Everything is a Remix. Everything is Original.

Lawrence Lessig makes the argument that quite literally anything can be either remixed, is a remix, or both. Knowledge, Culture, Politics... it seems that everything in society today can be traced back to more original pieces off of which textuality has been built. It appears that pretty much everything is a remix. Then the question of originality comes in. If everything has been ‘remixed,’ or has been tied to past texts that enabled the creation of the new text, then is anything original? I believe the answer is actually quite simple: Everything is an original.

Every new creation of text, no matter how similar, is different from every other text that could exist. If a man draws a buffalo on a cave, and then another man draws a similar buffalo next to it, then there are two original cave paintings of buffalos that have been remixed from various sources. Let’s assume the first painting was a response by the man to seeing buffalo in nature. He is also familiar with simple cave paintings. His creation was remixing nature, but he in turn created a new intentional, original piece that is different from the original and in a medium that he in turn remixed as well. Let’s say the second man was simply copying the first man’s painting. He is remixing the painting in the same medium, but also remixing nature without intentionally doing so. His painting is original as it is itself different from any other painting or otherwise thing in existence, it is unique in its originality.

Everything can be traced back to a lineage of remixes, and everything is original in itself. What we deem to be unoriginal are things that we perceive to be ‘copies,’ or ‘rip offs,’ of somehow greater past originals, but this is simply a matter of signification. We value things we perceive as ‘original,’ because we see them as great collaborations of knowledge that have set benchmarks unlike things like it in the past; when in fact a copy can be no less original and hold the same value as the original creation.  

In today’s online and vastly digitized community, remix has become extremely prevalent as a natural phenomenon.  People naturally give and take within the read-write community and we are all universally sharing – online.

One question that we raised when reading Ridolfo and Devoss's section on "remix" was: “What does it mean to compose with re-composition in mind?” – brings to light the paradigm shift that is occurring in this age. Compositions are being created in a way that they are naturally remixable, as this is the best way to spread a text, by having others shape it into as many different forms as possible while retaining the same original intention. 

Ridolfo, Jim, & DeVoss, Dànielle Nicole. (2009). Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 13(2). Retrieved October 28, 2013, from 
http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/remix.html