TED Talk: Kirby Ferguson, Embrace the Remix

Remix = copy + transform + combine

Kirby Ferguson believes everything in life is a remix - all the new technology, new ideas, new arts. They are all derivative, and I agree with this to some extent. While I agree that perhaps 99% of the time new inventions are simply reinventions of other ideas, I believe that there is (and we need) about 1% of those inventions to be truly new and transformative. Ferguson states that "our creativity is from without, not from within", but I truly believe it is a combination of external factors and your own born ability to innovate. If creativity was truly from without, then we would see more individuals with the ability to create new ideas - but we don't. There is a difference between modification and invention. The creativity to modify can be learnt but now to invent.

Ferguson spends a lot of time talking about how 2/3 of Bob Dylan's music is a copy of other people's songs and then jumps into talking about "Apple's" multitouch technology. I see the connection Ferguson tried to make between tech and arts, but I thought the transition was a bit mismanaged. Starting with the Bob Dylan example, I personally did not hear or notice much similarity between the melodies of Jean Richie's Nottamun Town and Bob Dylan's Masters of War; melodies of Dominic Behan's The Patriot Game and Bob Dylan's With God on Our Side; the lyrics of Paul Clayton's Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons and Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. If we were to take all of the century's songs and compare tunes, melodies, lyrics, meanings, what have you, we will certainly find similarities. It's just bound to happen. Not one idea is wholely unique, and this is not necessarily as a result of exposure to existing ideas. I do agree with Ferguson, though, that this concept of remixing ideas is essential to improvement in everyday life.

"The words are the important thing. Don't worry about tunes. Take a tune, sing high when they sing low, sing fast when they sing slow, and you've got a new tune." - Woodie Guthrie