digital heroine

Everything is a remix

I came across Nick Bertke aka Pogo in 2008 and was beyond impressed with his catchy Alice in Wonderland remix made solely from samples and visuals from the Disney film. Since then he has produced a number of projects along the same vain including Expialidocious, Upular and Toyz Noize to name but a few. The result is that he has become a YouTube phenomon with over 22 million views.

In his most recent endeavor ‘World Remix ’ he has set out to do just that by traveling to all corners of the world in search of sights, sounds, voices and chords, with the intent of using these to compose and shoot a track and video for each major culture. Check out Joburg Jam, the first of his projects featured in the above video. 

If anyone was to epitomise the 'YouTube Generation’ it’s Pogo. Not only is he re-imagining and re-contextualising how we view the world he is also employing a unique method of funding his project incrementally on KickStarter. Every track will be financed by the funds generated from sales of the track before it, and by prepayments for the track next to be released. The listener becomes the sponsor and to some extent the author as they also decide where he should go next in the world. 

Remixing is a fast growing cultural phenomenon and with the proliferation of the internet and popularity of video sharing platforms such as YouTube, it continues to extended beyond audio to include various other media. This non-linear, hybridizing process is the next generation of UGC, the value of which is increasingly being recognized by brands and artists as they provide their audiences with the tools to edit, modify and personalise branded or licensed content.