World’s Fair Use Day
In early January, Jonathan and I were invited to speak on a panel at World’s Fair Use Day in Washington, DC to provide the perspective of artists who use copyrighted material in their work. Our panel followed Congressman Mike Doyle’s (D-Penn) keynote address on defending Fair Use against ongoing attacks from corporate media interests. It was also a great opportunity to chat with our friends, Mark Hosler from Negativeland and Dan Walsh from Garfield Minus Garfield.
It was the very end of a long day when we were pleasantly reminded of these two remixes brought to our attention by cultural critic Mark Dery, who coined and popularized the term Culture Jamming:
Scary Mary, created by MovieMker, remixes Mary Poppins into a horror film. It is not overtly political but it is a fun example of how additive text and a new soundtrack can turn the carefully crafted Disney-fied world on it’s head.
It’s Raining Men is a simple yet articulate comment on the prevalence of men (and scantly clad ones at that) in the movie 300. Suburbala paired the film’s footage with the famous song by the same name, queering the gaze of the Trogans and satirizing their hyper-masculinity to reveal the homoerotic subtext of the movie.
For more on the one-day conference hosted by Public Knowledge, check out the web-cast from the First Annual World’s Fair Use Day.
Category: About Remixing
