The original premise of this project was to create a reference resource for audio mash-ups as presented in a full mix with an annotatable timeline. (The abstract for the original proposal can be viewed on the resources page by clicking the image of the graffiti DJ at the top of the page.) In the process of attempting to mash-up audio myself, I realized it was far more challenging than I'd originally anticipated. However, through that process it also became evident that merely providing tools for an essentially passive experience would not only not be interesting, it would fail to implicate the user beyond banal theory. It then seemed far more useful to provide the theory, along with downloadable audio files, pairing suggestions and software trials or freeware which would then enable the users themselves to interact in playful ways which I could never anticipate. This seemed a process closer to the true intent of sharing trails via the memex. Equally important, it seemed a better way to drive the theory home with first-hand hands-on experience backing the concepts. Also, by offering options for some tools and content, this helped to lever the user into participatory mode, much like the 'Happenings' of Kaprow, and to engender a clear launching point to move on to ideas more in line with the user's own associative patterning.

In many ways I lost sight of my original research material and dove down a path of postmodernist thinking, using Vannevar Bush's article "As We May Think" as a model for proposing a shift in perception via chance operators and the interplay of mixed audio files. I drew upon all the essential works I'd originally researched, but as I myself got deeper into the process of thinking about what implications mash-ups carried in a critical context, I began to depart from some of my resource material and instead embrace more material which dealt with sense perceptions and cognition in relation to media and objects.

"The Dreamachine makes visible the fundamental dynamic order present in the physiology of the brain. Recent research into the structure of brain rhythms suggests that it is in a state of relaxation of thought that new relationships can be seen." - Brion Gysin -

In this sense, my very own interaction with the research and subject material brought me into a state of 'mash-up awareness' in which I began to sense interplay between numerous social structures, political messages, and other mediated acts. This awareness caused me to shift my thinking and to adopt a role of mashing-up theoretical constructs, pop iconography and anthropological and psychological contemplations.

I became interested in the juxtapositions of cut-up theorists (Gysin, Burroughs, P-Orridge), mash-up artists (Lockarm, Dsico, Richard X), and philosophers concerned with the anthropological implications related to the rise in mediated awareness (Virilio, Bey, Kamper). At the apex of these ideas, the optimism of war-era scientists turned egalitarian strategists (Bush, Engelbart) who had a penchant for the archive and the interactive communication thread, focused my considerations on the area of shared chance operations and the need for human consciousness to critique, evaluate and order information according to associative patterning.

While my original idea of offering content for user interplay, annotation and resource scouring didn't change, I found myself retooling all of the ideas I'd originally proposed in a much more formal context than I'd originally intended. As a result I found it necessary to pepper the site content with elements of tongue-in-cheek humor; this was essential in order to keep the new direction of proposing a playful state of awareness free of the dry, plodding academia which causes so many ideas to suffer with their own sluggishness.

"A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted. . . ." - Vannevar Bush -

I chose to transition Hyper-Mash into a site dedicated more to being a starting point for ideas to grow rather than an endpoint where visitors find themselves halted by conclusions. It seemed more powerful to me, in the overall core context of the original proposal, to make the site a lay-over point where visitors could pick up some tools and wares, some suggestions for techniques and examples of results, and move along into a sphere comfortable to individual associative patterning in order to experiment. If the impetus was there to pursue actualizing any of the ideas into mash-ups - or simply feedback - then the forum exists to encourage that without suffering the pomposity of being a destination point for investigative minds,

In the end, for me, there are two powerful themes to carry away from the content, the theoretical implications, and the applied process.

1) We cannot lose sight of what we're doing in an interactive age. Producing inventive material simply because the tools allow us to simply isn't enough. That's banal. We must keep in mind that the acceptance of banality which causes us to fail to reflect on social, political or behavioral intent within an object is the same acceptance of banality which prevents us from speaking out against obvious evils committed in our world. And that can be dangerous. "It conditions the return to the house's state of siege, to the cadaver-like inertia of the interactive dwelling, this residential cell that has left the extension of the habitat behind it and whose most important piece of furniture is the seat, the ergonomic armchair of the handicapped's motor, and - who knows? - the bed, a canopy bed for the infirm voyeur, a divan for being dreamt of without dreaming . . ." (Paul Virilio) Many shifts are necessary in order to prevent this, but at the core is a need to shift perception in a way which invites chance, and in fact relies upon it, so that the conversation between elements becomes significant socially in relation to problem-solving and idea generation.

2) Creating objects and sharing them is not enough. All of life should become a process of juxtaposing, and remixing in a real-time state of conscious awareness, especially at a time when new information travels faster than original thinking. This process is fun, and should be viewed as a celebratory extension of human cognition. Behavioral mash-ups, perceptory mash-ups, object mash-ups, contain the power to reshape awareness in totality. As infophilic tendencies increase, as they must, there must be a clear, directed place in order to view the surrounding world as sharing more similarity than difference, more enjoining than distancing, and more playfulness than aggression in the myriad patterns of associating as we may think.

"Art is brief, Life is long. We should try to be prepared to drift, to nomadize, to slip out of all nets, to never settle down, to live through many arts, to make our lives better than our art, to make art our boast rather than our excuse." - Hakim Bey -