Cut and Paste
Less than two weeks ago, an Israeli musician named Ophir Kutiel, aka Kutiman, posted Thru You, seven tracks spliced together from video clips culled from YouTube. Within a week the project had garnered more than a million views. The tracks took a reputed three months to assemble, putting it some distance from the typical viral hit. (Though I suppose that whole legions of creatives are puzzling over what exactly ‘typical’ means in this context.) Presented on a page designed to look like a hacked, digitally defaced version of YouTube, Thru You asks to be considered aside from sneezing pandas and fat guys dancing to Beyoncé.
So what’s new about Thru You? Inevitably compared to DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing…... (1996) (the first album, though correct me if I’m wrong here, to comprise nothing but samples), Kutiel’s project intriguingly coincides with the 20th anniversary rerelease of the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. Panned on its release in 1989, Dust Brothers’ cut ‘n’ paste production work on that album pretty much set the blueprint for modern-day sampling, an approach that stretches up to more recent DJs like Cut Chemist and RJD2. Though Thru You sounds, in places, a little like these crate-diggers, there are crucial differences in approach. Yet, at the other end of the spectrum, neither does Kutiel’s project have much to do with more serious-minded copyright-baiting experiments such as Bay Area audio collagists Negativland (whose extensive sampling on the U-2 EP drew a lawsuit from U2 nearly 20 years ago).
Cory Arcangel has of course made work that also collates clips from segments of YouTube performances: a couple thousand short films about Glenn Gould (2007) was a version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1741) constructed from individual notes played by amateurs found on YouTube. Arcangel’s installation (not actually posted on YouTube, though there is some installation footage here) was all about cover versions versus definitive versions, lone amateurs against lone geniuses. Gould famously retreated from the concert hall to the studio in order to perfect the piece; most of the YouTube performers, unconsciously emulating the great Canadian pianist, play at home.
While the source of Kutiel’s project is the same as Arcangel’s, Thru You does not seek to reassemble a new version of a canonical work from many recitals of that same piece. Neither are they, as with the web sensation Girl Talk, recognizable samples of pop songs mashed into hideous assemblages for the attention deficient. Instead, seven completely new tracks are made from amateurs playing just about anything. While Kutiel released a well-received solo album on a traditional format through a regular record label last year, Thru You depends upon being watched online. Crucially, it combines its samples visually, moving to split-screen when layering samples. The source of this material is instantly recognizable as YouTube: poorly lit living rooms, nervous glances at the camera, high-school recitals and the occasional close-up of virtuoso guitar skills (Arcangel lingers most on the latter). The question of distribution is obviously touched upon by the title of Kutiel’s viral hit – it’s claimed that the project is linked to no product and was backed by no PR campaign. Instead, Kutiel emailed the tracks to 20 friends and the rest spread through Twitter. Thru You depends on collective distribution as well as collective composition.
Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds (2002)
In a conversation published in the current issue of Artforum, Arcangel and Dara Birnbaum discuss how some ’70s strategies – the isolation and manipulation of popular imagery, for example – have become common practice on YouTube. What once took place within the institutional structure is now happening in the hands of teenagers in middle America. So what are the obstacles that artists working with these means face today? As Mark Leckey discussed in a recent lecture at the ICA, online there is always a niche audience – however small. When there is always an audience, how can an artist ever make a ‘wrong move’? It should be noted that Arcangel aims his work at two audiences, showing in galleries but also releasing clips online (Super Mario Clouds, 2002 was a blog hit way before it was put on the cover of Artforum). But, with computer games now grossing more than Hollywood and millions of home performances ripe for sampling (without fear of copyright-related reprisals), what is at stake when this stuff is claimed as art?
Less than two weeks ago, an Israeli musician named Ophir Kutiel, aka Kutiman, posted Thru You, seven tracks spliced together from video clips culled from YouTube. Within a week the project had garnered more than a million views. The tracks took a reputed three months to assemble, putting it some distance from the typical viral hit. (Though I suppose that whole legions of creatives are puzzling over what exactly ‘typical’ means in this context.) Presented on a page designed to look like a hacked, digitally defaced version of YouTube, Thru You asks to be considered aside from sneezing pandas and fat guys dancing to Beyoncé.
So what’s new about Thru You? Inevitably compared to DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing…... (1996) (the first album, though correct me if I’m wrong here, to comprise nothing but samples), Kutiel’s project intriguingly coincides with the 20th anniversary rerelease of the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. Panned on its release in 1989, Dust Brothers’ cut ‘n’ paste production work on that album pretty much set the blueprint for modern-day sampling, an approach that stretches up to more recent DJs like Cut Chemist and RJD2. Though Thru You sounds, in places, a little like these crate-diggers, there are crucial differences in approach. Yet, at the other end of the spectrum, neither does Kutiel’s project have much to do with more serious-minded copyright-baiting experiments such as Bay Area audio collagists Negativland (whose extensive sampling on the U-2 EP drew a lawsuit from U2 nearly 20 years ago).
Cory Arcangel has of course made work that also collates clips from segments of YouTube performances: a couple thousand short films about Glenn Gould (2007) was a version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1741) constructed from individual notes played by amateurs found on YouTube. Arcangel’s installation (not actually posted on YouTube, though there is some installation footage here) was all about cover versions versus definitive versions, lone amateurs against lone geniuses. Gould famously retreated from the concert hall to the studio in order to perfect the piece; most of the YouTube performers, unconsciously emulating the great Canadian pianist, play at home.
While the source of Kutiel’s project is the same as Arcangel’s, Thru You does not seek to reassemble a new version of a canonical work from many recitals of that same piece. Neither are they, as with the web sensation Girl Talk, recognizable samples of pop songs mashed into hideous assemblages for the attention deficient. Instead, seven completely new tracks are made from amateurs playing just about anything. While Kutiel released a well-received solo album on a traditional format through a regular record label last year, Thru You depends upon being watched online. Crucially, it combines its samples visually, moving to split-screen when layering samples. The source of this material is instantly recognizable as YouTube: poorly lit living rooms, nervous glances at the camera, high-school recitals and the occasional close-up of virtuoso guitar skills (Arcangel lingers most on the latter). The question of distribution is obviously touched upon by the title of Kutiel’s viral hit – it’s claimed that the project is linked to no product and was backed by no PR campaign. Instead, Kutiel emailed the tracks to 20 friends and the rest spread through Twitter. Thru You depends on collective distribution as well as collective composition.
Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds (2002)
In a conversation published in the current issue of Artforum, Arcangel and Dara Birnbaum discuss how some ’70s strategies – the isolation and manipulation of popular imagery, for example – have become common practice on YouTube. What once took place within the institutional structure is now happening in the hands of teenagers in middle America. So what are the obstacles that artists working with these means face today? As Mark Leckey discussed in a recent lecture at the ICA, online there is always a niche audience – however small. When there is always an audience, how can an artist ever make a ‘wrong move’? It should be noted that Arcangel aims his work at two audiences, showing in galleries but also releasing clips online (Super Mario Clouds, 2002 was a blog hit way before it was put on the cover of Artforum). But, with computer games now grossing more than Hollywood and millions of home performances ripe for sampling (without fear of copyright-related reprisals), what is at stake when this stuff is claimed as art?
