Remixing Art

Pixiv is a Japanese online community for artists to share their works. It involves a free membership to be able to post and explore the range of works. It is protected under these terms, which state that work can not be reposted.  Even though this is stated there is still on blogging website Tumblr, that involves taking these images uploaded on Pixiv and editing them. Here is an example.

When Glitch Art was explained in today’s lecture as a form of “show[ing] how destruction can change into the creation of something original.” [1] There is no debate where that with the use of cropping, colour saturation and minimal animations these edits implore are turning the original art into something new. The new work however is not something that necessary needs to be presented with the original and many think this is not an acceptable form of remixing. To explore this further Menkman as an example compels us to believe the glitch was something usually associated with rejection, and only when mixed with original art was it able to be “understood as a new representation or new language.” This could be said of Tumblr edits as when contrasting them with the original art form a new story can be told; for instance the art above has been edited to create a more somber and emotive effect. However these edits are usually made to create a desired aesthetic to match their blogs, resulting in many other users feeling like this is a shallow reason for the use of remixing and that the art should be left untouched.

It’s hard to say if this is an appropriate form of remixing or not because while it does produce a new way of understanding a image it’s done in a way that breaks certain laws and for an affect some may consider childish or shallow. Is this something that should be done with permission in order for it to be acceptable or is there still no real reason for it to occur.

Here is some further reading into Tumblr users who find this remixing problematic.
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[1]  Menkman, in 2011, Video Vortex Reader 2, p. 341