactive performance lecture in which I taught a group of George Mason University students how to re-mix thought-objects to generate answers to the question “What is Thought?”
This is a condensed “promo” version of the 20-minute lecture.
