Prompt Number Two
BLOG PROMPT TWO: Appropriation and Collaboration
In B Flat (2011) by Darren Solomon and Thru-You (2009) by Kutiman
PLEASE ANSWER BY POSTING COMMENTS.
From A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, "Appropriation in art is the use of pre-existing objects or images ... To appropriate means to adopt, borrow, recycle or sample aspects of (or the entire form of) human-made visual culture."
Collaboration is when more than one person intentionally work together to create a work of art.
Interact with In B Flat and watch at least one song from Thru-You (I recommend "Mother of All Funk Chords"). Briefly describe these art projects in terms of appropriation and/or collaboration.
In B Flat by artist/composer Darren Solomon: http://www.inbflat.net
THRU-YOU | Kutiman Mixes Youtube by artist/musician Kutiman: http://thru-you.com
It is one artist alone compiling all of these other Youtube videos that may or may not have been used without their consent. This is, then, an example of appropriation because these people did not work with Kutiman to comprise these funky beats
ReplyDeleteI believe both of these art projects fall into the category of appropriation. They are using preexisting videos from youtube and creating something of their own. It would not be collaboration because everyone in the video didn't intentionally work on it together. My favorite is “In be flat”, it’s almost like you are making your own music by being able to control what you play. I wonder if he asked the people if he could use their work or if they had no usage rights.
ReplyDeleteIn B Flat is listed as a collaboration so that makes me think that he asked people to make these videos. I thought it was cool that all of these videos could be played together in any order and still sound unified, like it was meant that way. I think Thru-You would be considered appropriation because he is mixing together videos that were already posted on youtube , but he does credit the owners. It's amazing that he is able to create this work of art through combining the talents of others.
ReplyDeleteIn B Flat is a creative piece that visual shows the pieces of one masterpieve, or song. In other words, instead of listening to this as a song, you are also visually seeing where the sounds come from and how they interact with one another. For example, the trumpet with the mute plays softer than the man speaking, etc. However, the entire piece comes together like a sheet of music does. So, In B Flat is a collaboration.
ReplyDeleteThru-You is an appropriation because it is snippets of other people's work. I am not sure I like this one as much, just because of how the sounds don't match as well as In B Flat.
Both In B-Flat and Thru-you both have embedded YouTube videos into their website. In B Flat is a creative collage of videos which can played individually. Each video is a sound in B-Flat. It is interesting to hear multiple videos play together in harmony. Since these videos were pulled from different YouTube users accounts and were not intentionally designed for the use of this project, it is not a piece of collaboration. However, the author did list it as a collaborative project in the title. it is possible the author asked the owner of the videos if he could use them.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Thru-You is a complete product of appropriation. In the alert message that opens when entering the site, it says "What you are about to see is a mix of unrelated Youtube videos" and "check out the credits for each video- you might find yourself". The alert message shows the original owners of the videos may not be aware the author is using them for his project. Thus, it cannot be collaboration because the author is not working with the owners of the videos. I thought this was a creative idea for a website. It is fun to see a combination of other's talents to unify into one piece of art. Also i liked how the site's logo looks like a recycled youtube logo.
In B-Flat claims to be a collaborative piece, however we have no proof that the artist reached out to everyone. He may have asked for permission to use their videos, but if they did not all make them for the purpose of this video, then it would be classes as appropriation instead of collaboration. It seems more likely to me that the artist found videos all in B-Flat, asked for permission to post them, and then made a site with them all.
ReplyDeleteThru-You is 100% appropriation. There is even a disclaimer that many of the artist do not know they are on the site. It is a compilation of videos of people making music or talking that has been uploaded to the creators YouTube Channel and then posted to the site.
In B-Flat says to be a collaborative piece and considering how well the different videos seem to blend together, even so far as to give us control of what videos we play and when, really speaks to the collaboration that these different people put in to make this website. Thru-You actually states that it has taken work from other people without their consent, although it does give credit to certain websites. Thru-You is also well put together, but you can tell that the effort of people working together to make music that is present in In B-Flat makes it flow together better.
ReplyDeleteInitially, I believed In B-Flat to be appropriation, but after considering the piece I believe collaboration is more appropriate. The videos fuse together in a way that makes the piece cohesive and the mere fact that it is stated as a collaborative piece seems to allude to the idea that the videos used were made for the purpose of the piece. Thru-you appears to be more of an appropriation as the videos are compiled from people whose work was made public, but not necessarily gave permission to be used in the piece. The disclaimer also makes me think it's appropriation because he does not have permission to use the videos.
ReplyDeleteThis video is a collaborative piece. The author of this took other peoples musical performances and recreated a bigger performance with multiple videos and different instruments. It was noted that he got their permission to do so. Overall this video is interesting with how its put together.
ReplyDeleteLucas:
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy the idea of In B Flat. It's very fun to work with plus and makes the viewer feel like an artist as well. Thru-You is similar, except it doesn't give the audience that interactive experience. In B Flat is collaborative because it has artists working together and knowing what they're playing their music for. They know it's going to be used for this site for the purpose of giving the audience an interactive music experience. Thru-You is appropriation because it borrows elements from other artists without them even knowing about it.
I would say that B Flat is a really good example of appropriation because there are a bunch of random youtube clips all stuck together. I think that it is really cool that you can play them all together and they sound good and mesh very well. I think Thru-You is a little more complicated to address because the videos are pieced together so well. However I do believe that it is an appropriation as well because the videos are still very random, but just meshed together to sound appealing.
ReplyDeleteB Flat is a piece that shows the pieces of one song. It pretty much shows where the sounds are coming from and how they interact with one another. Since there are multiple parts to make it come together B Flat is a collaboration.Thru-You is an appropriation because it is pieces of other people's work pieced together.
ReplyDelete