MIXOSCOPE – remix old photos from the Danish colony in the West Indies

The Royal Danish Library’s tool MIXOSCOPE (mixoscope.dk, May 2017) lets you create your own remix of historic digitized photos from the Danish colony in the West Indies. You can change perspective, add colours, draw, put different photos together and write comments. The idea behind MIXOSCOPE is to offer a tool to engage in a dialogue on Denmark's past as a colonial power. The original photos are taken by visiting Danes and were supposed to show people back home in Denmark how life and people looked like in the remote colony in the Caribbean. With MIXOSCOPE the perspective that the photographer has chosen can be challeged. This presentation will present the tool and how it has been used in different ways and by different users. Furthermore, the presentation will demonstrate and debate the impact of digitization across borders and the democratic relevance of user engagement with digitized archives.