wicka wicka wicka - reeeeemixxxx invasion station

Hello everyone and thanks for reading my final blog post for the semester for Remix Culture! I would just like to start off by saying that Invasion was fabulous and was exactly what I personally needed, amidst one of the most crazY weeks I have ever experienced. Everyone in this class really rocked and went all out for the final. I really enjoyed experiencing everyone's work and getting to know the class. We were all such a great mix of folk with eccentric and very different backgrounds, it was the bees knees :o)
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About our VDMX collaboration. I worked with the fabulous lady team of Kaitlyn, Megan and I. We spent ALOT of time figuring out that program and music programs that were all new to each of us. The actual performance went great and was ALOT of fun to see how it affected people live. I think that was the most impressive part about what we did, was the feeling of like, well, anything could happen, and you just have to roll with it. And such is life, as well, right.

As far as the content went, we chose to do four 2 minute segments of dreams relating to the 4 stages of sleep and how people are not able to sleep as well as they get older: stage one - sleeping when youre a baby, stage two - nightmares, stage three - sex dreams and finally stage four - insomnia as we get older. We put together all the videos from archive.org and youtube and created our music mixes with found clips from freesound.org (<----that place is great for all you music lovers. or anyone that just need a clip of like someone farting or a plate breaking, whatever, they have it!) So we mixed it all together and BAM - there you have it.
In the background of one of last mix, we remixed the book "goodnight moon" and recorded into the background. It was a little hard to hear, so I will write it next....Other than that - WOooot wOOOot what an amazing class. I learned so much and am very thankful for the experience! Cheers!
GOODNIGHT REMIX
(coming soon....I have to find it) I wanted to get this at least posted.

Web Spinna-Begginna

(*)Heres(*)the(*)link(*)to(*)my(*)music(*)page(*)

WESPINNA PERFORMANCE LINKS for Lauren Carter

Totally Corrupt

rain on the sea

piano ambiant goodness

slow mo mild bone sounds

folkishness

human beat boxin'

sounds of toys

flying red here fishy fishy

window pains

howler monkey

voices in your head mix

gorillaz

sadieslady list

couldsoundloudmound

https://webfiles.colorado.edu/carterl/www/()Spinzies().html?uniq=-rikcod

SoSILence and Sounds Manifest in the minds eye lens (minds silence)

Its dark in my mind. And outside, it is light, at leased it is in this time zone. Yet, in this silence, there are sounds - and I can not stop them. Skitzophrenia? yes/no. Really, who decides what voices are percieved as 'crazy' and what voices are patterns from the past and future, that ones beautiful mind translates into it's own saga? Skitzophrena runs in my family. I am not far removed from it, nor scared of it. Who says the syntax and rhythms can not determine a new language, a code from long ago, or in the future? It makes me quite curious, where all these voices come from, and what they can teach, instead or creating fear. There is enough fear already.
"What would happen if we studied what is right with people?" - Don Clifton

My Green Story
While reading Rhythm Science, the voices in my head were on overload. Like 23 records playing at once, forward-backward-upside-down and catywampus. I began to think about this tie to 'mental disorders' and the sounds and images that are created in the minds of people with these gifts, and the way in which they communicate in this world as we know it. I work as a counselor in a home with three cognitively disabled women. One of these women in particular is 'illiterate'. She reads (or interprets into what society percieves as reading) only certain, simple words like "life, love, cat, hat, small and large". Yet, she loves to read. I was at the bookstore with her this past weekend, and she completed a 325 page book in about an hour span. We sat in silence, communicating through sounds that bounced around the bookstore, catching each others glance or laughing at things around us, in perfect rhythm. When she was finished with her reading process, and ready to leave, I was the epitome of curious. And so, I asked her how she read this book so fast? (obviously knowing that she 'reads' differently than the 'average' person). She told me that, "certain words just pop out at her on the page, and she makes up her own story". I will never know what story she was actually reading, but I know that she was satified with her saga, and that made me happy in return....And also made my head full of questions and possibilities.

What we read, what we hear, what we see: It is all contingent upon what is in our minds eye; what we know as the world around us; and then how we process and replace words with new words and phrases. We communicate in a multitude of arenas, stages, if you will. We are all tied together from the ancient past, texts, songs and symbols. And this to me, is quite exciting. People like Paul Miller, are genius to me. Melt the words and sounds into an intellectual cornacopia of possibilities. Singling no one out. Including the space around us all. And playing with the fabrics that weave everyone together. Whether we see, hear, feel, smell or taste this connection. It is all there...

"ALWAYS TRY TO CREATE NEW WORLDS"....(That Subliminal Kid)

....Create new worlds and WORDS, which is something that I am very interested in as well. As DJ Spooky, also agrees when he states, "Play with the recognizability of texts, and see what happens". Well, right there is one word, that my spellchecker does not like. It underlines "recognizability" with those obnoxious little red dotted lines. How dare you, spell checker! I happen to think that this word makes perfect sense...But then again, I tend to live in a world of my own....
*This is just the first thing I am thinking of while writing this blog (I will post more later today/tonight/early morning perhaps)
----------->>>>>But the below image is a "Sound Sculpture" that I have made, and think that it ties nicely to DJ Spooky's idea that "the DJ crafts the physical form around the idea" and his defined sound sculptures in this social sphere....

This record player housed my sculptural elements on top, but the magic really happened when it spun on the turn table, creating a light show...and remix of images and themes.....enjoy.

Détournement and 'The Spectacle' ~ Side B

Now that this 'Guy' and his theories have had time to settle into my brain (my spectacle) a little bit, I wanted to post a side B, if you will. I would be lying if I said that this material was easy for me to grasp right away. I needed some time to digest, not understand, ask questions, and look at these methods in my everyday life and try to make sense of it all. I did come to the conclusion that I can stop beating myself up, for not necessarily understanding some of these theories and methods presented...So with that said, I am going to try and breath now! And possibly attempt to learn some more French, because I am with Adam M. - my eyes hurt after trying to watch those images and attempt to read the words. I must have paused my video 100 times. But after all, "restricting oneself to a personal arrangement of words is a mere convection"....

So, if this Spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relationship, I feel that we are then becoming more and more separated from the world around us. I guess this kind of goes without saying, but works as a jumping off point for me. I, for one, do not know that I necessarily agree with Debord completely, yet I believe his theory is interesting, and can relate to many aspects of creation, and consumerism alike. So if this spectacle reunites the separated, but reunites it as separated, does this not mean that the new product, or reunion, is then it's own distinct product or idea? I feel that this relates directly to speech, for example. At a young age, we learn words. Yet words are so ubiquitous, and take form in many ways. This can be from everyday speaking with friends and colleagues, to writing where the thoughts are tangible (yet still can be fuzzy and meanings blurred.), to the words chosen for advertising. With words, ignorance and other misunderstandings can be passed and remixed. In the area of the 'spectacle', desires are fed to us via advertising, and other forms of media, and the images and the desires they produce permeate levels of our own lives and leisure. This is seen in "Commodity Fetishism" and can make one lose sight of what basic 'needs' (not wants) are. It resonates with me, that, whether or not we believe these elements, we are still a part of this; In fact, the Spectacle becomes ingrained in our everyday lives from a very young age. The spectacle does re-establish it's rule, wherever representation takes on an independent existence. Just as the spectacle re-establishes itself, society does too. The redundancy and lack of cohesion is a direct effect of how we actually contradict ourselves.

So how does this relate to Remixxxx? Is the practice of working artist or musician or any other sort of creative person effected by the spectacle? As I said before -Yes. I think so. I feel that it is impossible not to be involved in the spectacle, through mere existence. Especially in the culture and society we live in. Under conditions of the 'borrowing' system, and the selling power that art/music/fetishes have on the market, people come to view the creator as things and the money as creative! This irks me. The problem for me lies in the relationship between the producer and the consumer becoming completed obscured. So of course, when this disunity between the creator and the consumer, a sort of misunderstanding resonates and all Hell breaks loose. The spectacle consumes more information, twists it, remixes it and creates new thoughts and ideologies for future generations. In a way, this is why I personally enjoy mixing other people works and words into art (see last blog entry - I took words from Debord-Marx-Blogs-the Spectacle), because it is inevitable that we share ideas as a collective of people! These shared ideas should not be lost to the 'who's is this and who's is that', but yet a conglomerate of information. We can't put a copyright on words! Ideas tend to be individualized, and usually spin in great new creative directions when more than one person is involved. That's the juice and the spice to life, right there...in my mind anyways. And yes, thinking about it makes my head spin. Its hard to digest, but fun to break apart and think about in abstract ways. And the spectacle definitely makes me think about it the next time I say that I really "need" something, because it's is usually just because I 'want' it. And most of the time I want it because I am interested in creating something new with its contents. And once again, there is the shift from "being" to "having"...and around and around we go... I look forward to discussing this more tonight, as a collective!

Can I 'borrow' your Blinders?

ThingPit from taras hrabowsky on Vimeo.

Critical Mass, Collapse, recycle, reinvent, steal, playgerize, spin, relationships, recreations, Market, Mark it, Make it, Take it, history, herstory, conundrum of stories, stories of theories, colorful piles, stacks, attacks, sampling, Blueprint, Reprint, Greenprint, Reclaim, Claim, Spectrum, Exchange value, Comodity Fetishism, Modern vs. Archaic, Individual, Success, Suicide, Banned, Ignorance, who's expense, who lies, who ties it, Together, Apart, Instruments of Unification, Unfaithful Objectification, Social Relation, Variations, antagonists, schools of fish, target audience, Oppose the message, Obstacles are building materials, Modern lexicon, sequencial atmospheres, wonder, Flow, wander, know, Detourage, Collage, Pedestals, Tensions, Superimpositions, Cliches, Impersonations, Undermine, Rewind, Mock, Marxism, Hacking, Attacking, Dominate, Sublimate, Supplement, Represent, Cultures of Activity, Ability, Unconscious, Gestures, Precariousness, Visions, Revisions, Televisions, Commercialisms, Decipher, Human experience, Layers, Players, Dubbers, Snubbers, Rubbers, Uncovers, Floating gazes, Zigzag mazes, Fables, Democracy, Demo crazy, Intelligence, hazy but never lazy. Logos, Promos, B.o.g.o's, Free?, Really. Reality Takes from its past, Participate, Create, Revolutions, ego contusions, Eclecticism, Fusions, dis-illusions, courage conviction contradiction, Inflictions, Infiltration, E.ras(e)isms, spectacles, assimilation, Dont compromise-Compartmentalize, Exchange, change the boundaries, Life, Inquiries, Free Societies. Can I Borrow Your Ideas?

Images relating to Flusser, from the web blog that I can not seem to upload, no matter how much I try. (boo) The REAL title of this piece is "CAM-era"

Toyz R Us - plus +
Stimulation; APPeAR AT US

Outwhere? Some dare,
'Ill-liter-it' with care.

Where Imagination Persists,
Man Ek-Sists.

Mythological Models Emerge,
And hands of power, surge.

Do the tools invert the man,
Or are we all just one big clan?

When the Hunter becomes the Hunted;
Even if not Hit, we are all confronted.

Extract the color from this life;
Was black and white just too much strife?

Waiting eagerly for distribution,
Mute surfaces need contribution.

Once one masters the WORDS,
Frozen images can the Merge.

Change the information, please.
One-sided can not be all that one sees.

Redundancy can be habitual,
Except when it becomes mythical.

Magic is a necessary game,
If not; Then each day would be the same.

*

So, who do we call about getting the Copyrights to this one...?

VS.

Free Shakespeare & Shake up the Sphere

Now don't cry kiddies - Steamboat Willy, the classic Mickey Mouse, was not exactly Walt's own idea. It came from Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr. You can see how he could turn the name to fit the picture he had in his mind though, right. Why blame him? Don't go boycotting Disney and throwing away all of your old bubble case tapes now! They could be worth something, or hell, you could make them into something new - There is a concept! So, in this world, where even Mickey Mouse is not an 'original' idea, where do we draw the line of where we get our own information, and where it becomes our own rather than someone else's idea. It seems almost impossible to be able to tell from where all of this information originally came. Life these days is a cross cultural and societal game of battle ship, where the players are also the writers and the speakers. Text and music become hit, exploded and mashed up and then regurgitaded to another someones' ear, who may then tell retell the story - but slightly remixed. Think of it as a universal game of 'telephone'. Remember that one...

So really, let's face it, there are millions and millions of humans in this world. Writers, artists, musicians, poets, etc who all create their "own" work; and guaranteed that 99% of these folks would admit that some to the majority of their work had roots in someone else's ideas. And this is not to say that the intention was for the 'new' artist to steal ideas from the 'old' artist, sometimes it is even unknown that the material may not have even been there own. Call it this 'human connectedness'. Maybe someone out there could have actually just happened to have the same idea. Its possible, especially if you don't let the ego get in the way. With the advancements of computers, yes, copyrights and plagerisms are now more apt to be found through endless source material that exists. The idea of the open source has existed long before the computer age. It is now just more able to be brought to our attention, because so much information is at the reach of 8 finger tips (oh, and two thumbs too). But is the transparency of process helping or hindering the artistic society in which we live.

I truely beleive that now, in 2010, Intellectual Properties, while they do have there place, should be limited in the arts. This neologism, called Open Content should be considered, especially in the Remix Culture. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages in regard to the thing that copyright seems to try to take away - CREATIVITY. How can one say that using information, maybe that has even been passed down, is not new material, and therefore, not creative. Absolute Malarky! I think Umberto Eco puts it best when he states, "Every reception of a work of art is both an interpretation and a performance of it, because in every reception the work takes a fresh perspective for itself". This brings me to my personal philosophy on the subject matter of the Open Source dimema. Every moment is different, yes? And everyone sees/hears/feels colors, shapes, even ideas differently, even if they are described as solid,tangible facts that everyone understands on the same plane. So aren't we remixing EVERYTHING all the time. It is mostly in the way it is percieved. So get over it people, we all plagerize. I prefer to play-gerize personally though.

The effort to protect intellectul property definitely becomes obsolete in this digital/networking society. Im not even sure how this would be monitered. And more power to the nerd who wants to try. I bet that some of their music has been sampled from lets say, oh the Motown generation, and quietly and strategically placed into new tunes that play in their car. That is full of parts that are probably from other cars. When getting information, especially in the digital age, it seems necessary to use other information to base facts and then draw new and fresh conclusions, that can then still be left up for interpretation. We should feel lucky for all of the information out there that can be seen with new eyes, bringing light to information. Call me crazy, but without using other people's material, I think we would all be alot more confused than we already are!
Take for example this song by Lemon Jelly, which incorporates an astonauts voice while he is in Space into the song. I wonder if he was mad about his voice being used in the song...but that is what the debate is all about, yeah?!


Now, the way artists themselves see this open source approach is greatly varied across the board. I personally, as an artist, feel that the use (and more importantly the knowledge) of previous material always helps my art. The research and remix of other work is a huge part of my creative process, whether it be through writing, painting or sculpture. I feel flattered when other people want to use my work, and create something new, because that is in fact what I do all the time in my own process. It is like with photography as well; if someone takes a photo of another persons work, and then manipulates it on their end is it there work now. I think there is a balance, of course, but yes, I do beleive that is a new form of work, with a base that has been altered. Now, it does not always have to do with re-making in this way. A good example that I found was in more of a learning module. Professor Chuck Severence remixed an open book which he re-named "Python for Informatics", and his students will be using this text this semester. This remix of the book only took him 11 days, and helped save the curriculum. How can that be wrong. And moreover, Severence was appreciative to the former authors for the material, and hopefully vice versa. Of course this will always be such a touchy subject, because once again, we all interpret thing differntly and see 'right' and 'wrong' in different lights.

This is just random clutter that I want to get out of my head, and may not even be a valid argument, but thats okay. So remix. Text, and words and people getting pissed for using the same things over and over again and not giving credit and blah blah blah. In reality, just speaking in general is plagerism. There are only a certain number of words and a certain number of ways to say things. So in this case, we are remixing each others speech and lives all the time. It is kind of what keeps the world going round, and interesting. And relates us all together.

I wanted to also add this link, because this artist Girl Talk, gets alot of shit for what he does. And what he does is exactly is make mashups. Really good mashups. And people love to critisize his work. But that doesn't cease the fact that fans flock to see him perform live, which almost negates the idea of him using old material, because he is doing it in front of a live audience.
http://www.artsjournal.com/flyover/2008/09/sure_it_might_be_illegal_and_i.html
Then Check out this Open Source mix from a fan, who took their own spin on his music.

I would love to keep going on this, and maybe I will add more later, because this is a very interesting and ever-changing topic. But for now, I will just leave my favorite quote that I found while cruising the internet for the this weeks readings and pages....

In every century, the way artistic forms are structured reflects the ways in which contemporary culture and science view this thing called reality.
(and im not gonna say where it is from, or quote directly, because I changed up some words. and hey, i've thought of that concept before, so TAKE That! plagiarisms who minus the play!)

My Free Flow. In auto-affect. Thanks Gertrude-Stein for the inspirationstation

On the inside there are thoughts. On the thoughts live the words. And the words are the meaning. But is the meaning in the words? In the words there are pieces, there are pieces to a puzzle. In this puzzle there are edges. And edges blur with words. Thoughts pretend to be the puzzle. But puzzles don't fit together, contrary to popular belief. With popular belief there is ignorance. With popular belief there is ignorance. And with ignorance there is confusion. There are words, with contusions.

A Bố Sa La Tư

*This is my reaction to Blood and Guts in High School, By Kathy Acker.

And by Reaction I mean to imply a chemical change in my consciousness on a front that not only tantalizes my brain juices, but stews the sex in my head. And boils me 'til I cook. I was befuddled, enraged, and inspired all wrapped into one nebulous mess. Ackler touches down to a level that we can all relate, but then twists it all around to wonder who this story really happened to.

I've been traveling. Distances in my head, since the time we last Fucked. "I am repulsive." "No I am hot". Hot is something that boils, when the bubbles are about to pop. You are the burner and I am the water. And more often than not, you cause me to overflow.
And it burns.
But I still drink it.
Drunk; your liquid hits me hard.
Travels the tributaries of my insides that only are quenched by this sort of downpour.
But I have this umbrella with holes in it to catch
me
from
you
from
me
who is we.
?
Because in this steamy saga, I play more roles than one.
I spread my legs to be the worlds stage.

"You're insane, go back home"
So now do you touch your burning hot cock. That's been inside of my head till it reached my last block. But who do you think of in these moments alone.
Is it my voice on the phone.
Calling you from New York, all alone.
All ways and always I find my place.
Behind the counter of some Hippie's Pachoili infused Pussy.
I run, from my lousy mindless salesgirl character.

A customer enters. Who then sits down with me at the lunch table, and says he likes my lunch box. Oh boy did he enter. And I give him head in chemistry classroom. And after, I've licked my lips, we cook ramen noodles on our Bunsen Burner.
And that is how I learned Chemistry.

The thought of your Scorpian makes my legs completely wet.
Sting me. Permanently. Or just for a small time.
Your stinger lingers.

heavy breathing. panting. sweat. blood. rush. euphoria. hatred. lust. combust. trust. Fuck.

this user is no longer online. this message was not received. Messages you send will be delivered when

<>But, I AM in love. Right. (?)

I WONK U O Y WONK I

I know you know I. You know why I know. Why I know you know.

Knock Knock. Who's there this time.
Oh yeah. Me. I. You. Us. youuseim
That mirror;
That Shadow.
The words that come out of I
That you composed in our head.
I'm so glad we work so well together.
What a team. Go Us. Our works fuck

I know you know why.
But I still don't know I.
Why you know, I know. Though.

Hear and They're in Coincidental Moments

(A twist on Raymond Queneau's, Excercises in Writing)

I wake up late today. The numbers 11:23am stare and poke fun at me as I look through my sleepy-coated eyes. Damnit! What cell phone company makes its standard alarm setting to the tune of Braun's Lullaby. Not to mention the fact that I am missing the volume Button on my phone. I shit, shower, and surrender to not shaving in the absence of time to make the S bus. I run out the door, only to notice, it is snowing and the top button on my petticoat pops off as I fly out the door, and push the button for ground level on my apartment. Oh well. Who needs buttons anyway. A rusty safety pin that I find in the bottom of my bag does the trick to temporarily 'hold me together'.

The platform for the S bus is ridiculously crowded with imbalsils and intellectuals alike. There are stupid floppy hats, short skirts, cigerettes, and a talking decibal level that could probably be heard on the moon. If we had a button to push that could do that. The sky is nebulous, little plops of snow-like slushy material land like little coagulated buttons as they hit the pavement. I notice a particular man, with a neck like an anorexic giraff and a hat as unappealing as his face nudges past me as we swarm onto the bus. He's listening to some stupid overly sexed, dance hall beat on his ipod. He smells like Whiskey. Cheap Whiskey. Im replacing the safety pin to the top of my coat, when this 'neck and hat fellow' does a little jolt and falls onto the pin I am attempting to replace to my petticoat. Definitly not safe. He jumps back, shoots me a glare from Hell, spits a splatter of brown saliva to the bus floor and then stammers past me to meet his friend. I hit the pause botton on my own music just in time to hear this man talking to his friend about the safety pin pricking. I also notice as people get on and off the bus, this same annoying man is stepping on all of their toes; repeatedly and not nonchalantly at all. Talk about really pushing peoples' buttons! Finally after a stuffy 1 hour and 53 minutes on the bus, the giraffe neck jerk gets off the bus, and squashes 4 out of my 5 toes on my left foot. I let it go, but mentally tell the prick off as he walks by stupidly. As he steps off, the safety pin on my coat falls to the floor. I don't bother to pick it up.

The day continues in a similar fashion. Many pin-prick contusions to my ego and stepped on toes prevail, realing thier ugly heads all throughout my day. I need nicotene. As I am walking to the bus that will carry me home, I approach two men who appear to be deep in conversation. I ask to bum a cigarette, and albiet, the anorexic giraffe looks up at me unknowling realizing we shared in each others pain on the S this morning. He hands me a cigarette, smoothly hits the button on his zippo lighter, and ignites my stick into pleasure. The two men go back to quarreling about the importance of proper button placement on a lapel and I walk into the night, but on a new trail this time...