When looking for an example of a “remix,” I wanted to try to find something different than just a mash up of songs, like GirlTalk or SuperMash Bros. I decided to look at videos on YouTube, and came across “David After Drugs.” I think this video is a good example of how someone can make a short work, (whether it be music, video, a play) that is very funny, but only because of the original work that came before it. Before “David on Drugs,” a dad posted “David after Dentist,” a short video of his son in the back seat of the car, genuinely confused by his feelings after being “drugged” at the dentist.

Because youtube allows amateurs to share their work or just funny home videos like this, people all over the world now know about David’s post-dentist escapades. When they got tired of laughing at the real David, people decided they would create their own remix of “David after dentist” to appeal to different audiences, and play off the original content. “David after Drugs” is just one of MANY examples.

Standing alone, this video may be funny … but really, a large chunk of its humor comes from the fact that we know it is mocking / remixing the original video of a six year old child, post dentistry.

I really like the song “Build Me Up Buttercup” by The Foundations…it’s a bubbly, summery tune with catchy lyrics. A while back I heard a remix by a group called Rhymefest (featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard) that uses the chorus off of that song as well as the melody, for their song “Build Me Up.” This is a perfect example of using pre-existing music/media to create something new while still retaining many elements of the original–same building blocks, different structure. Click on the links to view each video…

During my reading of Lessig’s Remix (a fantastic read), I thought it would be nice to take a moment about an interesting little musical duo called The Books.  They’ve recorded several albums that typically combine electronically-manipulated guitar, cello/violin, and bass with obscure, quirky “found sound”.  My guess is that no one’s getting on their case about the sound they use; I think most of it comes from such obscure sources (academic lectures, home videos, random street recordings) that the originators of the recordings probably don’t have any idea that their audio is being used; nor would they care if they did know.  So this doesn’t exactly pertain to Lessig’s discussion of copyright law, but I find their music fascinating for they way they create a touching semblance of “real life” from collages of bizarre, scattershot audio.  Sometimes these bits are funny and a little bit shocking, as in the case of the clip that begins their song “Motherless Bastard”.  This byte was allegedly captured accidentally by one of the musicians as he was trying to record ambient sounds of crowds and water at an aquarium.  What he got instead was this exchange (not staged) between a father and his child (gender unclear):

Child: Mommy, Daddy!  Mommy, Daddy.  Mom? Dad?

Father: You have no mother or father.

Child: Yeah I do!

Father: No, they left.  They went somewhere else.

Child: No, they didn’t, you are!  I do!

Father [seems to be on the verge of laughter]: I’m not, I don’t know you.

Child [downtrodden]: Dad…

Father: Don’t touch me, don’t call me that in public. [end of clip; music begins]

While this is certainly not normal fatherly behavior, and you could look at it as incredibly cruel, the sense I get is of an exasperated father acting a bit bizarre after a long day.  But regardless, I get this feeling from knowing that it’s just something that happened, recorded completely accidentally, and the worked into the fabric of this album (called Thought for Food, by the way.  Their second release is called The Lemon of Pink).

I think the feeling I get from these bits of found content, a feeling that is hard to pin down but certainly strong, is best captured when watching these two fantastic videos for their songs “Take Time” and “Classy Penguin”.  They are also composed entirely (or almost) of found footage.  “Classy Penguin” consists mostly of family home videos of kids at various stages of childhood, and towards the end they grow so brief and abstract (a blurry shot of icicles hanging off the roof; a closeup of a microwave’s LCD clock) that on their own, they would be meaningless.  But woven into this tapestry of random snippets from the lives of hundreds of families, they take on an astounding poignancy and truth–they even feel as if they could have come right out of my own childhood.  Do watch the videos, linked below:

–“Take Time”

–“Classy Penguin”

Hope you enjoy =D

Lawrence Lessig brings up a lot of ideas about intellectual ownership in his book Remix and I’d say I would have to agree with most of them. I mean after the information is out there who technically ‘owns’ the intellectual information? After all it is a little ridiculous how you don’t have to ask for permission to cite a quote but have to worry about copyright issues when using media clips for bigger projects. The whole reason someone is able to borrow a quote, is because they are using it in their own different context, for an entirely different purpose than it was originally meant for. The same is done with media projects like a mash up song; one might use a part of a song from a particular artist but you are usually using it in conjunction with other clips to create a new piece of music and not trying to take credit or profit from the original.

I guess the whole problem stems down to the issue of financial profit. After all you can borrow all you want from pieces of literary intellectual work for a piece of new written work because odds are you won’t be able to sell you work to make any money. However, if you do the same with media property, profit margins go down for corporations. Like Lessig, I agree that this is an outcome that is a consequence of a lack of policy to accommodate users in this new age of media. I mean at one point, the VCR was thought of as a pirating device. Now that is not the case, just as DVRs and mp3 players are no longer thought of as pirating devices, but devices that make the sharing and usage of media more convenient. While we might not see a compromise to this copyright issue anytime soon, I think that a gradual improvement will be made towards a more open policy for sharing information. Availability and usability of media technology is only going to get easier for society as time goes on, so it is natural that practices will change and evolve with the development of these new technologies.

After publishing that last post, I realized that I’ve left this track, which I originally posted as a test during class, on my blog for a while.  At first I meant to delete it, but then Hunter commented on it, so I thought, what the hey, it’s fine where it is.  But the crazy (prophetic?) thing is that it’s by DJ Shadow, from his album Endtroducing, which received a lot of attention when it was released (in 1994, I believe) for being constructed ENTIRELY OF SAMPLES!  It’s also just really, really good, but now that it’s very much on topic, I suggest you give it a listen and see what you think.

I’m brimming with things to say after reading Jonathan Lethem’s engrossing article on the long history of “plagarism” in art; the problem is deciding how to concisely say what I want to say.  (And brevity is not my strong suit, if you all haven’t noticed.) I think what Lethem has done successfully here is transport us, for a moment, beyond our “THIS IS THE AGE OF CONVERGENCE” mania to show us that what we face today is merely a new (if profound) iteration of the issues in the lifetime of this thing we call “intellectual property”.  In taking this widescreen view of the topic, he’s bridged a lot of ideas that had existed separately in my mind, and reminded me of the importance of the issue by showing that it applies to many more artists than, say, Girl Talk.  As in, this idea of “collage” or “pastiche” or “co-optation” or “plagarism” or “influence” or whatever you want to call it–this is an issue of vital importance for any artist.

But while keeping an eye on the universal, Lethem manages to speak very insightfully about the new tangles that arose with Modernism in the 20th century and, later, with our current digital age.  Of modernism and postmodernism, he says, “the notes [Eliot] so carefully added to The Waste Land can be read as a symptom of modernism’s contamination anxiety. Taken from this angle, what exactly is postmodernism, except modernism without the anxiety?”  I could quote his little bits of wisdom all day, but what really resonates with me is that he expresses his feelings about our current copyright system (”Contemporary copyright, trademark, and patent law is presently corrupted.”), but does so in a very even handed way, making sure not to stray towards the sort of anarchistic/idealistic “everything free, for everybody!” talk that often surfaces in this discussion.

Personally, I can be susceptible to that sort of talk, probably because I’m constantly looking for a way to justify my illegal media-consumption habits.  So when an artist I like makes some sort of “fuck the man! download our music for free” statement, I eat that right up, even if that means ignoring statements to the contrary by other artists that I like.  There are countless examples of this that I could talk about, but I’ll keep it brief.  The story of “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve, and the controversy with the legal arm of The Rolling Stones, Inc. surrounding that song is quite interesting, and can be read in brief on the wikipedia page for the song.

But perhaps the most widely-discussed case in recent memory is Radiohead’s “pay-what-you-want” digital self-release of their most recent album, In Rainbows.  The first wave of response was “yeah, screw the record companies, radiohead is leading the charge into the future of music distribution!”  Then the backlash: the vast majority of musical groups/artists can not make this model sustainable, and it was actually harmful for Radiohead to set this as the new, “ethical” way to distribute music.  This was probably not Radiohead’s intent–the reaction to their choice merely created this stigma.  Whether or not they went on record stating this, I do not know, but being the thoughtful, honest, all-around good guys that they are, I’m guessing they weren’t trying to put other artists in a dangerous position.

But I guess I’ll cap this off for now…I’m sure I’ll blog on this topic more in the next few days, because there really is quite a bit to talk about.  I’ll leave you with one of Lethem’s closing paragraphs which I particularly liked:

“Despite hand-wringing at each technological turn—radio, the Internet—the future will be much like the past. Artists will sell some things but also give some things away. Change may be troubling for those who crave less ambiguity, but the life of an artist has never been filled with certainty.”

**So far, the key theme in this class seems to be that there’s WAY more gray area than you might think in all areas of media studies, if you take the time to consider all sides of an issue.  It can get overwhelming at times (how can I ever really understand any of these media if they’re all so friggin complicated?!?), but my eyes are open, and I’m just taking in as much as I can.

Earlier this week, during an econ exam I read an article that said that this year’s winter Olympics was the most tweeted about Olympics in history. But the statement in itself is a little deceiving after all what does that even mean? First of all Twitter has only been around for a year or so. So, doesn’t that make this year’s Olympics the most tweeted about simply out of default, since this is the only Olympics in which people have had the option to use Twitter.

With that in mind, what is the use of saying that something was the most tweeted about or such and such had a record amount of hits online. After all these so call records are fleeting; they are bound to be broken with the simple passage of time as more and more people pick up the new technology everyday. For example, someone might set a record for being able to hold their breath for 5 minutes and there is no guarantee that someone will break that record. However, I guarantee that the next time the Olympics role around, those games will be the most tweeted about in history, simply because by then more people will be on Twitter. So given the relevancy of the previous statement, does that mean that records like these hold no sense of accomplishment? I guess it all depends on who you talk to, but anyways it’s just something to think about.

Below is the link to Mark and Guillaume’s podcast project.  We attempted to show that sound is a powerful tool to reinforce imagery and emotion.  We also tried to show how different use of sounds can effect our interpretation of a piece of narrative.  When given a description of a day at the beach two times, this podcast examines the different tone, imagery and emotional response that is provided by two different soundtracks.

http://middmedia.middlebury.edu/media/fmmc0246a-s10/GL-MW-Podcast.mp3

Lawrence Lessig’s book, Remix, brings up a few very interesting points–particularly those pertaining to John Philip Sousa and his copyright struggles with the new machines that were emerging around his era (circa 1906). I am a little torn between Sousa’s argument–while it is true that fewer and fewer people seem to be able to play “real” instruments (while more and more become proficient at programs like “GarageBand” or as he spoke of, consumers of culture rather than producers), I don’t think that this necessarily means that there are fewer amateurs. As a matter of fact, I think technological developments have created a new kind of amateur. Technology like “auto-tune” has enabled many people who cannot even carry a tune become platinum recording artists (T-Pain, anyone?)

With sound engineering becoming better each day and new programs developing, a single person can create an entire orchestra symphony without ever leaving their couch. Is this a cop-out in some ways? Is it still “respectable” music? Who knows? Something is definitely lost in the fact that only one person made the said symphony–a series of pre-programmed loops with perhaps minor original alterations. It’s a tricky matter that I don’t necessarily have the answer to. However, it is extremely annoying to hear the same bits of music in so many popular songs.

Chatroulette.

Wow… Chatroulette.  Something that I have seen people talk about on Facebook but only thought was the name of a french character on a TV show.  Before watching the video, I explored the website for a while to form my own opinion having no clue what it was.  I clicked the “Play” button which I think is kind of weird… giving it the beginning feel of a game.  Before I knew it, my face was up on the screen and that of another Australian man was right above it.  I waved, not sure whether he was real or not and he waved back at me.  I asked him what myself and he were doing.  He responded that “Chatroulette was only introduced to him today by his friend”.  I asked him where he was from and he said Australia and we talked about the time difference.  Knowing that I was going to use my first introduction as a beginning point for the thoughts I would formulate on the blog I asked what he had encountered so far.  He said “too many naked men”.  Having only chatted with this one guy so far I was surprised and hadn’t even thought about the fact that anybody with a webcam could do whatever they wanted on this site.  After saying goodbye and good luck with the rest of his military service, I hit my first next button.

I was then barraged with about 8 different screens in a row.  1 girl, 1 naked man, and about 6 guys that looked either creepy or like I was NOT what they were looking for.  For about 45 minutes total, I surfed around talking to random people.  I met 3 french girls all in the same box and ended up talking to them for about 20-25 minutes.  Who would have thought that from my dorm room, I, Hunter Nolan, would spend my evening talking with french ladies 3,000 miles across the globe.  Something that is 1. random and 2. impossible without the modern technologies we have today.

More barrages of “User disconnected, trying to find you a stranger” hit me and I too felt the same way as did the man in the posted video, almost offended by peoples quick judgements and nexts.  Not to say that I didn’t click next a bunch of times too, but when you have a 2 megapixel picture of someone, I guess you are forced to judge a book by its cover.

I think that Shirky would be a big fan of this website if it had a more organized fashion to it.  It could be better in that people could click on groups that they are interested in and they could be re routed to chatrooms or “chatpools” in which other people are talking about art or film or african animals etc… really whatever you wanted.  In reality I think that most guys on there are looking for a free show or to find someone that is just as bored as they are.  I found the facts that it is filled with about 71% boys and less then 25% girls to not be very surprising.

I myself found it very rare to come across a girl on Chatroulette, and just like most of the people that saw Genevieve, usually stopped to see if they were interested in saying hi.  I also found it weird that I was relieved by the sight of a girl, it was like finding an angel in hell.  Sometime you are not enthused by what pops up, sometime just shocked or disgusted, and sometimes excited when someone pulled together/interesting comes across.  It was also a relief when somebody on the other side had day light or even just real light as opposed to being dimly lit by their computer screen while they lay in bed.

All in all the website is a very interesting concept and I feel that it will definitely be built upon and expanded in time.  There is a draw of, this next person is going to be different or great and sometimes its true and sometimes it couldn’t be more opposite.  I hope that they clean it up a little bit and possibly turn it into more of a think tank type of experiment where collaboration and cooperation of ideas could be more of a focus.

Okay, so calling Sean Kingston the “King of Theft” may be a bit harsh but…it’s kind of true (and I can use several examples).  I’m currently making a playlist for my radio show tonight and after reading Jonathan Lethem’s “The Ecstasy of Influence” the topics of appropriation, influence, and duplication are on my mind.  Sean Kingston is a perfect example of an artist that has taken other music and molded it to make it “his own.”  However, rather that it being a cover, he simply takes the melody for these other songs and (kind of) adds his own words to them.

Two songs that immediately come to mind where he’s done this is his 2007 hit “Beautiful Girls” where the melody is almost entirely Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me.” A second song where Kingston does this is in his song, “Me Love” where the melody (and even some of the words) are actually Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer Mak’er.” Again, this raises many issues. When it comes to music (as well as other forms of media) the lines are really blurred as to: what can be constituted as original work? I think it’s important to at least try to define and moderate in order to prevent blatant plagiarism (because in art, is there even such a thing? Replicating the Mona Lisa will not garner you any fame…it’s been done and everyone knows it’s been done).

It’s a slippery slope…and you can bet Sean Kingston and his producers are on it!

Okay, this may be a bit of a cop-out, but honestly it’s a substantial edit. Today for my “Internet Art” class I had to post on Wikipedia about one of the artists that we’ve been learning about. If you go click here you will see the wiki page for “Heath Bunting.” The ENTIRE section titled “King’s Cross Phone In” was done by yours truly. That’s three paragraphs chock-full of accurate and somewhat well-written info and referencing. I feel accomplished at the moment.

Well, I must admit something a little embarrassing first. So I had skimmed over professor Mittell’s post about chat roulette without watching the video and had made a mental note to go back later, I must have forgotten the name of the application. Earlier today I was doing research for a Chinese essay and stumbled upon an article about chat roulette, in Chinese, which lead me to search for chat roulette, which lead me to discover it in all of its glory. Needless to say I was flabbergasted by the invention and its combination of genius and complete ridiculousness destined for failure. I then got really excited about sharing my discovery and went to mother blog to share it with everyone. Needless to say I was both epically disappointed and embarrassed that everyone had already heard about it, including myself.

Anyways, my point is, if I unknowingly stumbled on chat roulette how many other people have done the same, especially given the amount of press that it has been getting recently. After watching that charming video I have also come to the conclusion that chat roulette is actually a pretty cool idea, you know given the fact that the perverts and pedophiles don’t take it over. It’s pretty much like an interactive twitter times ten, and with that said; I think that it would be a pretty entertaining thing to try. While it is still too early to tell I can definitely see chat roulette becoming the new web phenomenon, especially given the overall curiosity and bored-ness of the general public.

I just got a text from my friend at Saint Lawrence University:

“I just saw the Midd Kid video and it made me think of you. How are you? I miss you!”

Point A: all of our social networks like facebook help link people across the country to new things like the Midd Kid video. Without the online world, the real world might not know about a video like this for a long time, or until its too late to be appreciated. But now we can send it around the world with the click of a mouse. Point B: Cell phone technology like texting allows us to all of a sudden be in touch with people that we haven’t talked to in weeks, as if no time has passed at all.

After receiving this text, I went online and told my friend Julie, via iChat, and she responded “my DAD asked me about it yesterday! Some ladies in his office were looking at it…weird. i know.”