I think this is the stuff that would make Brett Gaylor, the director of RiP: A Remix Manifesto, giddy in its hilarity. I think we all can appreciate the irony, though.

i.e. Girl Talk:

i.e. Kate’s last post about Buffy and Twilight or, one of my favorites, “40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes:”

But! Check this out. Now, people are mashing together different kinds of video games. Seriously, go play Tuper Tario Tros. This flash game combines Mario Bros. and Tetris (both personal nostalgic favorites) into one game, where it is necessary to switch back and forth between the two in order to win the game. I find this particularly interesting, because instead of the mashup living in the traditional static manner, this forces the consumer to interact with the mashup and to decide when to switch from one to the other. It’s a new era of mashup.

Other video games like DJ Hero have similar vibes, but a player cannot independently decide when to switch over. The challenge there is to follow what is already constructed. Plus, it’s still jazzing off the the same music mash idea, but Tuper Tario Tros doesn’t and it’s totally up to the player to decide when to switch over. If the player thinks that they can get Mario to make a jump, then they can stay in Mario Bros. mode, but if they’d like the extra help of some blocks, then they can switch over to Tetris mode to build up a bridge or something. It gives the player choice.

If we want to analyze this youngerish generation as being a remix culture, then this creation of choice is crazy pertinent. Doesn’t this indicate that in this progressing remix culture, it’s not only important to be able to bring our multiple resources together, but to choose when we do so and to choose how we interact with it. Ooooo, I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

(Tuper Tario Tros link via facebook.)

It made me so happy, for a couple of reasons:

As a longtime Buffy fan (not to mention feminist), I can’t get on board with the Twilight phenomenon. Last year a student of mine wrote a rhetorical analysis of the first novel. She choose the text because although she really enjoyed the books, she felt kind of uncomfortable about the idealized relationship between Edward and Bella. And rightfully so: Her astute analysis finally led her to the conclusion that Edward fits the Harvard psychological profile of an abusiver stalker, and that Meyer’s version of love and abstinence disempowers her predominantly young, female fan base. (For more, see Christine Seifert’s “Bite Me (or Don’t)” or Anita Sarkeesian’s “The Real Reason Guys Should Hate Twilight,” among innumerable others.) This remix does a great job, I think, of humorously highlighting just those problems–and the comparative awesomeness of Buffy.

From another angle, I can’t wait to use more of McIntosh’s work in the classroom. The digital media course, which I’m centering around narrative genre(s), has me thinking a lot about fair use, remix, and how everyday composers can engage in public conversations about the texts that affect them and their culture. And this sleek, smart, and legal film works to demonstrate how effective and fun such rhetorical narratives can be.

For more from McIntosh about this remix, see his guest blog post on WIMN’s Voices. And definitely check out his other works at Rebellious Pixels.

Is He Bona Fide?

Is He Bona Fide? from Daniel Anderson on Vimeo.

“This video essay explores the theme of sincerity in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The essay is composed in video form, using clips from the film as quotations and layering analysis over the clips through narration.”

Remix Culture II

Remix Culture II from Ricardo on Vimeo.

“My second mashup for the
Total Recut Video Remix Challenge 2008
“What is Remix Culture?”

Here’s a list of all the entries in the competition:
http://www.totalrecut.com/contest-videos.php”

Watchmen Video Essay/Review

Watchmen Video Essay/Review from Adam Schoales on Vimeo.

“Here we go kids, after hours of writing, editing, shooting, cutting, and recutting my review… err… video essay for “Watchmen” is complete.

I’m going to work on creating a more concise version thats more along the lines of an actual review, but this should whet your appetite.

(and yes, I’m reading from a teleprompter. you try doing a 20 minute review from memory and smoothly…)”

The World is Flat 3.0

This is more of a lecture, but still mighty thought provoking. I especially like starting at the 29:30 minute mark when Thomas Friedman says that being able to use “imaginative thinking” and connecting dots, in the way liberal arts does, is essential. Then again, I’m a bit biased.

Bringing liberal arts into the equation is more important than ever, because we’re in a world now where imagination and mashups–the ability to mash things together through really imaginative, I think, thinking–is going to be such a huge advantage. . . I think inspiration, innovation comes from having two or more specialties and applying the framework of one specialty to the framework of another. And so, it is great, it is critical, it is essential. We have people who are experts at dots, but we also need, as individuals and collectives, to be encouraging the connecting of those dots and the mashing of them together.

As I push and shove (or, rather, swing and duck) my way through my dissertation, I’ve been thinking lately about the topic I once promised myself I’d write my dissertation on: the rhetoric of fate in American culture. You see, there was a time in my life about six or seven years ago that I had a major philosophical shift in my thinking. Previously, I had been a faithful believer in fate and predestination. Everything was, of course, predestined—where I’d go to college, who I’d meet, what career I’d have, whom I’d marry, if I’d marry, etc. After some pretty heated discussions with several people I respect and admire, I toyed with the idea that maybe everything wasn’t based on fate, or wasn’t predestined.

To make a long story short (or, to spare you a personal story more interesting to me than to others, I’m sure), I’ll cut to the chase. In the process of shifting my thinking, I asked anyone and everyone what they believed about fate. Did they, too, believe that everything was predestined? What did people mean by fate? Predestination? Most profound to me, and pertinent to Harlot, is the contradiction I found over and over in what people believed about fate, and in what they said about it. Most didn’t really believe in fate, but I could easily catch them speaking as if they did.

For example, my mother firmly stated that she didn’t believe our lives were predestined—that we had independent thought and choice in what we did. She did, however, routinely utter such comforting statements as, “Don’t worry, Kelly, it wasn’t meant to be,” or “If it’s meant to be, it’ll work out.” My best friend confirmed that she, also, did not believe that our lives were predestined. However, she would often ask the question, “Where is Mr. Right?” “I guess I’m not meant to find him yet?”

What I’m still curious about is why many of us (not to mention popular culture) often speak as if things are meant to or not meant to happen if we don’t really believe it. Do we really believe, on some level, that things will work out? Do we need to believe that? Is it all just rhetoric we’ve heard and repeat out of habit?

Obviously, I, at least, wasn’t predestined to write that dissertation. Long way from there…