Abstract

The thesis of this essay can be stated quite directly: Slavoj Žižek, despite having little to say about mashup and remixing in any direct way, engages this new media phenomena in both theory and practice, providing contemporary culture with both a conceptual understanding of the mashup and a carefully executed illustration of its methodology. The examination of this will proceed by way of two movements. The first investigates how Žižek's work, especially his general interest in "short circuiting," provides theoretical insight for understanding the mashup and its cultural significance. The second turns things around, demonstrating how the mashup explains and describes Žižek's own compositional practices. In other words, the first part explains the mashup by way of Žižek, while the second explains Žižek by way of the mashup