Remix: A critical analysis of allegory, intertexuality, and sampling in art, music, and media

In my dissertation I analyze the different forms that the act of remixing has taken across culture. I argue that Remix, as a form of discourse, affects culture in ways that go beyond the basic recombination of material. The dissertation analyzes remixing across a number of areas of culture including art, music, and digital media.;Chapter One, "Remix[ing] Sampling," locates the roots of Remix in early forms of mechanical reproduction. I outline seven stages beginning in the nineteenth century with the development of the photo camera and the phonograph that lead up to the current remix culture, and evaluate how recorded material redefines concepts of representation. Chapter Two, "Remix[ing] Music," discusses the rise of Remix in music, and in particular the roles played by various musicians in dub culture, including King Tubby and Massive Attack. Chapter Three "Remix[ing] Theory" further analyzes remixing in music in the 1970s and then looks at how remix, as discourse, moves into art and media. The chapter discusses a number of examples including works by turntablist Grandmaster Flash and artist Sherrie Levine among others. In Chapter Four, "Remix[ing] Art" I show how principles of sampling share strategies of appropriation with conceptual art, minimalism and performance art. I also examine new media works by various artists including MTAA and Antonio Muntadas. Chapter Five, "Remix[ing] Media" defines Remix in relation to the concept of the avant-garde, and shows how media at the beginning of the twenty-first century remixes ideologies and practices that in the past were considered incompatible.