Teleglitcher, an early video from my 2007 Pixel is Power project, has been featured in a special presentation at the New Zealand Film Archive. Kiwi visual artist Dick Whyte, with the help of Mark Williams, put together a screening of various experimental media, described as such:
“What do Miss Piggy, Britney Spears, Mussolini, Super Mario Bros., Charlie Rose, John Key, Ruth Richardson and Buster Keaton have in common? They are all the subjects of avant-garde films on YouTube. Film maker and academic Dick Whyte presents a screening of recent avant-garde films he has curated from YouTube. All of them re-purpose existing material into new works.
“Whyte says, “Technology has taken a long time to get to the point where video makers can sample with the same abandon as musicians and still image makers. YouTube heralds a new age in avant-garde cinema which is fully engaged with popular media.” The screening will be accompanied by short introductions to the films and their particular strategies, looking at the function of avant-garde moving-image at the beginning of the twenty-first century.” — New Zealand Film Archive
The show was screened at the Film Archive Mediatheatre, Wellington, in January of this year. See all films from the presentation at Whyte’s blog.
Personally, I am not a fan of copyright licenses. Oftentimes I feel restricted in my work, unable to sample almost anything at all for fear of infringing copyright laws. This comes as no real surprise, me being of the mass media Internet generation who doesn’t much care for the mainstream music or film industries and all.
That said, I still enjoy a good album or movie in much the same way I like lighter, DIY user created content such as video mashups, and respect peoples’ rights to make money from their creations. Heck, it would be nice to one day make something out of what I do, but of course it’s never the primary motivation. People motivated by money may be rich but, on the whole, aren’t very nice individuals, and I’d hate to become one of them.
Good Copy Bad Copy is a Danish documentary offering some hope for the future, a utopian world where individuals are free to express their creativity with as wide a range of media as is available without fear of censorship. It’s a great watch for anyone interested in such things, covering copyright laws in the United States, Europe and even Nigeria. Here’s a bit of taster, the final minutes of the film:
When creating the ‘Teletext is Dead’ video, I tried out a number of soundtracks, messing around with the pacing before finally settling on a fast paced, hectic concoction. This early mix, by contrast, is much more relaxing and laid back, whilst at the same time strangely intense. Music is provided by Nick McCabe.
Oh, and now you know where inspiration for the ‘Dreamy’ instrumental (as seen in this video) comes from.
It’s almost five years to the day when Kevin Pietersen pretty much single handedly regained the Ashes for the England cricket team. Well, it wasn’t really that clear cut, but it’s certainly one of the most memorable innings by an England player in recent times.
What better time to dig an appropriate video from the Illarterate archives? Well, this is the number one video for the term ‘Kevin Pietersen’ on YouTube (and number two on Google Video Search for the same term), so I guess it’s notable enough for a post here.
Best to enjoy it while it lasts, because every day in every way it is getting closer to being removed for copyright infringement. Fingers crossed.
Ha! Election time is almost upon us, which reminded me of something, namely those Gordon Brown mashups I did a couple of years ago, the ones Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic didn’t like too much. I seem to recall him saying something about the limited pool of footage… but anyway, at least these days there’s a home for them amongst the sea of stupidity and silliness that is YouTube.com.
In actual fact, I’ve been testing out a new version of the video editing software I’ve splashed out on. Whether it’ll be worth the 25 quid, who knows, but I thought I might as well get my money out of it. To this end, here’s an upscaled-to-HD version of the Kung Fu Gordon Brown video which, just a couple of years ago, we’d have never dreamed of seeing in high def. Have fun, and don’t take it too seriously, y’all.
