“Remix” or “Mash Up” is a reflexive art form that allows the artist to create their own “meaning” out of media-based cultural artifacts. This video collage technique helps people to surpass passive consumption by becoming active producers of media. Through the act of reappropriating, recontextualizing, and remixing, media awareness becomes less of a bombardment and more of a game. Larry Lessig suggests that remix is “the modern day equivalent of quoting authors in papers and books. He argues, “it is a type of literacy… a form of expression that is increasingly defining young generations!”(TED Talks 2006). This language of remix is a digital call and response culture where source material is recycled repeatedly to expand on ideas and provoke further social discourse.

Comedians are true remix artists. Through imitation and reinterpretation they allow us to look at the world from their perspective. Whether it is racism or religion, standup comedians have opened doors for our first amendment rights by revealing and reveling in our cultural taboos. In Punchlines, Progress and the Right to Remix I am merging the art of the satirists in American culture with the experimental style of Internet remix artists. I’m interested in the rebellious tendencies of both art forms and their attempts at disseminating alternative socio-political commentary to the masses through nontraditional methods. Both have histories of confronting the law very openly. Both push social boundaries and have the ability to inform and transform American culture, and both have been described as symptoms of our declining culture. What is so frightening about these methods of self-expression? What positive contributions do they offer? And how are they changing the way we communicate?