Recombinant. Process. Remix.

William Gibson writes in Wired about end of the recorded product...

We live at a peculiar juncture, one in which the record (an object) and the recombinant (a process) still, however briefly, coexist. But there seems little doubt as to the direction things are going. The recombinant is manifest in forms as diverse as Alan Moore's graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, machinima generated with game engines (Quake, Doom, Halo), the whole metastasized library of Dean Scream remixes, genre-warping fan fiction from the universes of Star Trek or Buffy or (more satisfying by far) both at once, the JarJar-less Phantom Edit (sound of an audience voting with its fingers), brand-hybrid athletic shoes, gleefully transgressive logo jumping, and products like Kubrick figures, those Japanese collectibles that slyly masquerade as soulless corporate units yet are rescued from anonymity by the application of a thoughtfully aggressive "custom" paint job.

I don't think the 'recorded product' or the 'object' is going away anytime soon, if ever. There's always an idea. But what's the source material? From which author that part of that idea originate? Product today is a product of yesterday's product. But it's always been that way.

Read more about Gibson, and more about Wired's observations on Remixing.

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