Biomythography

Reflexive ReŸmix

verb

re·flex·ive re·mix

rəˈfleksiv/ rēˈmiks/
 

1. Taking parts from different sources and mixes them aiming for autonomy.

- Eduardo Navas, Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Digital Studio at Penn State

 

The exhibition Biomythography: Reflexive Remix is the 6th in a series of exhibitions curated by Chris Christion and Jessica Wimbley that seek to investigate biomythography as a visual arts practice. In her seminal piece Zami: A New Spelling of My Name Audre Lorde, a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” defined the term Biomythography, as “combining elements of history, biography, and myth." 

 

A remix is defined as a piece of media which has been altered from its original state by adding, removing, and/or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, or photograph can all be remixes. The only characteristic of a remix is that it appropriates and changes other materials to create something new. In terms of discourse, postmodernism (metaphorically speaking) remixed modernism to expose how art is defined by ideologies and histories that are constantly revised. The contemporary artwork, as well as any media product, is a conceptual and formal collage of previous ideologies, critical philosophies, and formal artistic investigations extended to new media.[1] As the remix has evolved to vacillate between cultural product and cultural phenomenon, the nuances within the act of creating and defining the remix becomes increasingly complex.

 

Featuring the works of artists who engage in the act of remixing by fragmenting chronology, uniformity, and narrative to expose a multi-faceted, mediated, dimensional, and mutable consideration of identity and history Biomythography: Reflexive Remix explores a style of remix known as reflexive. Defined by Eduardo Navas the reflexive style “allegorizes and extends the aesthetic of sampling, where the remixed version challenges the “spectacular aura” of the original and claims autonomy even when it carries the name of the original; material is added or deleted, but the original tracks are largely left intact to be recognizable.[2]

 

Artists in the exhibition engage in the postmodernists’ assertions of reflexive remixing within their practice through the application of collection, archiving, sourcing, collage, and assemblage, creating alternative narratives and identities based on amalgamations of found images, objects, and the insertion of the artist's hand. 

 

Artists Include:

Andrea Chung, Vanessa German, Todd Gray, Tarrah Krajnak, and Sunè Woods.

 

 

 

[1] Wikipedia Contributors. “Remix” Wikipedia, The Free Enclyclopedia. 24 July 2017‎. Web. 24 July 2017‎.    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix>

 

[2] REGRESSIVE AND REFLEXIVE MASHUPS IN SAMPLING CULTURE, 2010 REVISION, BY EDUARDO NAVAS This text was originally published on June 25, 2007 in Vague Terrain Journal as a contribution to the issue titled Sample Culture. It was revised in November 2009 and subsequently published as a chapter contribution in Sonvilla-Weiss, Stefan (Ed.) Mashup Cultures, 2010, ISBN: 978-3-7091-0095-0, Springer Wien/New York published in May 2010.