University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

My work is yours to do what I want

Modrak, Rebekah

Content Files
485.pdf

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/112921

Description

Title
My work is yours to do what I want
Author(s)
Modrak, Rebekah
Issue Date
2021-02
Keyword(s)
  • Labor
  • Masculinity
  • Consumption
  • Consumer culture
  • Axes
  • Lumbersexual
  • Gender
  • Art
Date of Ingest
2022-01-04T02:35:45Z
Abstract
My Work is Yours to Do What I Want narrates the trajectory of two companies, one of them actual (Best Made Co.), and the second (Re Made Co.), an artwork posing as a company that uses remix to strategically confuse, conflate, and disrupt consumer culture. Re Made appears to be an online company founded by the fictitious character Peter Smith-Buchanan, and selling $350 hand-painted plungers. The entire event of Re Made offers an alternate universe—both digital and real—for Best Made Company, which was founded by (the real) Peter Buchanan-Smith, and specializes in $350 artisanal axes. Like a cloned twin or digital virus, Re Made and Buchanan-Smith mimic Best Made and Smith-Buchanan. If Best Made posts a decapitated pig’s head with an axe in its mouth on social media, Re Made’s BBQ pig gnashes a plunger on Instagram. When a New York Times feature refers to the Best Made axe as “manly,” a divergent NYTimes article heralds the masculine plunger. Peter Buchanan-Smith declares the axe to be “embedded in men’s DNA,” and Smith-Buchanan proclaims the plunger an extension of men’s bodies. The real Peter Buchanan-Smith emails Re Made’s CEO Peter Smith-Buchanan insisting he stop this plunder of reality. Acting as Smith-Buchanan’s intern, I (the female creator of the artwork) reply. Best Made’s lawyers send Re Made’s lawyers a 32-page cease-and-desist documenting the paths converging too closely for their liking. Just as the artwork Re Made uses remix via a media-based platform to intentionally confuse “original” content and appropriated material, My Work is Yours to Do What I Want playfully narrates the impulses and parasitic manipulations.
Series/Report Name or Number
Media-N, vol. 17, issue 1
Type of Resource
text
Genre of Resource
article
Language
eng
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/112921
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21900/j.median.v17i1.485
Copyright and License Information
  • Copyright 2021 Rebekah Modrak
  • This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

Owning Collections

Media-N V17.1 2021: Forking Paths in New Media Art Practices: Investigating Remix PRIMARY
Volume 17 Issue 1