I have to say remix is one of my favourite topics! In this lecture we were presented with the statement…

There is no such thing as an original idea.

Which is true to some extent but, could we consider an unoriginal idea the pure inspiration for a new and improved idea? Which means that’s the inspiration for this new and improved idea is an original idea? But this ‘original idea’ must have been influenced by something else and then that idea by something else and so on.

INCEPTION! 

Inspiration is necessary for creating but there is a blurry line between what is considered inspiration, originality, appropriation or pure remix

Walter Benjamin suggests in The Work of Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction that ‘The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity’.

In ‘Everything is a remix part 2’ Kirby Ferguson raises the very obvious fact that almost all films we see are remixes. Remixes of books, other films, historical events or even sequels of previous films. Even the films that don’t fit any of these categories fit into the category of genre movies that break into subgenres. He claims that

‘All films have standard elements that are appropriated transformed and subverted’.

 So to put it simply there is no such this as a completely original idea.