Q: Go back and look at your previous blog entries. Refer back to remix pieces and discuss whether or not it is an example of remix culture. If it is, why? If not, how does it differ?

A: Back in October, I wrote a blog post about Pogo, an artist who uses sound effects from various films and turns them into music. As Knobel & Lankshear explore in their collaborative piece “Remix: The Art and Craft of Endless Hybridization”, they establish that a “remix means to take cultural artifacts and combine and manipulate them into new kinds of creative blends.” (Knobel & Lankshear 22). With this definition, Pogo is, without a doubt, a participant in remix culture. Moreover, the authors explain that “one popular kind of music remix involves taking bits and pieces of existing songs and splicing them together or over one another.” (Knobel and Lankshear 24). That type of song-splicing is what Girl Talk does… But what’s interesting here is that Pogo combines media that are different (music and movies), and takes specific sounds to not only make songs sound bearable, but also to keep his own artistic voice throughout his tracks; although every movie is different, Pogo manages to maintain his signature sound throughout all his music. For those reasons, Pogo is a perfect example of remix culture; he uses existing clips of film to create new mashup songs. Take a listen to the track “Upular” that’s posted here to see how well his process turns out.