SloppySeconds@twitter.com

The only good thing I can say about the proliferation of mashups like Tupac: Resurrection is that they usually make me appreciate the older originals even more. This is a documentary that I would never, ever have watched on my own initiative and it’s not because I’m not interested in poetry, music, urban culture, or the message of the downtrodden. It's because I am intrinsically turned off by collaborative, watered-down, pastiche media. An homage to Tupac’s poetic and musical manifestations of the “thug life,” this film is understandably a collage because of course there is no new material. Tupac is dead, and thus what remains is remixed endlessly, by his fans, by music industry proteges, and here by his own family. This film works really, really well to advance the message of an artist like Tupac, but unfortunately most mashups have neither the authenticity or the transcendent qualities that this film embodies.

To tweet, or digitize, or mashup a work of literature or art may temporarily widen distribution, but it can also desecrate the beautiful achievements that separate us humans from the rest of the snarling animal kingdom. Great for an artist like Tupac, maybe, but what about painfully shy but incredibly gifted artists, writers, and philosophers? Those who by the test of time, not by new media have artistically shaped our concept of objective reality, the human condition, epistemology, and spirituality like Samuel Beckett, Michelangelo, and Thomas Jefferson? What about Emily Dickinson? Baruch Spinoza? Jesus? Aristotle?

Before even being concerned about desecration, there is the issue of legality. The Center for Social Media Article, Recut, Reframe, Recycle, defines the fair use clause of copyright law as “... a right to reuse copyrighted works without a license in some circumstances--most broadly, when the value to society is greater than the value to the copyright owner.” Any law that reconciles the First Amendment with the equally important right to profit from one’s own creative work, is both complicated and important. I have concerns regarding the subjectivity of the reconciliation between freedom of expression and the right to one’s own work. Who decides whether society benefits more from the rehash or the original? What if neither version is valuable to society at all? How does one quantitatively evaluate Dick In A Box? Isn’t the tawdry worthlessness of it what makes it hilarious to begin with?

Art and culture in cyberspace largely consists of rehashed versions of works of art that were created before the new technologies existed. The Internet has given us news without content, words without books, sex without seduction, and new media without new ideas. It’s new, and yet it’s already boring. Personally, I do not want public opinion seeping into my news, I do not want fan feedback corrupting my experience of my favorite musicians, I do not want audience participation in film or in the theater, and I vehemently do not want to read anything on a handheld artificially lighted “Kindle.” I want the analog or at least original version of everything, and I want it unadulterated. What else is art?