Generemix

                With the onset of a digital generation, one can’t help but question the authenticity of work being created. Our culture has metamorphosed into a portmanteau in itself—everything just a remix of preexisting information. Perhaps they use a song they like without permission from the artist, or make a parody of the same song by giving it different lyrics, or even make an entire remix of the song by changing everything but its catchy hook; all of these actions are stealing in some way. While students are the most abundant contributors to the world of YouTube, the question of how far appropriation can go and still be accepted as an art form is evoked by nearly every video posted into cyberspace.

                While YouTube was originally made for the sake of advertising, it now acts as a hub for creative projects. Kids and Adolescents alike can post whatever information they want with the full intention of allowing the world to view it. Many accounts act as parodies, and I have to admit those are my favorite ones to watch. Although it’s hilarious to see a high volume of people mocking celebrities, some videos have even been made as parodies to emphasize the humor in previously viral YouTube Videos. For example, Joseph Gordon –Levitt recently made a video acting as a grown up Charlie from Charlie Bit My Finger. The ability for someone’s baby video to catch international attention and become the muse for a stranger’s own video is an accomplishment in itself, but appropriation clearly made this possible.

                Although many people will argue that appropriation and plagiarism are synonymous, they absolutely are not the same thing. The ability to remix work is an advanced skill that only some can accomplish so carefully that they narrowly avoid plagiarism in lieu of creating something brand new—allowing a phoenix to rise from existing sources of visual culture. So what are students learning from experimenting with this type of medium? They are learning from the greats: Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Duchamp. They are learning how to compile ideas in an array of video, sound clips, megabytes, and pixels. They are finding an outlet that stimulates more parts of the human brain simultaneously than staring at a two dimensional painting on a canvas. Activating prior knowledge with the incorporation of already well-known imagery automatically allows the viewer to connect with the piece in front of them. This dialogue of old and new information provides a stimulus, and allows their prior knowledge to be molded so that they begin thinking differently.

                The onset of varied thinking props the door wide open for viewers to metamorphose information, ultimately taking what they've already seen and making it into their own work of art. This cycle continues as a source of inspiration and motivation to create. The widespread use of YouTube provides any internet user with access to a library of videos whose length totals to longer than a lifetime, so that any new project is just a click away.