Serendipity35

I heard author Jonathan Lethem interviewed yesterday on Fresh Air, one of my favorite radio interview programs. Besides talking about his new novel, You Don't Love Me Yet and his semi-autobiographical novel, The Fortress of Solitude, he discussed his Promiscuous Materials Project.

The details are on his website jonathanlethem.com but it's a kind of literary rip/mix/burn project. There are stories and songs for filmmakers or dramatists or songwriters to adapt, remix, reuse - choose your verb.

They're not totally free (you pay a buck) or totally without restrictions (you sign a written agreement) but then "you're free to adapt or mutate the story as you please."

Lethem says:

I like art that comes from other art, and I like seeing my stories adapted into other forms. My writing has always been strongly sourced in other voices, and I'm a fan of adaptations, appropriations, collage, and sampling.

I recently explored some of these ideas in an essay
for Harper's Magazine. As I researched that essay I came more and more to believe that artists should ideally find ways to make material free and available for reuse. This project is a (first) attempt to make my own art practice reflect that belief.

Lethem knows that what he is doing is not totally new and that he's not the first on this path. He lists a number of influences including David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life In The Bush of Ghosts site, the Free Culture movement, and a book by Lewis Hyde called The Gift. He also has a page on his site with links and embedded videos of more Cultural Re-use and Appropriation.

Lethem says he was influenced by Open Source theory but he doesn't consider this open source or quite the same as Copyright Commons projects either.

It's a project to keep an eye on and I hope it motivates other authors and artists to put more of their materials online for creative reuse.