Ken Ronkowitz :: Blog :: Promiscuous Materials: Remixing

http://devel2.njit.edu/serendipity/index.php?/archives/283-Pro

http://devel2.njit.edu/serendipity/uploads/scrabble.serendipit" />I heard author Jonathan Lethem
interviewed yesterday on Fresh Air, one of my
favorite radio interview programs. Besides talking about his new novel, You Don't Love Me Yet and his
semi-autobiographical novel, The Fortress
of Solitude, he discussed his Promiscuous Materials Project.

The details are on his website jonathanlethem.com but it's a kind of
literary rip/mix/burn project. There are stories and songs for filmmakers or dramatists or songwriters to
adapt, remix, reuse - choose your verb.

They're not totally free (you pay a buck) or totally without
restrictions (you sign a written agreement) but then "you're free to adapt or mutate the story as you
please."

Lethem says:

I like art that comes from other art, and I like seeing
my stories adapted into other forms. My writing has always been strongly sourced in other voices, and I'm a fan of
adaptations, appropriations, collage, and sampling.

I recently explored some of these ideas in an essay

for Harper's Magazine. As I researched that essay I came more and more to believe that artists should ideally
find ways to make material free and available for reuse. This project is a (first) attempt to make my own art practice
reflect that belief.

Lethem knows that what he is doing is not totally new and that
he's not the first on this path. He lists a number of influences including David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life In The Bush of Ghosts
site, the Free Culture movement, and a book by Lewis Hyde
called The
Gift. He also has a page on his site with links and embedded videos of more Cultural Re-use and Appropriation.

Lethem says
he was influenced by Open Source theory
but he doesn't consider this open source or quite the same as Copyright Commons projects either.

It's a project to keep an eye on and I
hope it motivates other authors and artists to put more of their materials online for creative reuse.