ABSTRACT
The term "deconstruction," which has often been utilized to characterize both the practice and theoretical importance of remix, is itself the product of remix, specifically Jacques Derrida's appropriation and reconfiguring of material drawn from other sources. According to Derrida, the word "deconstruction," to begin with a negative characterization, does not mean to take apart, to un-construct, or to disassemble. Deconstruction constitutes a mode of critical intervention that takes aim at these problematic conceptual oppositions in such a way that does not simply neutralize them or remain within the hegemony of the existing order. Deconstruction begins by flipping the script and privileging destruction over construction. Deconstruction, therefore, names a mode of critical intervention that is simultaneously both more and less than a mere revolutionary operation. Remix as deconstruction taps into this Emersonian effort, releasing, in both theory and practice, a disturbing but revitalizing reconfiguration of Western axiology—the theory of value in both moral and aesthetic terms.
