In the postmodern and digital context, the new is constantly being 'hacked' out of the old. Borrowing, stealing, recycling, appropriating and collaging are dominant creative strategies in contemporary art and design. Using 3/4 examples from the last 20 years critically analyse 'remix culture'.

'Remix culture' is more than an ideology but a theory used by artists and designers to creatively express their own ideologies. Art that is created in a postmodern culture tends to be loaded with signs that that already have a pre-existing signified meaning to our society. Cultural theorists interpret artwork through two different viewpoints: from the encoders, i.e. the creators; and the decoders, i.e. the audiences (Hill, 1973). Culture is divided into high culture and popular culture, demonstrating different perspectives. 'Remix culture' exists in both groups as it is impossible to escape remixing as “everything is a remix” (Ferguson, 2015). Kirby Ferguson doesn’t see this as a bad thing, rather something to embrace (Navas, Gallagher, Burrough, 2014). When you look further at these socio-groups you realise there are many subcultures within the main framework, thus, creating a wider network containing vast remixed ideas and ideologies for the creator to use.

When analysing culture, the theorist must examine the frameworks that have been created in context when looking for meaning. Borrowing from existing artworks is an essential method within art and design practice. Hacking of the signified within artworks with cross-disciplines creates unique artworks that create their message through existing signifiers and activating new ones. Eduardo Navas discusses the multidisciplinary nature within remixing in The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies: 'Culture and Remix: A Theory on Cultural Sublation' (Navas, Gallagher, Burrough, 2014). An important part of Navas theory relies on layers within intertwining culture frameworks, and how the layers result in multiple interpreters. The layers of information are interchangeable as the message can often be given by the receiver not just the creator. The artists I have used for this essay to analyse 'remix culture' recycle and remix digital media and collage. Their artworks act as a protest in themselves by demonstrating a literal rebellion in order to push the boundaries of the dominate society and pre-set cultures.

For my first artwork I looked at Martha Rosler's Photo Op from the series: Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful (2004). Rosler created series of collages that questions the social and political lines set in society. In the particular image I'm looking at: Photo Op she recycles an idea she created in the 1970s, during the Vietnam War. Rosler took images from the advertising sections in 'Life' magazine and then created collages with war correspondent photographs taken from the same magazine. Using collage as remixing method, she borrows and hacks from 'Life' magazine to create her own message. McKenzie Wark’s The Hacker Manifesto (2004) reiterates that: “To hack is to express knowledge in any of its forms” (070), here Rosler takes the form of the artist and audience. In 'Photo op' she continues this meshing of ideologies and culture viewpoints from 'Life' to create a unique meaning but brings the history forwards using images from the Iraq war. The contrasting elements within the pictures, lies with the hyperreal image of a typical model used in the noughties: blonde, thin and in small clothing, her body is also doubled, making her physical presence reiterated. She is holding a mobile phone which acts as the signifier of modern technology. Rosler uses this symbol of the mobile to contrast the other piece of modern technology in the background where the soldiers hold machine guns, symbolic in a completely different context. She stands in the foreground of the image while in the background dead children lie slumped on the designer furniture from the advertisement. Behind the windows, a big explosion is visually represented; this juxtaposition holds its place as a metaphor for the audience of 'Life' magazine and the reality in the Middle East. Rosler uses complex layering in order to convey a complex message. During 2004, the war is something promoted yet Rosler asks the question about its place in our culture and highlights what comes at a greater importance- the obsession the west has with appearances, glamour and technology. Rosler uses ‘remix culture’ borrowing culture and hacking from media. The subordinate is represented into the main picture presenting an important message through remixing mediums and overlapping culture.

Billy Maynard creates an expressive reaction to protest with his Blue Sky Period (2009). Maynard's work closely relates to the question of ‘remix culture’ using 'hacking' from protests and demonstrations from around the world within his work. Maynard also borrows concepts in artwork already used. Like Martha Rosler's work is recycled pages from 'Life' magazine to present a critical message of society, Maynard 'borrows' from the riots to create a piece of art that makes a statement about our society and culture. The shock value from Blue Sky Period comes from the volume of pictures: 2500 in total, all pocket sized and blue. These photographs represent an individual’s offer to protest, they are tokens for a part of humans that will rebel when pushed too far in a constraining society and each person represented in the photographs. All of Maynard’s photographs are original photographs hacked from life, the new photographs were taken from found images. The medium and the process Maynard went through to create these images reflects struggle within cultures as Maynard had to manipulate his medium before creating his own original piece. He took the found images and then turned them into negatives, before printing them onto cyanotype paper, typically used by architects “Blue Prints” of society.  As Lev Manovich emphasises in his article “What Comes After Remix Theory?” the aesthetic value of an image can be reworked with remixing and the cross over effect of modification is more about the transferring of signs to build on a pre-existing message (Manovich, 2007).

Sharon Hayes’ Revolutionary Love: I am your worst fear, I am your best fantasy (2008) exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW (“See you at the barricades” 2015), is a recycled piece of work drawing from the protest in 2008 to protest the treatment of gay rights[1]. The exhibition is informed from the past and the spirit of the protest is displayed in the exhibition room, using modern technological mediums. Hayes uses multidisciplinary practice in her exhibition amplifying the remix theory. The multiple screens and speakers portray a protest, making her work not just about recycling a concept or theory as such is the nature of protest artwork. Hayes has remixed and recycled mediums to make a work that represents the protest that was independent from the art work but also previous forms of protest art such as Pablo Picasso's Guernica which protested the Spanish civil war during the cultural period of modernity. Whereas Picasso uses multiple layering in a two-dimensional canvas to display his personal reaction to the war, Hayes uses multiple layering with screens and sound to fully immerse the audience in the protest. As evident in both of the artworks the signs and symbols are overwhelmingly presented, as the artists offer their own interpretation of culture in its context. Hayes' exhibition acts as documentation and artwork protesting the intangible war for the queer movement. 

'Remix culture' is evident here as it continues to amplify the mixed cultural audience and also the method in which it draws on the past. The protest documented in Revolutionary Love (2008) is a modern example of protesting and resisting the set forms of culture but also draws on protests from the 1970's through to now. Navas theory is inherently present here as nothing is original, yet unique in its manipulation.

Roland Barthes message in The Death of the Author, is evident in the works throughout this essay as the creators role has changed and merged as they are an individual audience even as a creator (Barthes, 1968). Martha Rosler is the audience to the 'Life' magazine and yet the creator to the same images she is the audience to. Culture changed as we entered into the later part of the 20th century, perceptions about the role of the individual and as a community was explored through art works and media. The power was shifted to the people; Sharon Hayes particularly explores the power of the protest and Billy Maynard points to the individual’s role within civil disobedience. Stuart Hill from The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies introduces the roles of encoders and decoders; Hill is saying that the audience is just as important as the creator as they come away with multiple meanings that may be influenced by various subcultures (Hill, 1973). You can see this perception throughout all the artworks. They are all at the perception of the audience. What may be high culture art to one may also be a reflection of popular culture and the exploration of rights, class, sexuality and war to another. It is this blend, "remix", of cultures that displays how nothing is really exempt from remix culture.  

[1] More information on the protest are articulated perfectly by Tanya Leighton on her website, the protest stands by itself as an important performance but the signified messages and symbols within the exhibition are what I’m looking at in the essay. (Leighton, 2009))

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