Mix and Mash 2011
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Mix and Mash is back for a second year. The competition encourages the use of NZ digital content and data and demonstrates the cool things that can happen when organisations make their digital content available to the public.
Entrants are given 10 categories to choose from and may enter works in as many categories as they like (only one entry per category). There are also grand prizes for best mashup and best remix as well as special judges awards. The competition is open to all New Zealand residents and New Zealand citizens living abroad. Entries may be received by individuals, teams or organisations. Each category offers its winner a slice of $50,000 in cash and prizes.
Mix and Mash was launched on August 4 at the Auckland Town Hall as part of the Orcon Great Blend, a night of entertainment organised by media and digital commentator, Russell Brown. The competition runs for six weeks and closes at 9pm on 15 September.
Mix and Mash is organised by DigitalNZ, an initiative to make NZ digital content easier to find, share and use and is sponsored by organisations from across the public and private sector, including the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand and NZ Post.
Lead judges for the competition are Helen Baxter, Managing Directrix of Mohawk Media and XMediaLab mentor, and Nat Torkington, who ran the first web server in New Zealand in 1992 for Victoria University, and started Kiwi Foo Camp (an American-style "unconference") and Open New Zealand, which develops and hosts Internet-based civil society projects. Guest judges include Lawrence Lessig, political activist, law professor and early proponent of Creative Commons.
There are effectively two sides to this competition: the data mashup and the creative remix.
- Mashups
Mashups refer to web pages, sites or applications made by combining data or functionality from two or more sources to create something new. This year’s mashup categories are:
Anything Goes Data Mashup sponsored by Stuff
$2000 will be awarded to the application that best demonstrates the use of NZ data in a creative way. This section is for entries that don’t fit into any of the other specific categories.
Open Government Data Mashup sponsored by Parliamentary Counsel Office
$2000 will be awarded to the application that best encourages government transparency, access and insight into government information or services.
Environment Data Mashup sponsored by Squiz
$2000 will be awarded to the application that best contributes to New Zealand’s environmental well-being.
Sport and Recreation Data Mashup sponsored by SPARC
$2000 will be awarded to the application that best encourages New Zealanders’ participation in sport and recreation.
Support for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Data Mashup sponsored by LINZ Data Service
$2000 will be awarded to the application that best supports the Canterbury earthquake recovery. This could relate to specific parts of the recovery including community well-being, culture and heritage, the built environment, the natural environment, and economic recovery, or any mix of these.
Mashup Prizes:
- $2000 for category winners
- $10,000 grand prize for best data mashup
- $4,000 award for an outstanding mashup
- Six months of awesome Orcon Broadband for Best Newbie Data Mashup
- Remix
The remix side of the competition is all about content and the reuse of NZ images, data, words, music and video. This year’s remix categories are:
Anything Goes Creative Remix sponsored by DigitalNZ
$2000 will be awarded to the best creative remix that uses Creative Commons, public domain, no known copyright, or openly licensed New Zealand digital content. This section is for creative remix entries that don’t fit into any of the other specific categories.
Infographics sponsored by Statistics New Zealand
$2000 will be awarded to the best visual representation of complex knowledge, information and/or data. The infographic should help people understand something more clearly and reveal information that was not initially obvious. It should also be relevant to New Zealand.
Digital Story Creative Remix sponsored by DigitalNZ
$2000 will go to the best digital remix that tells “A New Zealand Aotearoa Story” using Creative Commons, public domain, no known copyright, or openly licensed New Zealand digital content. Be it our history retold, a traditional story refreshed, a tale about a NZer, or a ‘day in the life’ with a particular NZ flavour – judges want to see digital content re-mixed in a fresh and interesting way to tell a uniquely New Zealand story.
Literature Remix sponsored by New Zealand Post
$2000 will be awarded to the very best work of literature that creatively re-mixes a selection of talented NZ writers’ works. There will be up to 5 winners selected. The four runners up will win a fine selection of Victoria University Press books. All winners will be published in a Mebooks e-book alongside the original authors’ works. That e-book will be Creative Commons licensed so that it can continue to be used, shared and built upon by others.
Photo Remix sponsored by DigitalNZ
$2000 will go to the best photo remix that explores the theme “Past and present, then and now, yesterday and tomorrow”. We want to see a single, still image that remixes one or more Creative Commons, public domain, no known copyright, or openly licensed New Zealand images in a fresh and interesting way.
Remix prizes:
- $2000 for category winners
- $5000 grand prize for the best creative remix sponsored by Creative Commons NZ
Lead Judges’ Special Awards sponsored by Department of Conservation
Department of Conservation has provided some amazing New Zealand conservation experiences for awarding to entries that grab the attention and admiration of our Lead Judges, Helen Baxter and Nat Torkington.
View the full details of the competition.
- Finding content to remix
When looking for New Zealand images, video, audio and lots of other content to reuse, a great place to start is Digital NZ. The site offers a usage rights filter that can be narrowed to display content with licenses that allow it to be remixed. Check the rights statement on the item’s webpage or website, as different organisations have different ways of managing rights.
If usage rights are unclear on a particular piece of content, ask permission from the owner of that content. Most online resources have a way of contacting the person or organisation that has contributed the content. Emailing them and explaining what you would like to do, including how you will eventually share your work, will often result in permission being granted by a creator flattered by your request or a process that needs to be followed.
Other places to find licensed content include:
Images
Video
YouTube (select the CC tab)
Music
Mixed media
Examples of content licenced for remixing:
Nature video of Ohau Seals in Kaikoura
Travel video by French tourists
Mix and Mash 2010
Last year the competition attracted more than 40 mashup and 200 remix entries. The data mashups ranged from web applications that helped users find rental properties, to visualisations of census data.
The Supreme Mashup winner was Daniel Pietzsch, for NZ Walks Information, a website that allows users to search and browse for walking tracks and incorporates hut and tracks data from the Department of Conservation and GoogleMaps data.
The creative remixes were equally wide-ranging, from music videos to poster adverts.
The Supreme Remix winner was Jem Yoshioka, for An Opal Dream Cave [PDF] an illustration of the Katherine Mansfield poem of the same name, with drawings inspired by three images from the National Library’s photographs available on Flickr Commons.
1. Grotto in an iceberg, photographed during the British Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1913, 5 Jan 1911
2. Scene at Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt, with weathered tree stump and Willcox's flour mill, ca 1885
3. Swimmers during learn to swim week, at a suburban swimming pool, probably Wellington region, ca 1939
View all 2010 winners.