Digital Appropriation – if someone were to look pack on this time period objectively from the future, they would be able to observe the emergence or evolution perhaps of a number of new media production practices that rely upon digital appropriation as their foundation. Digital here refers to digital technologies – 1s and 0s, interchangeable, malleable, networked, modular, as opposed to analogue – specific to the medium, difficult to mix and match, fixed. Permanent. Some examples of digital appropriation have their roots in the cut, copy and paste culture enabled by digital editing software. First we had simple programming languages like BASIC or LOGO that had a command line where the user would input text based commands and actions could be copied, automated, repeated ad infinitum. The Word Processor certainly has a major role to play in the development of this way of thinking. In contrast to typewriters and even electronic typewriters with built in tip-ex, word processors like Microsoft Word and its predecessors enabled the user with the ability to easily and instantly correct any errors, make changes, cut out sections of text and past them somewhere else, copy a letter format and edit the details and so on. This encouraged experimentation, dramatically increased speed and workflow and instantly did away with the idea of typing carefully so as to avoid making mistakes (typos).
This was extended further with the evolution of the primarily text-based web where text could be easily copied or digitally appropriated from a web page and pasted or repurposed into a word document, perhaps an essay or report of some kind. Of course, HTML web pages themselves are equally as malleable but only for the web author who has access to FTP uploading for the web space in question. The consumer was still largely passive except for the added =ability to customize viewing settings, increase font sizes, and so on and of course the ability to copy and paste the content. As other media types became easily digitizable, photographs, illustrations, graphic design, music, video, games… and editing software for each was developed, nbaased on the same new set of rules of cut, copy and paste. Infinite malleability. Easy to change, mix, combine, appropriate, repurpose, sample, remix. Photoshop and desktop publishing software, audio recording, editing and mixing software, multimedia, web design and animation. Video capture, editing, post-production special effects and so on. The idea of collage from the early 20th century, physically cutting and pasting extant materials in the creation of new works became the cornerstone of a whole entirely new set of media practices, lowered the barriers to entry and dramatically increased the amount of work produced.
CriticalRemix.com
Dr. Owen Gallagher, SFHEA
