The Internet, as an Avant-Garde Orchestral Suite – YouTube Mash-Ups
Via YouTube Doubler, a twisted online YouTube mash-up tool created by digital artist and Emergency Broadcast Network veteran Brian Kane, comes a strange new … orchestral composition. (EBN, for those not in the know, should translate as "video mash-ups before you knew what video mash-ups were.") Charlie Rose interviews Charlie Rose. "Google…" Just watch. (The video is embedded after the break, as it’s essential that both clips start up at the same time. Video will therefore naturally autoplay.)
We’ve got two layers of mashing-up going on: the first layer of this mashed … cake is a new composition by Tan Dun.
ThruYou / Kutiman already showed us what happens when an elaborate video mix pieces together imaginative songs from tiny clips of YouTube uploads – a potentially gimmicky concept, but brilliant when done right. Noted composer Tan Dun has gone that route, as well, with his Internet Symphony.
Using thousands of submissions to http://youtube.com/symphony, the resulting composition is entitled “Internet Symphony, Eroica.” See top.
But all this gets much better when the mash-up is squared in YouTube Doubler. In addition to the Tan Dun composition, a short film has Charlie Rose interviewing Charlie Rose about the Internet. Rose appears as the spoken word narrator on top of Tan Dun’s score, and what results is an odd, reflective commentary on our times, adding a certain nervous uncertainty to Tan Dun’s Internet optimism.
Enjoy.
If you don’t like Charlie Rose, well, there’s always John Cage. [YouTube Doubler autoplay]
7 Comments
Leave a Commentkempton
I’m sure its been covered before, but on a similar note, I find Kutiman absolutely amazing and wonder what his composition process must be like:
http://www.youtube.com/user/kutiman
April 15, 2009 @ 8:11 am
tj
this is great. my first youtube doubler mash-up turned out pretty crazy:
http://blog.califaudio.com/2009/04/youtube-doubler.html
the possibilities are endless…
April 15, 2009 @ 8:33 am
ferri
and if you like rock music check this out
April 15, 2009 @ 11:02 am
SkyRon™
just a little historical footnote:
although he’s totally obscure, composer Joey Bargsten made the internet an avant-garde orchestral instrument in 1999 using Shockwave Director in his Web Symphony (http://www.badmindtime.com/HTML/websym/websym2.htm). It delivers random orchestral notation, and while it’s more conceptual than the Tan Dun opus, it’s sure to become completely forgotten, especially since current parts play only on PPC Macs.
a more accessible Flash version (you play the orchestra with your alpha keyboard) is here: http://www.badmindtime.com/HTML/websym/websym.htm
the composer recently crafted a concerto for live digital media and orchestra, too. So far, rejected by Rhizome, the Knight Foundation, and New World Symphony: http://www.archive.org/details/t00n_mmix .
April 15, 2009 @ 2:38 pm
eisnein
thank you so much for refreshing EBN into people’s minds!!! I had no idea that he/they was responsible for the youtube maser!
April 16, 2009 @ 2:33 am
eisnein
ooops…continued…
EBN and seeing Coldcut perform live was such a huge huge influence!
April 16, 2009 @ 2:33 am
Create Digital Music » In Bb 2.0: YouTube-Generated, Collaborative Music Remix
[...] but yet again, in the spirit of the YouTube-fueled musical genius of Kutiman and, more recently, Tan Dun and Internet orchestras, the combination of user-contributed videos turns out to be magical. Perhaps “You” are a star, [...]
May 15, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
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