Remix and Remixability

Recollect was the name of my AUT Digital Design honours project (completed at the end of 2012). When I was thinking of a title for this blog, it seemed suitable for the material I want to gather here. Repurposing was a big part of the remix methodology used in my project, so it’s fitting to re-use the title.

Screen grab from opening scene of Recollect. © Zak Waipara 2012.

My project Recollect: Remix and Remixability was created from unused self-sampled illustrations, remixed into a series of motion graphics.

The term remix, borrowed from musical sampling, can be applied to all forms of visual media as new media theorist Lev Manovich has done. He expanded on remix by coining the term ‘deep remixability’: not simply the addition of content or techniques, but the creation of a new hybrid visual language.

Recollect used the language of deep remixability, in order to better understand it. It was a proof of concept into the possibilities of using remix to create a seamless collection of short motion graphics experiments linked by a central spine. A discovery that emerged from the project was that the remix process can be a really useful improvisational creative methodology for the digital media practitioner. I plan to apply this methodology in a different way in my Masters research this year... more on that later.