Comm Lab – Mash Ups
November 1, 2009Response to artistic property readings:
I’m a mashup lover. It’s a guilty pleasure. It’s not too well looked upon here at ITP, under the guiding principle of the mash up music subculture being passe or even gauche. I don’t give a hoo ha. I love them. I have spent hours sifting through mash up attempts before ultimately finding two songs that truly speak to me. I’m happy to do it.
A good mash up has to do two things. It needs to spin the two songs on end to create a new message and it needs to have a good rhythm(depending on the volume of mashing, you can’t rely on the original songs to do the heavy lifting). The first mashup I heard was Fugazi’s “Waiting Room” versus Destiny’s Child’s “Independent.” You could see the violent mass of teenage girls in bright Disney color combinations and boy band backpacks, rioting in the streets demanding revolution, somehow cutting through all the adolescent confusion to battle imperialism. Plus it was an amazing mix, to have Beyonce’s vocals replace Ian MacKaye, which wasn’t so awesome almost by design. It creates new meaning, it gives Empowerment Pop a genuine edge, perhaps give it actual weight.
I weigh artwork mash ups in exactly the same way. It’s got to create new meaning and it’s gotta have a good beat. It’s wholly semantic, but so is art. And when you get into artistic integrity, that is what it’s about, integrity.
Shepard Fairey, when he is lying about where he gets his images, doesn’t have integrity. If he had come clean at the beginning, there would be no issue. Personally, I think that the AP having issue with the photo used as the basis for the image is wrong because the artwork took on a life of it’s own and very far removed from the source. That being said, I think Mr. Fairey is a fool for lying about it. Done. Period.
I also have issue with the Molotov Man material. I think it did take a life of it’s own, but to claim ignorance and then not care what the original context is only progresses the self-righteousness of artists and that doesn’t help anyone, anything and gives fodder to people who want to take money away from the National Endowment of the Arts. And more than likely, if you’re an artist, you need endowments from somewhere.
In general, I think there’s no legal basis to sue when the imagery is so far removed. Warhol pushed those limits, but I believe the time is coming to always cite your sources. It’s worked for papers, and it must work for anything that requests integrity.
Excuse me, I gotta go dancin’.
This entry was posted in Comm Lab. Bookmark the permalink. ← Midterm! – Wear Where. An iPhone app. PComp – H Bridge Lab →