Enlightenment, the Remix: Transparency as a DJ's Trick of Seeing Everyone From Nowhere

Abstract

In 2009, scholars and journalists hailed YouTube remix artist Kutiman's 8-video musical opus Thru-YOU as an icon of democratic cultural production. This article builds from a close reading of those videos—and survey of press coverage and relevant scholarly literature—to ask why people attributed agency to the remixed rather than the remixer when fragments were appropriated from essentially private citizens rather than celebrities. Those fragments are analyzed through a new tripartite framework for understanding the commons as a “goldmine,” “pot of dirt,” and “cutting room floor.” The concept of “transparency” allows reconception of remix neither as “bottom–up” cultural force nor as embodying the postmodern quality of being multiperspectival, but rather as subjugating individuals within the singular nonperspective of scientism.