Archives Straight from the Vat!

November/December 2006

Remix Culture and Cheese Making

When you hear the term “remix culture”, many people think first of urban dance halls, R & B and hip hop artists. Yet, people have been remixing music since the beginnings of recorded sound.  Initially, remix techniques were used to create new “arrangements” for well known classical pieces. And later, remix appeared in the form of some of those 70’s pop medleys we (Think Boney M) all listened to in some cases with disdain!  Today however, remixing is an accepted true art form which creatively deconstructs and rebuilds content or other mediums to suit the unique tastes of a specific audience.  The techniques themselves are original and craft based.  As noted in Wikipedia, great remix artists have a deep understanding of the meta structure of music-or whatever content they work with- and have a gift for non-linear interpretation of a given work or set of works.  Slate magazine called it “real-time, live-action collage”.

So what does this have to do with cheese making? 

In more ways than one, today’s contemporary artisan cheese maker is indeed a remixer as well. And many could look to remix culture for inspiration.
Most new wave cheese makers base their cheese creations on time honored traditional make procedures, but they then also customize and find new relevance in those recipes for modern tastes by changing bacterial cultures, shifting aging times, trying different temperatures and adding new sensory effects. Perhaps a little non-linear thinking or horizontal thinking would push this art form even further.  Adopting a remix attitude in the world of cheese making would certainly cast a new light on the concerns by some around potential impact of the trend towards protecting cheese names in Europe.  I say, let originators protect the original recipe and name!  Our opportunity lies in the remix.
Purists in many cultural arts including writing, music and yes, even cheese making will argue that “remixing” is not true artistry, is unoriginal, and is in effect a form of copying.  However, the notion of derivative works (or collage art) as an original in its own right is now considered on equal terms by courts and other bodies in cultural arts fields. Take for example, a unique database.  The data in it is unoriginal. But the database itself is copyrightable because its arrangement is unique. The same holds true for music where “arrangements” are also considered to be protectable works.
So, we have moved from a culture that views creative re-arrangements as cause for artistic contempt and copyright lawsuits to something that is encouraged and considered an independent art form. Collage art is in. And its popularity is increasing in many fields. And in my view the driving force behind this trend is cheap content creation technologies, the exponential growth of content in all forms, and democratic access to that enormous and growing vault of human content creation—the Internet.
Lawrence Lessig, the brain behind the Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.com)  –which is an alternative creative works licensing model that applies to all works but was created initially to deal with text works (Alternative to the Copyright framework) -says that remix culture is a term that describes a society which allows and encourages derivative works. He continues to say that “Such a culture would be, by default, permissive of efforts to improve upon, change, integrate, or otherwise remix the work of copyright holders.” Lessig presents this as a desirable ideal and argues, among other things, that the health, progress, and wealth creation of a culture is fundamentally tied to this participatory remix process (Source: Wikipedia).  Examples of the power of this approach can be demonstrated by the success of products like Linux (Redhat).
Bringing this all back to the realm of cheese making is easy.  North American artisan cheese makers didn’t invent cheese making but they are terrific at creating unique derivatives from traditional works.  I personally believe the health and welfare of the fledgling artisan cheese industry is dependent on our ability to embrace “remix” culture.  And I would encourage all cheese makers to stretch their thinking in 2007 and look for inspiration for new cheese beyond the traditional sources for such inspiration.

Written by Petra Cooper