What is all of this?

"Monster Mashup" is a group project of Dr. Gideon Burton's Brigham Young University Fall 2012 English 326: Digital Culture.

Collaborators are Curtis Jenkins, Gwen Hammer, Jalena Reschke,
Mikhaela Tait, and Tara Piña.

Here is our story. Because you have to have a reason for all this madness. Right?

This all started when we each took the jump to take Dr. Burton's Digital Culture class. Hmm digital and culture. Sounds vague enough. The semester started off by exploring important topics concerning digital culture. Education and badges. Video games. Communication. And then Gwen posted the Everything is a Remix by Kirby Ferguson series. This got our minds turning as we saw the impact remix has on our lives.

At first we wanted to just create some remix. Pick a book. Make something new. This seemed like a fun and great idea, but our project lacked value and meaning. We wanted to show the importance of remix in a way people will listen to. Idea after idea after idea we had nothing. Nothing seemed like a good enough idea to waste our time on.

And then the Monster Mashup was born.

Why not take the story of Frankenstein and align it with the conflicts in remix  of copyright and make it interactive. We could make something fun with meaning. Something that people would want to spend time playing and would learn something too.

So that is our hope. We hope that you enjoy our remix of Frankenstein.

But at the same time, we hope you see the meaning behind our story. The meaning behind the monster. Because just like Frankenstein, remix is misunderstood. This monster is actually much more powerful and important than people first think. That is what we hope you see. We hope you see the importance of remix. And the conflict of copyright. But yes see the importance of copyright at the same time.

Twenty years ago, getting published was a major undertaking. One had to go through tens of gate keepers: editors and publishers, producers and managers. It took weeks to go from creation to execution and even still, there was little guarantee anyone would have access to it. Today, we publish things several times every day. Everything that goes from our brains to the internet is considered published. With such power at our finger tips, the world of copyright has never before been so controversial.

The purpose of our project has transformed to present copyright issues in an interesting and creative way. Despite the ease at which copyright is broken, very little education is given. In truth, copyright is more than under attack, but under change. One side sees a world where the elite create and the public watch. The other side believes in a society where creativity builds upon each creation. The world of fan fiction and remix. The price of such creativity, however, is the violation of copyright laws.

Our project metaphorically presents these two sides in a way we hope will allow you to develop your own opinion.

And more importantly, we hope you use remix yourself to create something powerful and new. Because if you do, it might just be your monster that makes a change in the world.