[csaa-forum] CFP: 'remix' issue of Media Culture

[Katharina Freund]

Call for Papers: 'remix'

>From mash-ups to the meme factory, 'remix', originally referring to practices in 1970s dance music, now denotes entire swathes of the everyday cultural landscape. Online environments tend to render local, fannish, and 'amateur' forms of cultural production (frequently drawing on 'Big Content') increasingly visible - sometimes to the apparent detriment of these local forms of creativity. Periodically, the issues involved in adjudicating contested models of ownership and production are highlighted in the courts in terms of copyright infringement. Across audio, televisual, cinematic, textual, and other forms, proprietary models of cultural production now face challenges with respect to controlling and monetising content tailored for mass audiences.

A measure of success for such content is the extent to which it is adapted and re-used by vernacular cultures - sometimes almost immediately. Such re-use, in turn, has been understood both as innovative appropriation and critical intervention in the flow of cultural goods, and as unpaid labour, further raising the value of material that is already ubiquitous in an attention economy sense.

This issue of M/C Journal addresses the range of cultural practices characterised by remix, and the social, cultural, aesthetic, and legal contexts in which they operate. Areas for consideration include, but are not limited to:

  *   Interrogating the boundaries of remix: when did remix 'start'? What of homage, pastiche, and the cover version? How are the boundaries between reference and appropriation established, and to what ends?

  *   Architectures and infrastructures of remix production and distribution: cracked software, Youtube, SoundCloud, peer-to-peer

  *   The norms, aesthetics and interactions of remix communities of practice

  *   Formats, code, and the role of the medium in remix

  *   Fan vidding, trailer mashups, anime music videos, and machinima

  *   Fanfiction, slash and textual innovation

  *   Music sampling, DJ and producer cultures and aesthetics

  *   Retro, revival, nostalgia, and the affect of remix

  *   Remix playbour in the social factory

  *   Originality, plagiarism, derivative work and the ethics of appropriation

  *   Copyright strike, corporate power, and the legal contexts of remix

  *   Fair use, open content licensing and other intellectual property doctrines

  *   Brandalism, copytheft, and cultural activism

Prospective contributors should email an abstract of 100-250 words and a brief biography to the issue editors. Abstracts should include the article title and should describe your research question, approach, and argument. Biographies should be about three sentences (maximum 75 words) and should include your institutional affiliation and research interests. Articles should be 3000 words (plus bibliography). All articles will be refereed and must adhere to MLA style (6th edition).

Details

  *   Abstract deadline: 1 March 2013
  *   Article deadline: 21 June 2013
  *   Release date: 21 Aug. 2013
  *   Editors: Andrew Whelan and Katharina Freund

Please submit articles through the journal website: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal. Send any enquiries to remix at journal.media-culture.org.au<mailto:remix at journal.media-culture.org.au>.


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