Sunday, June 20, 2010

About

WHAT IS APPROPRIATION ALLIANCE?
The Appropriation Alliance is an organization created to support the use of ‘critical remix’ as a tool for individuals who wish to use media to comment on media. The powerful in government, business and religion use media to create and control our understanding of society, politics and world events. For this reason, we feel that people need to be able to comment on, criticize or place in historical context the video and other forms of communication that these entities create.
The Appropriation Alliance is developing a website that will be used as a public resource for the community. The website will host a forum for discussion and criticism of remix, document the publishing of new works, provide a record of existing works in the genre, and provide general guidance to artists navigating the complicated legal issues surrounding the use of public domain and copywritten works.

WHO IS THE FOUNDER?
Byron Russell
(http://www.shapelanguage.com) was born and raised in Oakland, California. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art from Pomona College in 1994, his Master of Fine Arts from The Peter Stark Producing Program at the USC Cinema School in 2000. He currently serves as an adjunct instructor at Fresno City College teaching such courses as Digital Video Production, Video Techniques, Flash Animation, Three Dimensional Animation, Three Dimensional Design, Desktop Publishing, Art Appreciation and Storyboarding.
Byron first got involved with Political Remix when he attended a show in January of 2010 put on by Diran Lyons where he also met Jonathan McIntosh and Desiree Alessandro. He was sufficiently moved by the work to curate a collection of political remix into the 2010 Rogue Festival in Fresno, California in March 2010. Byron felt passionately enough about political remix to become an advocate for the form and to found the Appropriation Alliance to push the medium forward.
In addition to this work, Byron is a sculptor, video artist, animator and lover of nature.