Sampling, mashups, ripping and remixing — in an age of infinitely accessible and increasingly malleable digital audio, the question of who's allowed to do what with someone else's original music is becoming ever more heated. If you use a piece of software such as Traktor to ironically suture "Singing in the Rain" to the riffs of "Enter Sandman," does this constitute a brand new creation? Or just two well-known tracks playing in sync? Are you a genius or a plagiarist?
Joining the conversation with admirable open-mindedness is Tokyo's Remix Film Festival, two days of films and panel discussions to be held at Shibuya's perennial center of artistic activism, Uplink Factory, on June 21-22. The minifest is the brainchild of 5th Element, an ad-hoc group of event organizers interested in the intersection between youth culture and politics.
The three women at the core of 5th Element — Keiko Tanaka, Chieko Tamakawa and Miki Noda — are self-described music buffs who have been doing their own translating and subtitles for the films they are introducing. Tanaka told The Japan Times how "the past year has seen the debate over SOPA and PIPA, these Internet policing laws, and the introduction of penalties in Japan for illegal downloading, so we thought the time was ripe to put these films on people's radar."