Chasing The Cheap Ass Sublime

“Rap to the classics!” might be an alternative title. Use of “O Fortuna” also abounds in movie trailers, particularly horror films about the apocalypse, surpassing even the 1812 Overture in the “most overused” category. Newsome’s T-Pain version of “Primo Vere, Omnia Sol Temperat” (also from the Carmina) is fairly inspired, and that part of the score is less familiar. Definitely YouTube-style mashups–possibly better paced and more exploratory than most. In the racial subtext dept.: the Carmina’s composer Carl Orff was Bavarian and remained in Nazi Germany and was somewhat tainted by this so he is the ultimate white guy musician. (He is a great composer regardless.) It might be more interesting if Newsome put these on YouTube and counted how many hits they got by the end of Greater New York’s run. Let the court of public opinion rank something a much smaller group has already validated.

“Rap to the classics!” might be an alternative title. Use of “O Fortuna” also abounds in movie trailers, particularly horror films about the apocalypse, surpassing even the 1812 Overture in the “most overused” category. Newsome’s T-Pain version of “Primo Vere, Omnia Sol Temperat” (also from the Carmina) is fairly inspired, and that part of the score is less familiar. Definitely YouTube-style mashups–possibly better paced and more exploratory than most. In the racial subtext dept.: the Carmina’s composer Carl Orff was Bavarian and remained in Nazi Germany and was somewhat tainted by this so he is the ultimate white guy musician. (He is a great composer regardless.) It might be more interesting if Newsome put these on YouTube and counted how many hits they got by the end of Greater New York’s run. Let the court of public opinion rank something a much smaller group has already validated.

Meh. I don’t know if it would be more interesting if it were on youtube. It’s just distribution. The strategy reminds me of Marisa Olson’s American Idol blog. In retrospect I’m not sure it was an interesting project, and the only thing that saved it was how well read it became. I think that success to some extent hide the larger weakness of the work.

Meh. I don’t know if it would be more interesting if it were on youtube. It’s just distribution. The strategy reminds me of Marisa Olson’s American Idol blog. In retrospect I’m not sure it was an interesting project, and the only thing that saved it was how well read it became. I think that success to some extent hide the larger weakness of the work.

I liked the Idol piece more than you did and also that it was being read by a YouTube audience that possibly didn’t know the nerdy girl was satire, so it was working on two levels. The Newsome only works on one level–you’d just be shifting the context as a social experiment. Not the greatest idea but like YouTube commenters I thought I needed to say something.

I liked the Idol piece more than you did and also that it was being read by a YouTube audience that possibly didn’t know the nerdy girl was satire, so it was working on two levels. The Newsome only works on one level–you’d just be shifting the context as a social experiment. Not the greatest idea but like YouTube commenters I thought I needed to say something.

Tom, maybe your impulse to get this on YouTube to see how it floats is because the piece appropriates the gestures of forum culture without also submitting to its norms. I.e. it’s a forced meme.

Tom, maybe your impulse to get this on YouTube to see how it floats is because the piece appropriates the gestures of forum culture without also submitting to its norms. I.e. it’s a forced meme.

“Forum culture” – I like that – thanks!

“Forum culture” – I like that – thanks!

And good point. It wouldn’t be a forced meme if we could turn the clock back to when only gatekeepers decided what we could watch, but we can’t, so… It means artists have to find the last remaining gatekeepers (video curators who don’t watch YouTube) in hopes of making an end run around the “majority tyranny” of forum culture. That makes sense if the work is “too weird for the masses” but this definitely isn’t.

And good point. It wouldn’t be a forced meme if we could turn the clock back to when only gatekeepers decided what we could watch, but we can’t, so… It means artists have to find the last remaining gatekeepers (video curators who don’t watch YouTube) in hopes of making an end run around the “majority tyranny” of forum culture. That makes sense if the work is “too weird for the masses” but this definitely isn’t.

What I like about Rashaad’s piece is that he didn’t overthink it, and that it demonstrates showmanship. It’s no surprise that it stands out in an otherwise dreary GNY.

Yeah, if this work were on youtube I expect it would get a minimum of 60,000 views. And I think the showmanship aspect of the work is important. I like that this mimics the source videos themselves.

What I like about Rashaad’s piece is that he didn’t overthink it, and that it demonstrates showmanship. It’s no surprise that it stands out in an otherwise dreary GNY.

Yeah, if this work were on youtube I expect it would get a minimum of 60,000 views. And I think the showmanship aspect of the work is important. I like that this mimics the source videos themselves.

paddy following on from yr point that taking a position where conceptual merit levels craft which means youtube mashups aren’t art and thats bad, and then yr point that Conductor is virtuosic: what are your criteria for evaluating craft in a piece like this?

paddy following on from yr point that taking a position where conceptual merit levels craft which means youtube mashups aren’t art and thats bad, and then yr point that Conductor is virtuosic: what are your criteria for evaluating craft in a piece like this?

Mostly, that I like the way the cuts match the music. There’s a logic to the way they’re laid down. I mean, I understand this is kind of schlocky, but everyone has their guilty pleasures.

Mostly, that I like the way the cuts match the music. There’s a logic to the way they’re laid down. I mean, I understand this is kind of schlocky, but everyone has their guilty pleasures.

agreed, altho i had an opposite reaction to the work.

when you used the word “virtuosic” it caught me. even if i thought that about Conductor i’m actually not sure how’d i’d argue the qualification. i guess cos the technical bar for making a mashup is set so low whereas traditional markers of virtuosity – like improvising over rhythm changes at a fast tempo or making it through the hammerklavier unscathed – require an elite skill set by definition. and im not sure if more cuts synced tighter to more music is more virtuosic or not. i suppose it is (marclay video quartet) but that was also pre-youtube. anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc7nmNJozTc

agreed, altho i had an opposite reaction to the work.

when you used the word “virtuosic” it caught me. even if i thought that about Conductor i’m actually not sure how’d i’d argue the qualification. i guess cos the technical bar for making a mashup is set so low whereas traditional markers of virtuosity – like improvising over rhythm changes at a fast tempo or making it through the hammerklavier unscathed – require an elite skill set by definition. and im not sure if more cuts synced tighter to more music is more virtuosic or not. i suppose it is (marclay video quartet) but that was also pre-youtube. anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc7nmNJozTc

Memo to curators, MOMA Dept of Film and Video: “…when evaluating video art please take into account the following: virtuosity, showmanship, editing skillz, mashup style, beatmeistering, beat-matching, eye for pop culture memes, input from forum culture (if any), and general ‘getting down.’”

Memo to curators, MOMA Dept of Film and Video: “…when evaluating video art please take into account the following: virtuosity, showmanship, editing skillz, mashup style, beatmeistering, beat-matching, eye for pop culture memes, input from forum culture (if any), and general ‘getting down.’”

@Tom Moody. Is this the summation of arguments for this video now applied to all video art? I’m not sure how you got from point A to point B.

@Tom Moody. Is this the summation of arguments for this video now applied to all video art? I’m not sure how you got from point A to point B.

It’s a joke but by no means a comprehensive list.

It’s a joke but by no means a comprehensive list.

@moody sounds ridiculous but it’s a bit like that! i was watching Conductor thinking “rapper hand gestures dont match basic conductor patterns (hands always go up on the last beat of a bar). is that a minus? all his cuts are right on beat without fail, is that a plus? cuts on beat aren’t hard to do, is that a minus? focus on mid 90s bad boy records in the first movement suggests artist favors east coast over west coast, is that a plus? and where are bone thugs?”

i dunno maybe something’s there…not in this piece but in the difficulty of comparatively evaluating the stuff generally, but i’m unable to articulate any of it.

@moody sounds ridiculous but it’s a bit like that! i was watching Conductor thinking “rapper hand gestures dont match basic conductor patterns (hands always go up on the last beat of a bar). is that a minus? all his cuts are right on beat without fail, is that a plus? cuts on beat aren’t hard to do, is that a minus? focus on mid 90s bad boy records in the first movement suggests artist favors east coast over west coast, is that a plus? and where are bone thugs?”

i dunno maybe something’s there…not in this piece but in the difficulty of comparatively evaluating the stuff generally, but i’m unable to articulate any of it.

I think there’s a little more to the piece than Rashaad’s mash-up skillz, mad as they are. I think it filters the delusions of popular culture through the prism of race, which has historically underscored much of American pop production from age of the minstrel show to today.

To whit, the way the work takes apart hip-hop culture and its hold over audiences white and black. The piece is both a send-up of living large and an examination of the idea as an existential issue.

And the music isn’t just an ironic nod to the over-use of a certain classical work by pop culture, though it is that; the lyrics of the Carmina Burana’s most well-known passage are all about fate—”monstrous and empty”—and fortune—”detestable life, now difficult and then easy.”

P.S. I know this because my kid is in the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and they took part in a performance of the Carmina Burana a few weeks back at Avery Fisher Hall. I kept the program.

I think there’s a little more to the piece than Rashaad’s mash-up skillz, mad as they are. I think it filters the delusions of popular culture through the prism of race, which has historically underscored much of American pop production from age of the minstrel show to today.

To whit, the way the work takes apart hip-hop culture and its hold over audiences white and black. The piece is both a send-up of living large and an examination of the idea as an existential issue.

And the music isn’t just an ironic nod to the over-use of a certain classical work by pop culture, though it is that; the lyrics of the Carmina Burana’s most well-known passage are all about fate—”monstrous and empty”—and fortune—”detestable life, now difficult and then easy.”

P.S. I know this because my kid is in the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and they took part in a performance of the Carmina Burana a few weeks back at Avery Fisher Hall. I kept the program.

Plus, the Carmina Burana is based on the writings of defrocked monks, the… bad boys of their day? All right, I’ll stop.

Plus, the Carmina Burana is based on the writings of defrocked monks, the… bad boys of their day? All right, I’ll stop.

@Tom Moody Haha and all that, but I think Howard’s point has more merit than you’re giving it. Newsome spent five years working on this piece. What are the chances the relationship of those lyrics with the imagery coincidentally match up so well. I don’t think it’s so hackneyed.

@Tom Moody Haha and all that, but I think Howard’s point has more merit than you’re giving it. Newsome spent five years working on this piece. What are the chances the relationship of those lyrics with the imagery coincidentally match up so well. I don’t think it’s so hackneyed.

I don’t know if you can claim that something is a “cheap ass sublime” and also insist on deep connections between pop gestures and the underlying Latin lyrics (that are lost to a dead language and Autotune). Howard said Newsome didn’t overthink it–are we now supposed to?

I don’t know if you can claim that something is a “cheap ass sublime” and also insist on deep connections between pop gestures and the underlying Latin lyrics (that are lost to a dead language and Autotune). Howard said Newsome didn’t overthink it–are we now supposed to?

tom I beginning to suspect that you’re a player hater.

tom I beginning to suspect that you’re a player hater.

@howard sure, but i think an important question is how many of these delusions and send-ups have we not already gotten, unfiltered, through being repeatedly exposed to the source material in its original forms? for me it’s little to none, i’m quite aware of the o.g. delusions, hence the content filtering does nothin for me and thats why i was curious how paddy was evaluating the work as craft.

but also (and i’ve chatted with tom and maybe paddy about this) it’s nothing to do with the artist or even this piece: i believe that mashup as a form is unable to sustain a critical, self-reflexive examination of it’s cultural content. thats definitely another post though :)

@howard sure, but i think an important question is how many of these delusions and send-ups have we not already gotten, unfiltered, through being repeatedly exposed to the source material in its original forms? for me it’s little to none, i’m quite aware of the o.g. delusions, hence the content filtering does nothin for me and thats why i was curious how paddy was evaluating the work as craft.

but also (and i’ve chatted with tom and maybe paddy about this) it’s nothing to do with the artist or even this piece: i believe that mashup as a form is unable to sustain a critical, self-reflexive examination of it’s cultural content. thats definitely another post though :)

@Tom Moody I described the use of that particular music as the “cheap ass sublime”, not the video as a whole (which I described as schlocky). Howard made a point I think has some merit, so why not consider it on those grounds, as opposed to trying to disprove its merits by showing that my previous position is not consistent with my last comment?

@pbd Are you saying the video isn’t that interesting because we’ve already seen these send ups in their original form? I’m not sure I understand why you think Howard’s connections ultimately don’t support the work.

@Tom Moody I described the use of that particular music as the “cheap ass sublime”, not the video as a whole (which I described as schlocky). Howard made a point I think has some merit, so why not consider it on those grounds, as opposed to trying to disprove its merits by showing that my previous position is not consistent with my last comment?

@pbd Are you saying the video isn’t that interesting because we’ve already seen these send ups in their original form? I’m not sure I understand why you think Howard’s connections ultimately don’t support the work.

cheap-ass sublime is still a form of the sublime. the fact that the piece transcends its source materials—at least it does for me—is what makes it art.

cheap-ass sublime is still a form of the sublime. the fact that the piece transcends its source materials—at least it does for me—is what makes it art.

I like what pbd was saying about the work–he’s almost like a one-person forum culture, vetting the piece the way it never got to be vetted because it was not submitted to crowdsourced evaluation before a smaller, credentialed coterie decided it was important. You could imagine YouTube commenters identifying the rap video source material and telling us whether it was it was predominantly east coast or west coast. You could imagine a nerdy music professor wandering into the thread and telling us that the conductor motions didn’t adhere to classical convention. You could imagine other mashup makers critiquing the timing of the cuts. Someone else might ask if the work was just about its craft. But then, barely noting any of that, Howard reminds us of what art critics *will* say now that Newsome has made his end run around the digital mob: “filtering the delusions of popular culture through the prism of race,” “both a send-up of living large and an examination of the idea as an existential issue.” Important words for a piece we’re told is important, institutionally–it’s a done deal. Paddy, it sounds like you are respecting the work more as we discuss it: I’m going the opposite way. Put me in the “it’s a forced meme” camp. You don’t have to believe me when I say it is not envy but preferring one set of rhetorical considerations over another.

I like what pbd was saying about the work–he’s almost like a one-person forum culture, vetting the piece the way it never got to be vetted because it was not submitted to crowdsourced evaluation before a smaller, credentialed coterie decided it was important. You could imagine YouTube commenters identifying the rap video source material and telling us whether it was it was predominantly east coast or west coast. You could imagine a nerdy music professor wandering into the thread and telling us that the conductor motions didn’t adhere to classical convention. You could imagine other mashup makers critiquing the timing of the cuts. Someone else might ask if the work was just about its craft. But then, barely noting any of that, Howard reminds us of what art critics *will* say now that Newsome has made his end run around the digital mob: “filtering the delusions of popular culture through the prism of race,” “both a send-up of living large and an examination of the idea as an existential issue.” Important words for a piece we’re told is important, institutionally–it’s a done deal. Paddy, it sounds like you are respecting the work more as we discuss it: I’m going the opposite way. Put me in the “it’s a forced meme” camp. You don’t have to believe me when I say it is not envy but preferring one set of rhetorical considerations over another.

I would exchange “respecting the work more” with “liking the work more” as we discuss it. It’s the art equivalent of like enjoying all the stuff that’s gone into a Britney Spears video after you’ve fully considered it.

Honestly though, if it seems like I’m waffling on the subject it’s because there’s some of that there. It’s the back and forth of a conversation that’s attempting to identify the value or lack there of in the work.

Like you, I really appreciate the way pbd talks about the work (though you’re imagining a best case scenario in which crowd commenting on youtube does all the things pbd just did). Anyway, it’s incredibly useful.

I would exchange “respecting the work more” with “liking the work more” as we discuss it. It’s the art equivalent of like enjoying all the stuff that’s gone into a Britney Spears video after you’ve fully considered it.

Honestly though, if it seems like I’m waffling on the subject it’s because there’s some of that there. It’s the back and forth of a conversation that’s attempting to identify the value or lack there of in the work.

Like you, I really appreciate the way pbd talks about the work (though you’re imagining a best case scenario in which crowd commenting on youtube does all the things pbd just did). Anyway, it’s incredibly useful.

My joke earlier wasn’t clear enough: I wasn’t writing a memo to MOMA curators telling them how to evaluate this work, I was imagining a leaked internal memo telling curators what to take into consideration when analyzing videos that could as easily be a street product as Art.

My joke earlier wasn’t clear enough: I wasn’t writing a memo to MOMA curators telling them how to evaluate this work, I was imagining a leaked internal memo telling curators what to take into consideration when analyzing videos that could as easily be a street product as Art.

@paddy well i think it’s clear that howard and i look at this piece in very different ways. to me, whatever informational connection one can deduce from a mashup based on it’s source material, i’d really doubt it’s something due to seeing it as a mashup…as in it’s something you didn’t already know about the source material on it’s own. so then, what is the potential of a mashup to say anything new?

a crude analogy might be to say that i know 3 + 2 is 5. i wasn’t thinking about it at the moment it was pointed out again in a mashup, which adds a 3 with a 2, but that doesn’t mean the artwork has any information in it.

so all of howards connections make sense, but for me they don’t support the work cos in the way i’m interested in looking at artworks, those connections are more or less meaningless. they aren’t specific to the action of the artist in the work i’m viewing, they are specific to source material i’m already familiar with on its own terms. unless a mashup has some insane technical apparatus behind it, i don’t think it can function as anything other than a guilty pleasure if that. and i learned this from making and exhibiting mashups :)

to quote craig mack’s verse on flava in ya ear remix, one of the videos featured in Conductor’s first movement (and which of course we don’t hear):
“Word up don’t rap no crap you bore me,
Wanna grab my dick…too lazy…hold it for me.”

if it aint broke dont fix it, right?

i think the reason is that the language of mashup is so limited. you have two sources, edits, and that’s it. it’s a bit like working with presets in a way, in that the thing you make is actually a comment on the the self-imposed limits you’re employing, perhaps the social conditions that predicated them, etc. but presets can be many things…code, interface, hardware, microsoft word, protocol, whatever – there’s room to move and material selections to make.

with a mashup you don’t even have that…by definition you have flattened youtube pop culture element a and you combine it with flattened youtube pop culture element b. it’s 2010, so a and b are almost equivalent anyway. good luck coming up with anything to say in that system!

@paddy well i think it’s clear that howard and i look at this piece in very different ways. to me, whatever informational connection one can deduce from a mashup based on it’s source material, i’d really doubt it’s something due to seeing it as a mashup…as in it’s something you didn’t already know about the source material on it’s own. so then, what is the potential of a mashup to say anything new?

a crude analogy might be to say that i know 3 + 2 is 5. i wasn’t thinking about it at the moment it was pointed out again in a mashup, which adds a 3 with a 2, but that doesn’t mean the artwork has any information in it.

so all of howards connections make sense, but for me they don’t support the work cos in the way i’m interested in looking at artworks, those connections are more or less meaningless. they aren’t specific to the action of the artist in the work i’m viewing, they are specific to source material i’m already familiar with on its own terms. unless a mashup has some insane technical apparatus behind it, i don’t think it can function as anything other than a guilty pleasure if that. and i learned this from making and exhibiting mashups :)

to quote craig mack’s verse on flava in ya ear remix, one of the videos featured in Conductor’s first movement (and which of course we don’t hear):
“Word up don’t rap no crap you bore me,
Wanna grab my dick…too lazy…hold it for me.”

if it aint broke dont fix it, right?

i think the reason is that the language of mashup is so limited. you have two sources, edits, and that’s it. it’s a bit like working with presets in a way, in that the thing you make is actually a comment on the the self-imposed limits you’re employing, perhaps the social conditions that predicated them, etc. but presets can be many things…code, interface, hardware, microsoft word, protocol, whatever – there’s room to move and material selections to make.

with a mashup you don’t even have that…by definition you have flattened youtube pop culture element a and you combine it with flattened youtube pop culture element b. it’s 2010, so a and b are almost equivalent anyway. good luck coming up with anything to say in that system!

I’m proud of a “mash” I did where I took a slick New York Times video of Guggenheim artist Cai Guo-Qiang exploding some fireworks on a canvas with a team of assistants, and intercut it with YouTube footage of David Carradine in Kung Fu performing a fire ritual and batting some spears around. It “exposed the racist underpinnings of the Western curatorial project with its ongoing devotion to stereotypes of the Mysterious East” and was well done, too (in a self-effacingly crappy way). I don’t expect it to be in a museum, though. In fact that would kind of defeat the purpose, which was being annoyed by the pretensions of the system to understand stuff it doesn’t know anything about. I mean, China, fireworks, c’mon.

I’m proud of a “mash” I did where I took a slick New York Times video of Guggenheim artist Cai Guo-Qiang exploding some fireworks on a canvas with a team of assistants, and intercut it with YouTube footage of David Carradine in Kung Fu performing a fire ritual and batting some spears around. It “exposed the racist underpinnings of the Western curatorial project with its ongoing devotion to stereotypes of the Mysterious East” and was well done, too (in a self-effacingly crappy way). I don’t expect it to be in a museum, though. In fact that would kind of defeat the purpose, which was being annoyed by the pretensions of the system to understand stuff it doesn’t know anything about. I mean, China, fireworks, c’mon.

sounds riveting, tom :P

sounds riveting, tom :P

In the best tradition of “institutional critique.”

In the best tradition of “institutional critique.”

If only I had a nickel for each time I came here! Amazing article!

If only I had a nickel for each time I came here! Amazing article!

If only I had a nickel for each time I came here! Amazing article!

[...] and representation.Still, I am forever plagued by the Rashaad Newsome discussion the blog hosted back in May, whereby most commentors concluded that collages such as this can’t lead to substantial [...]

[...] Paddy Johnson (and commenters): Chasing the Cheap Ass Sublime and The Artistic Limitation of Youtube [...]