Remixing Pop Culture Event in LA at CSUN
I will be presenting the Political Remix Video portion of the Remixing Pop Culture event on Thursday March 25, 12:30pm at California State University, Northridge in LA. Together with vidders Julie Levin Russo and Alexis Lothian, we will be screening some of the most intriguing remix videos & fan vids that subvert traditional gender and sexuality norms. The program will be followed by a Q&A with all the curators. The event is hosted by Anita Sarkeesian of FeministFrequency.com (Special thanks to Laura Shapiro for consulting). Check out the facebook event page for all the details!
NPR Piece on Fair Use and Buffy vs Edward
Last month while speaking at the World’s Fair Use Day in Washington DC I was interviewed for this NPR radio piece about fair-use and remix. They get bonus points in my book for mentioning that Buffy vs Edward is a pro-feminist critique of the Twilight franchise – Plus NPR reporter Joel Rose takes advantage of fair-use himself and uses my remixed audio clip of Buffy dusting Edward for the end of his segment.
Here is a direct link to the NPR radio story with transcript:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123684026
Remix Goes Mainstream Panel at SxSW 2010
This March I will be speaking on a panel at SxSW entitled Remix Goes Mainstream: Making Mashups Pay. The South by Southwest media festival happens every year in Austin Texas and I’m excited to be a part of it this time around. The Making Mashups Pay panel is scheduled for Sunday, March 14 at 3:30pm – it should prove to be an interesting and lively conversation moderated by Patricia Aufderheide from the Center for Social Media. I will be focusing my comments on some of the more indirect benefits I get from my video remixing projects as opposed to any direct monetary gain like ad revenue which I do not get from of my work.
Below is the official SxSW panel description:
Remix, mashup, compilation, clip job, footage art: it’s what doc filmmakers and online video artists do from 102 Minutes that Changed America to Moral Kombat to Los Angeles Plays Itself to Buffy v. Edward. But how do they make money, get distribution and stay legal?
Total Recut Interview on Buffy vs Edward
A couple weeks ago I was interviewed via skype by video mash-up artist ikat381 for the remixing website Total Recut. We discussed my Buffy vs Edward remix, the importance and influence of fannish vidding and the greater cultural value of remix video. I’m cross posting the full interview below – here is a link to the original post on Total Recut.
Total Recut: What did you want to accomplish with Buffy vs Edward?
Jonathan McIntosh: I wanted to create a remix dealing with the subtleties of gender and romance in mainstream media, not an easy task in mash-up form. I had seen the Twilight movie and I read the first couple of books and I was horrified by the fact that the Twilight series takes all the progress in gender roles and reverts it back at least 200 years. My goal was to show Edward Cullen’s controlling and overprotective behaviour for what it is, and to do that in a sort of funny way, and to have that done by a strong female character from a different series. I thought one of the best ways to do that would be to have Buffy the Vampire Slayer meet him. Juxtaposing these two characters highlights how backwards the Twilight series is in terms of gender, really how anti-feminist it is. That was the goal: to make it funny but also highlight the patriarchal nature and stalkeriness of Edward.
Speaking at the 1st World’s Fair Use Day
I have been invited to speak on a panel about my remix video work at the first annual World’s Fair Use Day (WFUD) in Washington DC on January 12, 2010. It’s an event put together by the public interest group Public Knowledge which works to defend all of our rights in the emerging digital culture. The WFUD is a free, all-day celebration of fair use: the legal right that allows innovators and creators to make particular uses of copyrighted materials. It will be focused on highlighting new and innovative uses of existing content; provide the perspectives of artists, policymakers, academics and business innovators; and teach you how fair use can enrich your creative work. The event is free and open to the public so check out the WFUD site for RSVP info.
Remixing Workshop with Reel Grrls
I’m excited to be leading a workshop on video remixing at Reel Grrls in Seattle Washington on December 9th. Reel Grrls is an after-school media & technology training program that empowers girls to critique media images and to gain media technology skills – in short it’s a very cool organization! We will be screening and discussing a series of remix videos that deal with issues of gender. Plus we’ll also be learning the software tools and technical process involved in creating new remix works in class.
Check out the Reel Grrls YouTube Channel to see some of their fantastic videos!
We Are Creators Too – Video Interview
The organization Public Knowledge recently did a four part interview series entitled “We Are Creators Too” focusing on media artists who push the boundaries of copyright law in their work. I was one of those video interviews which you can see embedded below. Also featured in the project are filmmaker Nina Paley, fan vidder Francesca Coppa and fellow political remixer Elisa Kreisinger.
Costume Portraits – Dragon*Con 2009
Here is my new collection of 188 fan-costume portraits taken this year at Dragon Con 2009. Dragon*Con is the world’s largest fantasy & science fiction convention and is held annually in downtown Atlanta, GA. Also be sure to check out the Gender Bending Fan Costumes group on flickr where I have added a number of my photos. All the images in this set are available to share and use freely under this Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Creative Commons license.
Visiting Artist at Interactive Arts + Media in Chicago
I will be a giving a presentation on pop culture media hacking as a visiting artist at Columbia College’s Interactive Arts and Media program (IAM) in Chicago. I will focus on my recent Buffy vs Edward remix as an example of transformative story telling, political remix video and the potential for Open Video as a form of creative critical media literacy. My talk will be on November 19th at 5pm.
FAQs on Buffy vs Edward
Here are a handful of answers to frequently asked questions about my “Buffy vs Edward” remix video. I’ll add more as I see them. Also see my original post for this remix with downloads, links, subtitles, news articles and reviews. Please feel free to comment if your question is not addressed below.
