matt:littlemore

‘If, as expected, the volume of digital content will increase 10x to 100x over the next 3 to 5 years then we are on the verge of a “big bang” in the communications industry that will provide the UK with enormous economic and industrial opportunities.’
The ‘Digital Britain’ white paper will among other things give Ofcom more responsibility to detect copyright infringement in the digital age. Perhaps about time some new rules are made, still a delicate balance between the protection of intellectual property and space allowed for individuals to express and grow creatively needs to be struck.
Chapters 4 (Creative Industries in the Digital World) 6 (Research, Education and Skills) and 7 (Digital Security and Safety) will be particularly interesting, but it is well worth checking out your rights and restrictions regarding the creation of any digital content.

Info on the Digital Economy Bill

Search for www.culture.gov.uk/images/…/digitalbritain-finalreport-jun09.pdf to view the White Paper

The era of the digital native has brought about the rise of a new generation of digital media producers who are often free from the constraints of artistic convention and legal consideration. The new guerrilla media revival utilizing experimental media as resistance, parody and subversion is alive and thriving in the digital world. The result is some daring creative experimentation with narrative and form, fresh artistic visions largely unaware of but rooted in the avant-garde tradition. In his book exploring the social and cultural contexts of subversive cinema ‘Film as a Subversive Art’ (1974) Amos Vogel says:

The avant-garde offers no solutions or programmatic statements, but a series of intricate challenges, hints and coded messages, subverting both form and content. in this fundamental sense, it is by definition an aesthetic and a political movement… In its works, film is sacked, atomized, caressed and possessed in a frenzy of passionate love.

The description lends itself comfortably to the ideals of the YouTube ‘Vidders’ and remixers. A large proportion of YouTube content is made of ‘fanvids’ which although have a flagrant disregard for intellectual property and copyright law are generally a celebration of pop culture which are intended as a display of appreciation for a particular band, artist or celebrity to share with other fans. Rather than subversion they see their work as adding value to the site, acknowledging credit to the creators of video and music and as there is no profit to be made consider the results free advertising for their favorite artists. Some artists react positively to the exposure, realising the videos may actually create more sales. As the players in the remix culture use ‘found’ materials (sharing a lineage to Marcel Duchamp and the surrealists who used and repurposed found objects) they often skirt copyright laws, the interference from the corporations who own the material only serving to make them more savvy to use clever workarounds to confuse the censors and bots which detect infringements.

The use of social networking and new forms of digital communication has allowed people to become participants in an organic production and consumption cycle, using the relatively anonymous platform for creative expression and resistance – the success or failure of their work to be judged by their peers. With the availability of easily obtained music and video archives, remix aesthetics, blogs and web 2.0 new styles and formulas are quickly played out, imitated and subsequently devalued and replaced more quickly than ever before. In this way, the unnamed guerrilla artist is reshaping the very visual culture of new digital media and directly challenges the ideological and political power of mainstream media. In the 1971 book ‘Guerrilla television’ Michael Shamberg and the Raindance Media Collective say

Community video will be subversive to any group, bureaucracy or individual which feels threatened by a coalescing of grassroots consciousness… it puts people in touch with one another about common grievances.

As we enter the increasingly global, mobile and interactive digital age, so the social impact of new media becomes ever more important. Becoming part of everyday activity much earlier in life than print literacy of previous generations, parents of the first generation of ‘Digital Natives’ (John Palfrey & Urs Gasser) will probably struggle to keep up with the ever changing face of social media while those kids ‘Born Digital’ will continue to shape the future of our culture, economy, politics and social roles in the global digital world. Media literacy is essential to promote the analysis and production of various texts & media through greater access to information and the tools required to produce them. Whilst it is important to teach the foundations of new media within education systems, it is out of the classroom where students will produce, distribute and critique the cultural pieces they create through global open source networks. The freedom of expression that has been unlocked is not without its potential pitfalls and brings along new concerns of safety & legality but as is already evident will feed the tidal wave of inventive creativity which will change the way we experience art, music & life.
In ‘On Photography’ Susan Sontag describes the transformation of the photograph through industrialization -

“That age when taking photographs required a cumbersome and expensive contraption – the toy of the clever, the wealthy and the obsessed – seems remote indeed from the era of sleek pocket cameras that invite anyone to take pictures. The first cameras, made in France and England in the early 1840s had only inventors and buffs to operate them. Since there were no professional photographers, there could not be amateurs either, and taking photographs had no clear social use; it was gratuitous, that is an artistic activity, though with few pretensions to being an art. It was only with its industrialization that photography came into its own as art. as industrialization provided social uses for the operations of the photographer, so the reaction against these uses reinforced the self-consciousness of photography-as-art.”

Parallels can be drawn with the domestication of digital media – no longer the specialized knowledge of the academic or wealthy and increasingly open source resulting in the snowball effect of creativity and skill of the ‘amateur’. Interactive social communities and Web 2.0 sites allow content to evolve to that which the users want to experience. This in turn changes social consciousness as the consumer becomes more than a viewer – producer, critic and collectively, content editor.

Read New Guerrilla Media