How Hip-Hop’s Remix Culture Can Inspire Innovation in Design and Technology

The connections among hip-hop, creativity, and technology will be in the spotlight during the next CTRL+CM Speaker Series event on Nov. 10.

Hip-hop has long used remixing to transform existing sounds, ideas, and cultural influences into something new. At Georgia Tech, that creative practice provides a framework for thinking about innovation across design, education, and technology.

The next CTRL+CM Speaker Series event, Remixing Innovation: How Hip-Hop Shapes Creativity, Design, and Technology, will bring together two Georgia Tech faculty members to explore these connections. The conversation will feature Joycelyn Wilson, an associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC), and will be moderated by Professor Susana Morris, also with LMC.

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The event will be held Tuesday, Nov. 10, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Scholars Event Theater. It is free and open to the public, and lunch will be provided. Registration is required.

Drawing on her book, Hacking Hip Hop: Design Remix Logic in Research, Method, and Practice, Wilson will examine how hip-hop's remix logic can inform creative technology and innovation. The discussion will explore how cultural practices can inspire new approaches to problem-solving, creative expression, and technological development.

Wilson, an educational anthropologist, documentary film producer, and hip-hop scholar, studies the intersections of hip-hop, media, culture, design, technology, and education. Her work examines how community, storytelling, and remix culture can shape how people learn, create, and develop new technologies.

Morris will moderate the conversation, drawing on her scholarship in Black feminism, culture, storytelling, media, and Afrofuturism. She is the author of Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler and a co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective. Her work examines how race, gender, literature, and cultural expression shape how people imagine and engage with the future.

Together, Wilson and Morris will explore how cultural knowledge and creative practices can drive innovation and challenge conventional boundaries among the humanities, design, and technology. Their conversation will highlight how understanding the cultural contexts behind creative work can open new possibilities for technological development and problem-solving.

The event is part of the CTRL+CM Speaker Series, an initiative of the Collective Impact of Creative Technology (CICT) program. The series brings perspectives on culture, creativity, and technology into conversation, highlighting the ways interdisciplinary thinking can inform contemporary questions in innovation and design.

Funding from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation supports the CICT program. Generative AI was used to assist with an initial draft of this article. The author reviewed, revised, and fact-checked the content and is responsible for the final version.