Note: Jazari was featured on NPR: Jazari: A One-Man, Wii-Operated Drum Circle. What is interesting about the band’s approach (the band consists of only one person, composer/programmer Patrick Flanagan) is that by programming two Wii controllers for speed, rhythm, loudness and syncopation, the performance references the role of a conductor in front of an orchestra or phylarmonic. One could speculate on the meaning of this approach to making music, especially in regards to how a performer has a certain agency in front of the audience. What happens when this delivery is done through a computerized set up? Where is the mythologized hand of the artist?
Note: Medialab Prado has released online the video documentation of my presentation of “Remix, The Bond of Repetition and Representation” for Interactivos during the summer of 2008. The presentation emphasizes the concept of Visual Play, which was the thematic for the workshops sessions in that year. A different version of the text was later published at the end of the same year by Telefónica, and is available online, through Remix theory as post 361. The introduction is in Spanish, but the text presentation itself is in English. The video is also downloadable with a Spanish voiceover translation. Much of the material presented has also become parts of various texts also available on Remix Theory. Abstract of the text follows below as published on Medialab’s website:
This text, “Remix: The bond of Repetition and Representation,” entertains the historical importance of Remix in culture at large. It places particular importance on how the image is constantly appropriated in the visual arts as well as other areas of mass culture with unprecedented efficiency. This is done to understand the dialectics at play within Remix, itself and to further understand the principles behind concepts such as “Visual Play” in the emerging network culture. As it becomes clear in the following essay, in order for remix culture to come about, certain dynamics had to be in place, and these were first explored in music, around the contention of representation and repetition. This essay defines the concept of Remix in relation to these two terms, and then moves on to examine its role in media and art. There are three Remix definitions introduced in this essay: The Extended, The Selective and the Reflexive Remixes. These definitions are outlined historically and examined in various areas of culture including the visual arts, pop culture as well as game culture. The essay ends with a critical reflection on what one can do with an awareness of Remix as a dialectical manifestation.
Lawrence Lessig recently gave a talk about what the left can learn from the right when it comes to sharing and remixing content. Much of the material will be familiar to people who have read Lessig’s books; still, his own position is explained: he considers himself on the left but repeatedly looks to the right, as it is people on this camp that appear to be interested in supporting remix culture.
Note: The following is an interview about a book that’s coming out on the history of the vocoder. Quite interesting. My only observation is that the interviewer casually links early Hip Hop with pop culture and this is missed by the interviewee. Historians know that early Hip Hop was also an avant-garde movement, though with different preocupations of previous groups who may have deliberately linked themselves with the nineteenth century concept. Still worth the listen/reading.
If you’ve listened to pop music in the past 40 years, you’ve probably heard more than a few songs with a robotic sound. That’s thanks to the vocoder, a device invented by Bell Labs, the research division of AT&T. Though the vocoder has found its way into music, the machine was never intended for that function. Rather, it was developed to decrease the cost of long-distance calls and has taken on numerous other uses since.
Music journalist Dave Tompkins has written a book about the vocoder and its unlikely history. It’s called How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II to Hip-Hop.
Tompkins says the machine played a significant role in World War II. After the U.S. government discovered that Winston Churchill’s conversations with Franklin D. Roosevelt were being intercepted and deciphered by the Germans, it decided to invest in speech-encoding technology. So the National Defense Research Committee commissioned Bell Labs in 1942 to develop a machine — and Bell Labs delivered.
The vocoder wasn’t without its flaws. Intelligibility of speech sometimes proved a problem, but Tompkins says pitch control was a bigger concern.
“They didn’t mind world leaders sounding like robots, just as long as they didn’t sound like chipmunks,” he says. “Eisenhower did not want to sound like a chipmunk.”
I ran into this brief interview with Just Blaze, who explains his theory on how music samples can be tracked on radio play to evaluate popularity of a song.
Recently received a link from Joshua Pablo Rosenstock about his video, Shrine to the Funky Drummer. The video presents Rosenstock as a subject who is greatly influenced by James Brown’s “Funky Drummer.” We quickly learn that his interest is a jumping point to understand how the song’s basic drum beat has become part of Hip Hop consciousness.
While the video, in my opinion could be edited (the intro is too long, and some footage does not match the sound), it does provide some historical context as to the art of sampling and its place in Hip Hop Culture. It starts with Rosenstock listening to a scratched 45, and then playing the beat on a drum set. The next set of scenes are about DJ’s manipulating The Funky Drummer’s break beat, complemented with random interviews with record diggers and turntablists. The video then goes back to Rosenstock who no longer plays a drum set, but a set of samples from a drum machine.
Shrine to the Funky Drummer reminds me a bit about Nate Harrison’s Amen Brother Break. Though very different in approach, both videos can be complementary references for understanding the history of Remix. I understand that Shrine to the Funky Drummer’s current version is a rough cut, so I look forward to the final production.
Note: I’m very happy to announce the release of a book publication titled Mashup Cultures in which I contribute a text titled “Regressive and Reflexive Mashups in Sampling Culture.” The text was previously released on Vague Terrain in June 2007, and has been revised and extended by over 15 pages for the book publication.I introduce a series of new terms along with a diagram, which I will be making available online in the near future.
Mashup Cultures, Sonvilla-Weiss. Stefan (Ed.), Springeren: This volume brings together cutting-edge thinkers and scholars together with young researchers and students, proposing a colourful spectrum of media-theoretical, -practical and -educational approaches to current creative practices and techniques of production and consumption on and off the web. Along with the exploration of some of the emerging social media concepts, the book unveils some of the key drivers leading to participatory engagement of the User.
Mashup Cultures presents a broader view of the effects and consequences of current remix practices and the recombination of existing digital cultural content. The complexity of this book, which appears on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the international MA study program ePedagogy Design – Visual Knowledge Building, also by necessity seeks to familiarize the reader with a profound glossary and vocabulary of Web 2.0 cultural techniques.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss: Introduction: Mashups, Remix Practices and the Recombination of Existing Digital Content
• Axel Bruns: Distributed Creativity: Filesharing and Produsage
• Brenda Castro: The Virtual Art Garden: A Case Study of User-centered Design for Improving Interaction in Distant Learning Communities of Art Students
• Doris Gassert: “You met me at a very strange time in my life.” Fight Club and the Moving Image on the Verge of ‘Going Digital’
• David Gauntlett: Creativity, Participation and Connectedness: An Interview with David Gauntlett
• Mizuko Ito: Mobilizing the Imagination in Everyday Play: The Case of Japanese Media Mixes
• Henry Jenkins: Multiculturalism, Appropriation, and the New Media Literacies: Remixing Moby Dick
• Owen Kelly: Sexton Blake & the Virtual Culture of Rosario: A Biji
• Torsten Meyer: On the Database Principle: Knowledge and Delusion
• Eduardo Navas: Regressive and Reflexive Mashups in Sampling Culture
• Christina Schwalbe: Change of Media, Change of Scholarship, Change of University: Transition from the Graphosphere to a Digital Mediosphere
• Noora Sopula & Joni Leimu: A Classroom 2.0 Experiment
• Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss: Communication Techniques, Practices and Strategies of Generation “Web n+1?
• Wey-Han Tan: Playing (with) Educational Games – Integrated Game Design and Second Order Gaming
• Tere Vadén interviewed by Juha Varto: Tepidity of the Majority and Participatory Creativity
The following is a presentation separated into two parts; it was produced for the conference Re*-Recycling_Sampling_Jamming, which took place in Berlin during February 2009.
Part One (above) introduces the three chronological stages of Remix, while part two (below) defines how the three chronological stages are linked to the concept of Authorship, as defined by Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. Also see my previous entry “The Author Function in Remix” which is a written excerpt of the theory proposed in part two.
Below is the abstract that summarizes the content of the two videos. Total running time is around fifteen minutes.
———–
Text originally published on Re*- on February 2009:
SAMSTAG_28.02.2009_SEKTION IV_15-20 UHR
12_15:00 Remix[ing]. The Three Chronological Stages of Sampling
Eduardo Navas, Künstler und Medienwissenschaftler, University of California in San Diego (USA)
Sampling is the key element that makes the act of remixing possible. In order for Remix to take effect, an originating source must be sampled in part or as a whole. Sampling is often associated with music; however, this text will show that sampling has roots in mechanical reproduction, initially explored in visual culture with photography. A theory of sampling will be presented which consists of three stages: The first took place in the nineteenth century with the development of photography and film, along with sound recording. In this first stage, the world sampled itself. The second stage took place at the beginning of the twentieth century, once mechanical recording became conventionalized, and early forms of cutting and pasting were explored. This is the time of collage and photo-montage. And the third stage is found in new media in which the two previous stages are combined at a meta-level, giving users the option to cut or copy (the current most popular form of sampling) based on aesthetics, rather than limitations of media. This is not to say that new media does not have limitations, but exactly what these limitations may be is what will be entertained at greater length.The analysis of the three stages of sampling that inform Remix as discourse is framed by critical theory. A particular focus is placed on how the role of the author in contemporary media practice is being redefined in content production due to the tendency to share and collaborate. The theories on authorship by Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault are entertained in direct relation to the complexities that sampling has brought forth since it became ubiquitous in popular activities of global media, such as social networking and blogging.
Sound set up by Beatrix*Jar, combines hacked battery operated toys with prerecorded samples played on a vintage Denon CD-DJ machine.
On January 23, I attended a circuit bending workshop at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) taught by the experimental music duo, Beatrix*jar. The hacking session was organized specifically for teenagers, who were more than ready to open up battery operated instrumental toys to release the ghost in the machine.
Another shot of Beatrix*Jar’s set up.
I was interested in attending the event in order to get a sense of how teenagers in a time of inter-connectivity relate to low-tech hacking. I left the museum with a positive reaction as I confirmed that tinkering is not a trend but a constant creative staple for generations of the past, present, and future.
Video of Beatrix*Jar’s six minute improvisational performance
The session began with a six minute performance by the sound art collective, which clearly got the young hackers excited about the possibilities of circuit bending. Beatrix*Jar, who have a background in art, are quick to claim that when they got started they had no music training. This was their way of saying “anyone can do it!” They complemented their demos with historical information, and encouraged participants to read Reed Ghazala’s Extreme Tech Circuit Bending.
A hacked Casio keyboard. The on/off switches on the sides add customized sounds found by benders who participate in the ongoing workshop sessions held at different venues by Beatrix*Jar.
After explaining the beginnings of circuit bending, they quickly moved to demonstrating how to open up the toys, and find unexpected sounds.
Opening the gadgets to release the ghost in the machine. Circuit bending frenzy at its best.
Gabrielle Wyrick, Education Curator, who kindly hosted me for the afternoon, explained that the workshops for teenagers are part of a program set up to encourage kids of all ages to realize that the museum is a place to visit and learn, interact, have fun, and most of all be creative. Workshops like these, Wyrick explained are at times held for adults as well. It appears that the concept of interactivity is finding its way everywhere, even to institutions such as museums that in the past posed as monolithic entities. A good thing this is, as Wyrick explains that the MCASD wants to embrace audience involvement. The museum is redefining itself as a place which searches for ways to reveal the creative process in visitors, who can experiment with similar strategies that inform the creative drive of artists who actually have exhibits in the museum.
Beatrix*Jar explain how to hack battery operated instrumental toys.
For me it was a treat to see a hacking duo having a lot of fun with second-hand gadgets that can be found at any garage sale. Creativity is the best value money can’t buy.
AS dangerous as it may be to generalize, it is probably safe to say that few folks think of Marcel Proust as they watch the Super Bowl. But for the advertising bowl that took place inside Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday, it was one long remembrance of things past — with candy bars, mobile phones and beer bottles standing in for madeleines.
Nostalgia is a critical component of the pitches from sponsors on Super Bowl Sunday. After all, the best way to appeal to a mass audience of 100 million or so Americans is usually to fill spots with paeans to the past along with catchy music, stars, special effects, talking babies and endearing animals.
Even so, the salutes on Sunday to bygone eras reached a peak perhaps not seen since the last time Fonzie said “Ayyyy” on “Happy Days.” The reason is, of course, the economy and the belief along Madison Avenue that tough times call for familiarity rather than risks.
How retro was Super Bowl XLIV? Let us count the ways it resembled Super Bowl XXXIV, XXIV, XIV and even IV:
