Basically, I needed to take this class to fulfill the "Arts & Humanities" core requirement for Honors. I thought it sounded like a fun topic in an area I had never explored before, so I decided to enroll.
However, this class has easily been one of the my favorite Honors classes at UW. While the initial course description kind of sounded like it was grasping at straws to make interdisciplinary connections, I found myself fascinated by the readings and discussions we had. This class stretched my thinking a lot about what creativity means, and how ingenuity is usually just the remix of previous ideas: we're remixing all the time by learning old information and synthesizing it into something new. We also grappled with the idea of copyright and the old laws surrounding it, and how it has become a tool to stifle creativity and restrict further innovation.
Beyond that, we talked a lot about culture jamming, which is in general trying to use the messages/media society traditionally uses to market to us (like commercials) against them. Using audio/video remixes to take songs/footage related to the message you want, and trying to convey that message either directly or through parody, is what the class emphasized. I got to take this class with a lot of cool students who are progressive like me, and fed-up with the way society has been run through sexism, racism, consumerism, violence, classism, and overall prejudice.
Overall, the class was a pleasant surprise for me. It helped me to see remix in all its forms (political, fan fiction, musical, satirical, etc.) as a valuable tool for self-expression and resisting repressive cultural norms, rather than just the practice of scratching records on a DJ table.
This is the first remix I made, titled "Stick it to the Trump", which takes the instrumentals from the song "Stick it to the Man" from Broadway's School of Rock. I picked this song because as I was listening to my Spotify walking on campus, I found this song inspired the most rebellious spirit in me, and I wanted to capture this feeling in my remix. I chose to go for the low-hanging fruit of Trump, and to focus on his hypocritical insistence on "supporting" the LGBTQ+ community. This has been proven time and time again to be a lie he told, but I narrowed in on the issue of preventing transgender people from serving in the military. The image is just the one I picked to put up so YouTube would let me upload the audio.
I listen to this and I do cringe a lot, because the smoothness of the transitions between different audio sources is pretty jumpy, but I'm still really proud of this. I had never done any kind of audio editing before, so this was a new area for me and I think I was able to create a presentable remix. Beyond that, I loved the feeling it gave me, that I was entering the discourse of resistance with my own contribution and self-expression. It felt satisfying to be able to use different audio samples to convey my message.
This is my second-remix, titled "Time's Up". This time, I Incorporated video editing into my remix. When I heard Oprah’s acceptance speech, I knew I wanted to make a remix about it to protest the systemic sexual harassment against women. Although I initially wanted to use more speakers, I found that both clips contained a lot of heart, and it would be a disservice to shorten their messages too much. The remix is meant to be a rallying cry for feminists, both men and women, who want to make a change in the world and stop the sexual abuse of women. The background beat comes in and out at different times to emphasize gut-wrenching moments, but it picks up again to represent the perseverance of strong women. I put in photos of different women’s marches around the world during the lulls, to convey the power the community brings. I try to end the remix on a positive note, to encourage listeners to actively work to make the dream of equality a reality.
I loved making this remix as well, because it was a lot more empowering than my last one. I think I was able to use the audio in combination with the images to convey the message I wanted, and I really enjoyed showing my classmates this remix for my final. One interesting thing that happened was another student in my class made a remix of Oprah's speech, but took sort of the opposite side of the issue: she highlighted how the Time's Up movement in Hollywood has a tendency to just be joined out of convenience, and although all these celebrities pledge their support, the industry continues to award abusers/bystanders with awards and accolades. I liked how we were able to take the same content and create two different interpretations, and the discussion that resulted from that was very insightful for me.
My third remix, titled "Company Values", was done with the intent of making a "subvertisement". This means the ad is meant to use the same marketing techniques we see everyday and twist them in a satirical or backwards way, in order to comment on consumer culture. I’m critiquing the modern-day trend of associating brands with common values, even when those virtues have little or nothing to do with the company’s products or purposes. I included as many generic values and related images as I could think of, in order to set up juxtaposition with that twist ending when the actual company is revealed, because the company is not really related to any of the aforementioned values. The intended effect is for the audience to see just how generic a formula advertising companies use to showcase corporate giants, and how we’ve started to simply be mesmerized by the brands around us.
This remix was probably the most fun to make, because it was taking a less serious topic and making fun of it. Plus, I got to add in my own voice in to the background as the narrator, which I had really wanted to do at some point in one of my remixes. I liked showing this to my classmates because they found it funny, but they also saw where I was coming from. My favorite part was when my teacher didn't know what Ashley Madison was, and the class had to explain this adultery website to him.
My final remix is titled "Insanity", from the definition I've heard before: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". With the recent Parkland shooting, gun control was on everyone's minds, and I wanted to capture those intense emotions while also using a bit of humor, because my last remix made me realize that making people laugh while they think is a lot more fulfilling for me as a bit of a jokester.
A lot of the conversation that goes around in this country is very repetitive: something bad happens, we mourn for a while, but we change nothing. I wanted to capture that tragic loop in the remix, by using an annoyingly repetitive song to symbolize how annoyingly repetitive things have become in regards to mass shootings: people are killed, we send thoughts and prayers, and don’t do anything to prevent the inevitable next shooting. The song is very happy, and creates a strong dissonance/juxtaposition with the subject matter displayed on the screen, of various US school shootings over the years. The speaker in the song represents all the people who are fed up with gun violence, and are simply shocked how this keeps happening again and again. I wanted to talk about how the 2nd amendment was made at the founding of our country for a valid reason and when we had super slow hand guns, and how now with assault rifles and no invading government the amendment has lost its applicability to modern day society. The remix is meant to stir up anger in Americans, and make them realize that the rules we lived by more than two centuries ago should not be the same ones we live by today.
This remix was very annoying to make because of the song, and the fact that I looked weird in the school library Googling images of school shootings, but I feel very proud of this one in particular. My family was very supportive of this remix, because it touches on the topic well while also balancing that "humorous" aspect of the remix. This is a topic I feel very passionately about, and creating this remix was a great way to articulate my feelings using audio and video.