Objective: Evaluate the meanings of real and fake and examine their intersection with personal and cultural identity and authenticity
The TEDtalk by Lawrence Lessig was very intriguing to listen to and think about. In the middle of his talk something really stuck out to me. Lessig says, “people taking and recreating using other peoples content, using digital technologies to say things differently,” he continues a bit later and says, “these tools of creativity have been become tools of speech, it is a literacy for this generation.” I think this point is very interesting. Generation Y and Z are generations known to be very technologically advanced and they are using the things they know to express themselves and use it as a form of speech or communication to the world around them. The way these generations work and operate and understand is very different from older generations and I think the system should change with the people. I believe that Lessig makes a good point in that they “use digital technologies to say things differently.” I believe copyright is important and it should most definitely never go away, but the way most use technologies to remix things should be allowed and people should be permitted to be creative and to say things differently with freedom.
Reflection and Future:
Lawrence Lessig completed a really interesting and thought provoking TedTalk and gives insight onto how people give titles to real and fake and how these connect with personal and cultural identity. I really enjoyed this TedTalk in that it gave me a new insight on how digital technologies allow people to express themselves, and is possibly a new way of communication. He states when speaking about digital technologies that, “these tools of creativity have become tools of speech, it is a literacy for this generation.” I think that this is really interesting in that younger people in our world communication extremely often through technology whether its Facebook, Instagram, Vine, or all other social networks out there that people use to express themselves.
After listening to this TedTalk I feel like people who create something for the first time without the use of anybody else’s work is real. On the other hand, I do not believe that people who mix together works from other people’s work to create their own should be considered fake. Their creations are very much their own, with their own personal identity and authenticity. I don’t think that their work should be considered less, it is just different, and it is who they are. Digital Technology has allowed there be to more expression through remixing, and this is become more and more prevalent in our culture. Though I said this in my original post, I believe that Lessig’s quote that people, “use digital technologies to say things differently” is very powerful. Fitting others works to express yourself and saying things differently, I believe is a good thing, and this TedTalk has really showed me this. I am not saying that I support illegal copywriting, but maybe more leeway on expressions.
I think that for the future I will be able to look at remixed work with a different eye. Not an eye of, “that isn’t your work, you just threw some things together and called it your own,” but more of an eye of, “the way you remixed this together really shows your true self and what this means to you.” I think having a different perspective open me up to accepting many more works that use digital technologies than I do now. While writing this it made me think of my writings in Artifact #2 and Artifact #6. I believe that all three of these Artifacts come together in that I really need to open up my eyes to different ways of looking at things. Though everything will always be through my eyes and experiences, I feel I may need to possibly not hold the things I, and others, do to such high standards, but to understand there are different levels to everything that happens in life.
This is a picture I took at an Electronic concert in Eugene. I feel this culture of music is very influenced by a remix society and all these artist express themselves differently, but using a basis of the same song sometimes.