An Accessory to the Machine

Halloween is the ultimate day of remixing!

While reading the Manovich reading and listening to our class talks it dawned on me that Halloween is a great example of how we have taken old and new material and used it to take an image and either replicate or add our own spin onto it. Like Manovich described with the process of changing the VCR to Windows Media Player, we are continually 'sampling and morphing' characters, superheroes, celebrities, objects, etc. into a modern take on how we perceive that given original source.

This article also poses the essential question of is or can anything ever be original. He used on example an "artist taking a material approach" like people did on Halloween, "and supporting the romantic ideal. He compares this artist to God creating the universe. First of all that's a really drastic statement, religion aside, and secondly when can we ever start with a blank canvas and material. Every material is a source and thus ever source is a means in which we are able to create something different from it. At what point to we draw the line between what we are completely changing with leaving a small component of its originality which will make it Remixing?

In this day and age it is much easier to see how we remix material because so much of it is "copy and paste", which makes me think are we going to continue to get farther and farther from 'originality' or will the definition of originality change and adapt with society? Can we start with a blank canvas and even then will the things that populate this canvas be of a truly original source. These are very interesting questions which are and will be challenged the further we become, "an accessory to the machine".