BLOG PROMPT TWO: Appropriation and Collaboration
In B Flat (2011) by Darren Solomon and Thru-You (2009) by Kutiman
PLEASE ANSWER BY POSTING COMMENTS.
From A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, "Appropriation in art is the use of pre-existing objects or images ... To appropriate means to adopt, borrow, recycle or sample aspects of (or the entire form of) human-made visual culture."
Collaboration is when more than one person intentionally work together to create a work of art.
Interact with In B Flat and watch at least one song from Thru-You (I recommend "Mother of All Funk Chords"). Briefly describe these art projects in terms of appropriation and/or collaboration.
In B Flat by artist/composer Darren Solomon: http://www.inbflat.net
THRU-YOU | Kutiman Mixes Youtube by artist/musician Kutiman: http://thru-you.com
I think both of these pieces are technically appropriation. However, I think In B Flat can be considered collaboration when viewers interact with it. It's as if the viewer is working together with the already created piece to make their own work. I viewed Thru-you's "Mother of All Funk Cords," and its layout seems to be less interactive. Both were sort of the same concept- making something new with other things, but B flat offered collaboration, while thru-you was a more appropriated piece.
ReplyDeleteIn B Flat and Thru-You are similar projects that create music with pre-existing audio samples. At first, In B Flat seems like appropriated art as he adopts several clips to make his music project. However, to me, In B Flat is more of a collaborative project as the creator, Darren Solomon, asked for people to submit clips so he could make his unique music experiment. Contrarily, Thru-You is a better example of appropriated art as the creator, Kutiman, borrowed audio samples from videos he found on the internet. I can’t find any evidence that he asked permission to use these clips, which makes it appropriated art.
ReplyDeleteBoth B Flat and Thru-You, in opinion, are collaborative. They both show people intentionally working together to create a work of art. I also think they’re an example of appropriation but are a little different in that aspect of how they were put together. Darren Solomon intentionally requested people to send him clips of them making music with a singular instrument, to put together his collaboration. On the other hand, Kutiman, creator of Thru-You, borrowed audio clips from the internet, rather than asking for them. In a sense, both creators made a collaboration, but in different ways.
ReplyDeleteIn Bb is a great example of collaboration. Each video was submitted to one artist intentionally so that it would be used together for something larger.
ReplyDeleteThru-You is appropriation because it samples videos from people who made the videos for separate purposes that are all different from each other. The videos were not intended to have a connection to one another, but the artist has made them have one.
I consider both of these pieces of art as forms of collaboration. Even though Thru-You doesn't seem to have obtained permission to use the other videos in this art piece I feel that the meaning or intent of the video is changed when they are montaged together. For example most of the videos sampled in Mother Of Funk seemed to be instruction clips or certain people only playing one note. When they are all put together they work as an orchestra creating a greater piece of musical art. There's no question if the B Flat piece is collaboration or not seeing as the artist had permission from the contributors. But with permission aside I find the meaning to be significantly changed enough to be a standing work of its own.
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ReplyDeleteFrom John M.:
ReplyDeleteIn B Flat is definitely a piece of collaboration, from what I can see. The individual artists making the video clips knew that they would be used for this project, and gave their consent for the pieces to be used.
Thru-You, however, appears to have not gotten permission from the original creators, given this statement on the website: "Check out the credits for each video - you might find yourself.." Because of this, I believe the original video creators should be credited, as Thru-You has done. The editing done by Thru-You does make it it's own piece of art though, but it is not changed enough to take credit away from the original video creators.
In "In B Flat", I believe that they were in collaboration with the video creators. They have consent from the artists to be used in a greater project such as this one. More than one person intentionally worked together to create a work of art.
ReplyDeleteWith "Thru-You", even though they actually changed and edited the content they got from YouTube to fit into an idea of theirs, they were still appropriating from the video creators. They didn't have consent from the creators, and their content wasn't changed enough to be considered their own.
I think that In B Flat is definitely more collaboration, since the creator asked for contributions to the project. Each contribution was a knowing, intentional choice.
ReplyDeleteI think that Thru-You is definitely more of appropriation, where the clips and bits and pieces have all been taken from pre-existing work and cut together to make something entirely original and new.
B Flat strikes me as a collaboration, as the creator asked permission and for submissions to the project. I think this is even more evident based on how well the clips all blend without editing, where as in Thru-You the clips were appropriated, and therefore being used in a way they were not designed for. This difference meant that Thru-You had very obvious editing, such as remixed skips or looped sections that would help adjust a segment to better fit the artist's vision.
ReplyDeleteFor the first project, B flat- I think that is a collaboration. All of the participants were aware that they were contributing to an interactive collaboration piece.
ReplyDeleteFor the second project, Thru You- I think that this could be confused for both appropriation and collaboration. I watched the specific video called “Mother Of All Funk”, and the videos were credited to the creators. However, I think it could be appropriation because he makes them into his one video regardless of the credit he gives or not.
I thought "In B Flat" was a very neat project. I'm struggling to decide if it is in fact a collaboration, as it's still individualized. The clips in "Thru-You" definitely struck me more as appropriation than those of "In B Flat," as they were taken from full-fledged individual pieces/projects. The author of "In B Flat" also asked for permission to use the clips, while the author of "Thru-You" did not. Each appears to be collaboration at a glance, but I'm not sure either truly is.
ReplyDeleteBoth of the websites are one in the same. One of them just does all the work for you. Both sites are a good example of collaboration, or one could argue appropriation. They make use of other peoples work on YouTube to create a remix of sorts. This is collaboration in my opinion because it's essentially a bunch of artists working together to create one thing, and that's incredible. I'm sure the original artists had no idea their work was going to be used like this, and that's why you could argue it was appropriation. You could say the artists used the other videos in ways the original creators may not have intended or desired, but I think it's safe to say the creators don't mind. Overall I enjoyed using this tool to make my own music!
ReplyDeleteIn B Flat and Thru You are similar projects and a lot of ways and are good examples of the differences between collaboration and appropriation.
ReplyDeleteIn B FLat is a website where you see several Youtube videos and you are told to play all of some of them in any order you want. Once you start playing the videos you see that it is a bunch of random videos of mostly people playing instruments in B Flat, although there are some non-instruments. At first, I thought this project was appropriation because it seemed like a bunch of random videos from random people, but after looking at some of the videos, I saw that they were actually submissions specifically for this project. This would make the project collaboration.
Thru You is different in a couple ways. Firstly, it is edited. Thru You also uses clips of different people mostly playing instruments, but people doing other things as well. However, the videos in this project do seem to be made for purposes other than this project. This would make this video appropriation.
Both pieces are interesting examples of how people create works of art that are available to the public and how they get repurposed. They collaborate with the different people who were included in the works and the audience in a way collaborates by interacting with the piece, specifically in "In B Flat." The pieces may be considered appropriation by some who believe that a creator has no right to take work from other people and use it in their piece, but some may also argue that things like youtube videos are available to the public and nothing is original anyway so it doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion In B Flat is a collaborative piece of art that displays the amazing things that can be created when a group of people get together on the internet. It seems like collaborative pieces of art in my eyes because in order to create these kinds of works it is hard to believe that all the parts fit together just by coincidence. While Thru you is an appropriation because instead of looking like a bunch of videos that were submitted being put together it looks like it is an amalgamation of a bunch of different random videos in order to create different works.
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