Is it research or is it fun? why not both?

Following the trail of serendipity leads to amazing things! (I will be using some of this material in a class next semester.)


Checked out The Chutry Experiment where Prof Chuck Tryon blogs about film and new media, and found a link to an inspired remix showing McCain's links to his political friends (see this video about remixing) "My Friends, the Musical", by an extremely skilled video remixer who posts at the YouTube channel Humanitainment.
I love the way the remix makes its points with verbal and visual puns on "my friends" and a wicked sense of humor.
This link then led me to a site that promotes and houses video remixes, RemixAmerica.org. What a find! not just for the entertaining and thought-provoking remixes, but also becaue the site provides you with the means to make and post your own! I'm going to try it out later. Here is how RemixAmerica describes itself on their About page:

RemixAmerica.org is a multi-partisan, non-profit website that uses digital technology to give everyone the chance to own the words, the music, the images and sounds of America in digital form; to remix those expressions and ideas with their own; and to send the products of our community's creativity out to the world... where others will come back to us and start it all over again...

Poking around, I came across this absolutely superb remix of STYCYD judging and the presidential debates. For those of us who watched STYCD faithfully, it's fun as hell to see the judges comments repurposed this way. What I especially like is that the message the judges give the two candidates is that they have to listen to the audience. It's a great way to show how reality TV, even as a crass money-making operation, also allows for 'talk-back' from the viewers. More to the political point, for those of us who are frustrated at some of Obama's less-than-audacious positions, this vid gives a refreshing critique of his positions on "clean coal" and saber-rattling in Afghanistan. So I checked out the site of the remixer, Rebellious Pixels, and discovered the site of activist, photographer, videographer and busy, busy guy Jonathan McIntosh.
He just posted about his presentation at a New Media conference called Ars Electronica in Austria. (Note to self: listen to the talk!)

His remix playlist, the material he presented in his talk, is here (thanks, Jonathan, for your generosity in posting all this!)

For future reflection: when people take copyrighted footage and repurpose it for parody, political commentary, or just for fun, what are the issues of Fair Use that come up? The Center for Social Media at American University has a blog where people are talking about this and other issues related to this emerging phenomenon of Web 2.0 creativity, citizen journalism and activism, and collective intelligence.

There is a lot to reread and digest. here. A final note: a Google search on McIntosh led me to El Oso's (David Sasaki) work; he was the Latin American editor of Global Voices Online, one of my favorite blog portals, and now he is dedicating himself to outreach through Rising Voices Awesome!