Interview with Kris Davis

Hello! With my thesis defense fast approaching I thought I would share an interview with Kris Davis, mashup enthusiast and the architect of idealMashup. Here I ask him about the motivations behind creating such a site as well as why mashups are of interest to him. 

Why do you like mashups?

My interest in mashups are two fold. Fist, I love the sounds created from the mixture of other songs. Mashups have the ability to make my foot tap and allow me to hear the most catchy parts of the songs. Second, I really agree with the philosophy and sociology behind the music. I think that creativity is a strong and unique ability that humans have that is different from other animals. Creativity is driven by taking inspiration from something else and molding that into something new. I see mashups as being exactly that. Today technology has democratized the tools needed to take media and transform it into what ever their minds can think of to make something completely new and amazing.

Do you make your own mashups?

I do not. I am a software designer by trade and passion and my medium of creation is visual. I would like to get into making mashups but don't, at this moment, have the time to dedicate to it.

What made you want to start your own mashup site?

I saw a community that I highly admired and wanted to help spread ideas and tools to foster the creation of more mashups. I being able to make websites have the ability to make something that can help mashup artists spread knowledge, hopefully. By spreading knowledge of how to make mashups and providing tools (samples) that help them make mashups, I also hope to have some impact on making the quality of mashups better. I would also like to see mashups impact copyright law by pressing the issues around how copyright protection can help artists and how it's being manipulated by corporate interests

What do you hope to do with the site? What direction do you see it taking?

I know there are other mashup sites and from a strategy standpoint I see them meeting the need of a creative person to get feedback and validation on their works i.e. post a mashup and have people rate the mashup as well as provide feedback. The focus of the other sites really seems to be around distributing mashups. I want my site to really be used as a tool for mashup artists. I invision the site to be a hub for information and tools to help mashup artists make mashups that can then be distributed on other sites. I want to provide several things:
1. Information on making mashups to help get interested people started
2. Information on more advanced techniques and theory for more advanced mashup artists to hone their work
3. Education that instills ideals around the legal and cultural impact and issues around mashups
4. Ease the sharing and distribution of samples to be used in others mashups

Although there is a conflict between the amount of time I have an my ambition, that is my goal with the site.