Werner Mixed

Wishing to create my own remix, I compiled a number of audio samples of one of my cinematic heroes - German filmmaker Werner Herzog (Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Stroszek, Rescue Dawn). The audio was a mixture of interviews and acting performances he gave for other directors (such as Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey-Boy). Besides idolizing Herzog as an artist, I have always loved the sound of his accented voice, so it seemed like perfect fodder for my remix. I set these clips to groovy electronic loops from GarageBand. I also incorporated a small snippet of music from his 1982 film Fitzcarraldo. However, its mellow, ethereal nature clashed with the upbeat music I had laid down, so I used it sparingly. You can listen below to my mix, entitled "Ecstatic Truth"

The Silver Screen Remix

Film is my artistic medium of choice. I devote countless hours to watching hundreds upon hundreds of films, from foreign and obscure art flicks such as Gummo and Irreversible to blockbusters like The Dark Knight. My aspiration is to be a film director. So as we read about principles of remix, it makes me ponder the remix in cinematic terms. How is the remix principle used in film? It is common for directors to homage shots from other films in their own. The most obvious example is Quentin Tarantino, whose films are essentially cinematic collages of a variety of previous films and TV shows. But film remixes are also done on a much smaller scale. YouTube is populated with recut trailers, in which existing footage is cut into a parodic preview. I myself once took dozens of Simpsons clips and set them to the trailer audio from Martin Scorsese's The Departed. One of the most popular and well-made recut trailers on the web is a cut of Stanley Kubrick's atmospheric horror film The Shining made to look like a heartwarming family film.

Remix

Since the beginnings of recored sound in the late 19th century, certain people have enjoyed the ability to rearrange the normal listening experience with technology. John Von Seggern of the ethnomusicology department at the University of California, Riverside, says that the remix "is a major conceptual leap: making music on a meta-structural level, drawing together and making sense of a much larger body of information by threading a continuous narrative through it. We depend on what has come before. If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in the paper on which your poem is printed. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in there. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. The existence of a remix is dependent upon the existence of the music that it is mixed from. And all music is a remix, be it conscious or subconscious, whether or not we wish to admit it. But we should embrace the remix rather than fear it. The remix opens up countless artistic opportunities. If the lines holding the past and present together are ruptured, then the future will break through. 

The New Music

In an earlier post I mentioned Radiohead's online release of In Rainbows and their "pay what you want" price. An article I recently read informed me that Jane Siberry had been using the same strategy as far back as 2005 as part of a musical reinvention. She also changed her name to Issa, altered her musical style, and incorporated performance art into her tours. This strategy has garnered her financial success, and has been accepted by her fans. This is a perfect example of adaption to a new digital climate. Siberry/Issa chose to accept the status quo and "go with the flow" rather than beating a dead horse by trying to carry the old-world approach to the music industry through the 21st century. Says Siberry/Issa: "I'm just opening the doors." Emerging artists, as well as established ones who wish to stay relevant, would be wise to walk through these doors.

A war that can't be won

The government is waging a so-called "war on piracy." Downloading copyrighted material is punishable by major legal prosecution. What the gov't fails to realize is that such a war cannot be won in this manner. Access to so much digital media through YouTube and P2P sharing and the like is all too present to be simply eradicated. Lawsuits against a mother posting an online video of her eighteen-month old son dancing to an unauthorized Prince recording is the work of a disconnected generation. Lawmakers need to adapt to the presence of file-sharing, and must do so in a way that encourages creativity. This is the generation of remixes and mashups, which may be an unfamiliar art form to some but still can produce valuable and interesting world. If the gov't retools their copyright laws in just the right way (I don't claim to know the answer, I just figure its probably out there), the doors can be opened and this art form can flourish  legally.

Where is the line?

Nothing is original. Whatever we may call original is just composed of more fragmented earlier works. Did Nabakov mean to steal the story of Lolita from Lichberg? Probably not. Our subconscious creates seemingly original ideas from everything we absorb. It is simply inevitable. Therefore, we as a society must accept that this will happen, and be open to sharing work with others. If all artists alienate their bodies of work, no more art can flourish. Art is a collaborative project of all humanity, and we must borrow from each other to produce the best work. Not to say we can just steal other people's works and repackage them as our own. Lines must be drawn. A balance must be reached. We cannot mimic other art, but break it apart, tinker with it, re-appropriate it into something with our unique sensibilities. That is as close to originality as we can get.

New literacy

Many would argue that in the age of text messages and IMs, we have become a generation of illiterates. Stanford professor Andrea Lunsford argues otherwise. After analyzing thousands of student writing samples, she concluded that "we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization." You can read the full article here. So is her statement valid? I think the Greek comparison is a bit of a hyperbole, but she's onto something. There is a revolution in writing. A totally new style of literacy is being born, in which the younger generation is absolutely fluent. It's hard to define this as a positive or negative shift - it's just a change. It's clear that writing in all its forms will be different from now on. I'm one of the people who still reads books. I'm a slow reader, but in the last half-year I've gone through novels like Lolita, For Whom the Bell Tolls, High Fidelity and War of the Worlds. I'm sure we have many riveting blog posts ahead of us, but I for one hope we don't lose touch with literature in the classic sense. Not everyone has to sip wine in their armchairs discussing Dante, but the printed word should not be left in the dust as we move forward.

Free-appropriation - plagiarism or unique art form?

I recently read an article about the controversy surrounding German author Helene Hegemann, who cut-and-pasted fragments of other works to form her own. You can read more here. The question is raised - is free-appropriation writing a form of plagiarism or is it an art form in its own right? I believe that unique art with a personal stamp can be created using bits and pieces of preexisting works. In the words of none other than Pablo Picasso: "bad artists copy, great artists steal." He is not referring specifically to free-appropriation art, but the concept is still applicable - as long as artists don't simply "copy" works but reassemble them into something personal and meaningful, they are practicing a legitimate and unique art form. During my days in middle school, I raided the recycling bin obsessively for Newsweeks and New Yorkers, because I quite enjoyed cutting them up and creating collages. Yes, the individual images were crafted by others, but I made them into new works with a distinct voice. Hegemann is also a collage artist and I think that as long as she credits those whose works she uses, she should be free to practice her art.

A reflection

Earlier I typed up my thoughts on digital media and its existence. I still hold the same stance. However, further discussions with classmates have given me some new perceptions, particularly the concept of digital media and the internet as a separate plane, rather than merely an extension of everyday life. I also learned a little bit when I added a picture to one post and thought about the effect of imagery on blogs. This enforced the idea of digital media as a distinct language, and working on my blog has hopefully improved my vocabulary, so to say.

Digital Media - Woven Into Society's Fabric

Digital media, in all its forms, is already integrated into the fabric of society. The presence of Google, Facebook, etc. assures that we are by and large constantly online, and society is utilizing that. A teacher might post a link to his or her website for the students to review as homework, such as a relevant news article or YouTube video. Up-and-coming musical artists might post tracks to their MySpace to get noticed. Established artists are revolutionizing the music industry. Radiohead made news in 2007 when they offered their new album In Rainbows as a digital download, allowing customers to pay whatever price they saw fit. Trent Reznor released the Nine Inch Nails album The Slip as a free download on his website, saying "this one's on me." These are just a few of countless examples, but the point stands. Digital media is here to stay. As much of our society functions on the internet as it does in real life. In order to get something across in the worlds of commerce or art, one should be familiarized with the world wide web and know how to take advantage of online resources.

For this post, I experimented with Photoshop Elements to produce an accompanying image. Though not entirely content with my final product, I like the idea of creating and posting imagery to a blog. With the presence of images, multiple senses can be stimulated and make the blog post more dynamic. An image can also grab the attention of a web surfer and cause them to actually read the post. One might think "this is an interesting image - I wonder what the text here says about it."