ABSTRACT
The transformation of remix culture that occurred as the people have moved into the algorithmic age has been rapid and profound. This story represents an overly literal instance of a normative search algorithm obscuring access to a moment in the history of remix, and perhaps it suggests a productively allegorical reading of "realism" for the age of streaming media. More recently, however, easily copied and sampled forms of physical media such as DVDs, tapes, records, and CDs have moved toward obsolescence, as media consumption shifts toward streaming media available on demand through various channels and on multiple devices. More recently, emerging technologies such as computer vision, machine learning, and image synthesis suggest the need to reconsider the applicability of semiotic models for understanding these processes as a qualitatively different form of remix. Akten's work is fascinating for the machine-like precision with which it transforms everyday objects into realistic-looking images derived from the system's training set.
