Creativity

New Media has great potential to provide or spark an avenue towards creativity, this can be depicted through some of this week’s assigned readings on creativity, such as an article called “1+1+1=1 The New Math of Mashups”, written by Sasha Frere-Jones. Through this article, I was able to learn that original songs are being recreated or rather renewed through new media technology; two different artists from two completely different songs are joined together creating an end result of a “mashup”. In other words, mashups are created by using different features and components from two different songs (more than two may be used) which are then interwoven into a single piece of work.  This can only truly be created through the assistance of new media technology. In fact, within the article it is stated by Mark Vidler that “you don’t need a distributor, because your distribution is the Internet. You don’t need a record label, because it’s your bedroom, and you don’t need a recording studio, because that’s your computer. You do it all yourself” (par.6). Mashups are possible through the pairing of the right technology which could include software packages, laptops, and an internet service. Technology makes mashup easier, creative folks with interests and hobbies in the area of music can have a simple and fun time with creating mashups, in fact, new media technology provides the opportunity for creativity to work at its best because it breaks down barriers such as costs. Through this article, I was able to learn that some mashup songs were even more popular than the original songs. New media technology helps one visualize the true potentials of songs by evolving them into mashup or remixed songs, something that probably was really impossible before. Furthermore, for those folks that created some of the most popular mashup songs, they were able to land professional jobs and opportunities. In this way, new media technology has fostered creativity in people who are able to utilize the technology in a way to provide audiences with mashup songs that some of time tend to be much more popular than its original.