See here for more info on the grant.
Introduction
After the success of Remix Reading (www.remixreading.org), an artistic project based in Reading, UK, we want to bring the Remix Project to Brighton. Remix Reading gained local, national and online press coverage for its launch event and Remix Competition (see http://www.remixreading.org/node/362 or attached press cuttings). Hundreds of artists have used Remix Reading, both to upload their own work and to remix others artistic creations (see http://www.remixreading.org/remixes for remixes). Local artists have worked together in new and innovative ways, both online and at live events. Remix Brighton will bring all of this and more to Brighton.
What is Remix Reading?
Remix Reading (www.remixreading.org) already helps local artists (working with music, text, video and images) to come together and share their work, be inspired by each others work, create remixes and perform or exhibit them in Reading. All material is released under a Creative Commons license, which allows artists to customise their copyright so others can use, copy, and share their work as they choose.
The Creative Commons licenses specifically give artists the following rights:
- The right to download, play and copy the file as much as they like
- The right to "remix" the work unrestricted
- The right to redistribute remixes for non-commercial purposes
- The right for artists to be attributed
Artists are also able to choose specific license options such as whether or not other people can make commercial use of their work or from subsequent remixes.
Why we want to promote remixing?
The basic contention of Remix Brighton and Remix Reading is that culture is about more than consuming. Take, for example, the most basic form of culture - story telling. Consider when you talk about what you have seen on TV, you constantly "distribute" (share) and "remix" (change) culture. Just by joking about a bad film you saw, you are deriving your conversation from that work. In other words, remixing culture is something we do naturally in any community.
However, if you sample copyrighted music or video you are not allowed to distribute it without paying huge licensing fees to the author. One young film-maker from London recently made the Cannes shortlist on a budget of £124, but because it included background music from his bedroom, to distribute it would cost him £230,000! Compare this to written works, where you can copy whole chunks of text so long as you cite the author, and it seems insane.
Remix Brighton would get around this issue and empower people to produce, be inspired by, or just consume artwork in a vibrant social network with no unfair restrictions on entry or use.
How it will work?
Remix Brighton would be based around events held in Brighton and a web site.
The web site would be similar to www.remixreading.org, which allows artists to register and upload their work. They can specify the license for each piece of work, and categorise it. If an artist remixes a piece of work on the web site, they can then connect their piece to the "source" piece, showing visitors how they have developed their work. In this way, artists can find lots of art that they can work with and they can put their remixes back into the community. It will also be linked to Remix Reading, allowing Brighton-based artists to make use of Reading artists' work, and vice versa.
However, rather than just having a cyber-community of artists, we want to help create a real-world local community of artists working together. We would like to press CDs, host art exhibitions and have film screenings and concerts of the work created through Remix Brighton. These activities will be based in Brighton and we will work in partnership with local artists, colleges, businesses, and the council to secure promotion, gigs, exhibitions, etc. Remix Brighton would also be supported by LOCA Records (www.locarecords.com), a Brighton based record label that releases all of its music under Creative Commons licenses. Our connection with LOCA Records is already established, and they have made many valuable contributions to Remix Reading.
Who we are
The main project partners of Remix Brighton are very experienced in working with artists of all kinds and organising events (see enclosed CV's for more info).
Edward Griffith-Jones, Project Lead, co-founded Remix Reading. Edward will be living permanently in Brighton and will bring a wealth of experience on copyright, organising volunteers, putting together local events and working with the press. Edward has worked as national press officer for the Green Party for 3 months as well as writing and editing articles for student, local and national papers. He has also organised various events, from a fundraiser on World AIDS Day 2003 which raised £2,500 to a day festival in Reading, which combined live music, art, circus, campaigning groups and talks.
Tom Chance, consultant and code contributor, is the project lead of Remix Reading. He will coordinate the web work and lend his experience to ensuring that Remix Brighton is as successful as Remix Reading. He has also been involved in web communities, including Creative Commons and other large projects, for over five years and brings a wealth of knowledge and contacts needed for the technical and legal sides of the project.
David Berry (please add your description)
Marcus McCallion (please add your description)
Peter Bennett? (please add your description)
Nami Strack, Artist Relations, created SayWhat! Radio (see http://www.saywhat-campradio.de/) in Berlin. She currently studies "Sound Design" at the University of Brighton, where she produces and works with artists of all kinds. From writing and mixing her own Hip Hop music to having a plethora of European-wide contacts, Nami will help us bring Remix Brighton to local artists.
Remix Brighton would also be assisted by the existing Remix Reading team (see http://www.remixreading.org/learn/partners )
Making it happen
We already have www.remixreading.org up and running. This has only been possible because of the large amount of time and money that we (web-designers, graphic-designers, writers, co-ordinators, etc) have voluntarily dedicated to the project.
Remix Brighton, would be able to build upon all of the code and design that we have already created for Remix Reading. However, we will need funding for our programmers and designers to improve and port the site to Brighton.
The web-space and bandwidth (which would otherwise potentially cost thousands) will also be provided for free by Positive Internet and ibiblio.org(??? who will host us? - Positive Internet look likely, but not certain), because they believe in supporting progressive schemes.
The web-site will continue to be maintained regularly by our core web-design team. As all of the code for the web-site is open, anyone with programming skills can potentially help us, and with more publicity we hope that more open source programmers in Brighton will do so.
We are planning a launch event for (??? we need to cost several events, including a launch event, into our budget.???), where we will showcase artwork already on the web site. We are in the process of booking some musicians for the launch party, and putting together the materials for a press conference to be held earlier in the day.
The events side of the project would continue over the course of 2005. We would try to book a variety of venues and showcase a variety of styles and kinds of artists. Artists would be paid using both money recieved through funding and money made at live events. Our experience in organising these kinds of events, together with the support of local venues and arts organisations, should ensure their success.
Alongside this, we would be working on promotion of the project to ensure take-up by the wider Brighton community. We already have artists willing to work on the designs, and would have the first batches of promotional materials printed in time for the launch of Remix Brighton. In the future we would continue to distribute the materials throughout Brighton with the help of local arts organisations and volunteers.
Testimonies from artists that use Remix Reading
Rob Myers (http://www.remixreading.org/user/18):
"Remix Reading has helped me to advance my work creatively and professionally. Despite releasing art under a Creative Commons license from the end of 2003, it was not until I joined Remix Reading at the end of 2004 that my work was first remixed and I found images to use as source material in return.
"My engagement with free culture and free software (both factors in Remix Reading) was a major factor in securing me a solo show in Belgrade, scheduled for the end of July 2005. Work based on art from Remix Reading was also amongst the materials I submitted to the British council in a successful application for funding for this show."
Roland Chadwick (http://www.remixreading.org/user/137/view and http://www.rolandchadwick.com/) - professional musician, guitarist and composer who releases commercial CDs - speech taken from Remix Reading Press Conference:
"I've put two tracks from each of my CDs onto Remix Reading for possible reuse in remixes for several reasons. Firstly for the exposure. Remix Reading is another way to get my music heard by a broader community. It helps me get my music out to as many people as possible.
"Secondly, it's the internet equivalent of the single. Nobody makes any money out of singles - it's a promotional tool. Singles were originally used as a promotional tool for sheet music - people were interested in selling the sheet music rather than the singles! So I'm not interested in selling singles, but albums. I put some of my songs on Remix Reading as a way of promoting my albums as a whole. From the site, people can go to my website and buy the albums that I produce.
"Thirdly, acting in the spirit of English collaboration, great and mainstream art in this country - from Gilbert and Sullivan to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger - has always been a collaborative effort. As a composer I like to think that my music comes out perfectly formed as the definitive statement of an idea. But I find that this just isn't the case. I come up with a melodic idea and fashion it to a piece of music. However, I find if someone else takes hold of that piece of music, they can do something equally as valid with that idea. If someone takes something that I've created and adds to it, and makes it something bigger, I think that's really exciting. I'm really excited to see what other people can do with my stuff.
"I also write in a particular set of styles, with a particular personality. So as a musician I have a personality that comes out in the different music that I create. But I'm not operating in styles like dance or indie music or punk or anything like that. I'll be really fascinated to see what a punk musician did with my mandolin concerto.
"Fourthly, I've liscensed my music on Remix Reading with the idea that if the person remixing it wants to release it commercially, then we have to do a deal. It's actually another way of expanding my income base because if some 16 year old comes along and does something with my stuff and it goes through the roof, I could make some money from it.
"My last point is to do with originality. Originality is a myth. There is almost no such thing as originality. What happens is that a new human being will come along and take the influences from the past and rejig them. They come out in a different way. Einstein wasn't original - he took ideas that were around at the time and put them together in a whole new way. Freud was the same - he didn't discover the unconscious. The unconscious has been around for millenia. But Freud described it in a new way. That's the only thing you can say is original.
"When I come up with a tune I own the copyright. But that's kind of weird because all of these other influences have gone into making that tune, filtered through my personality. So in essence, there is no difference between me having subconscious influences which become manifest in a piece of music that I write, and me taking music from another source and adding that to a piece of music that I am creating. It's virtually the same sort of process. One is in hardware, the other's in the unconscious."
When a track of Roland's music was remixed by Flantasize, he had this reaction:
Congratulations on Flantasize! I want to do this as an acoustic guitar song. It's great! Can you put me in direct contact with Flantasize?
Reactions by other Remix Reading users:
barrycahill used a track by bengosling in a video remix. Bengosling's reaction was:
“this is brilliant! quite exciting to hear my music on something as well! look forward to seeing what else you post”
mattlyne remixed a music track by maxbondi. Maxbondi's response was:
“hey matt, max here, really like the remix... retained the original sound of the piece but definitely developed it in new ways... how about posting some of your music for me to have a play with??”
Evaluation
All of our Remix Reading project partners attend regular meetings to plan future events and generate new ideas. There are also two emailing lists for Remix Reading development (one for technical issues and another for general project ideas). We would set up similar meetings and mailing lists for Remix Brighton. We would continue evaluating the project and taking on board ideas not only from the main Remix Brighton team but from the general public. It would be easy to evaluate how successful Remix Brighton is because we could measure the use of the web-site and the attendance of any events that we hold.