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.

*