ARTDICK

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Animated GIFs made out of unedited screencaps from the game “Britney Spears Date Dressup” on Girl Games, one of the leading online gaming websites for young girls, dominated by dress-up, cooking and decorating games.

“The construction of children’s gendered identities cannot be fully understood without acknowledging  how the dominant discourses of femininity and masculinity are heteronormalized in children’s everyday lives. That is, through the process of gendering children are constructed as heterosexual beings.” (Robinson, in Kerry Robinson and Cristyn Davies, Tomboys and Sissy Girls: Young Girls’ Negotiations of Femininity and Masculinity)

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One of two works exploring Britney Spears shaving her head and its relation to gender. Animated GIF made out of unedited screencaps from the game “Britney Spears Makeover” on Girl Games, one of the leading online gaming websites for young girls, dominated by dress-up, cooking and decorating games.

“I suspect that the day Britney Spears shaved her own hair off represented a kind of Sartrean or Socratic argument (rather than, say, a nervous breakdown). She was, in effect, by the use of appearance, shrewdly de-mythifying beauty. The hair lies on the floor, “inexplicably faded” (Sartre), and the conventional notion of femininity likewise.” (Andy Martin, The Phenomenology of Ugly)

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The concept is simple, take two bands which are characterized as opposed (culturally, personally, ideologically) and superimpose a song from each band on top of one other (mending the rift). Concept developed by Tao Wells and myself one weekend in New Plymouth and eventually spawned my Britney Spears Best of Noise solo project.

These are not ‘remixes’, though we are interested in their relation to remixing. We have simply laid two songs on top of each other (a rhizome, a remedy) in the hope that there will be moments of connection between the layers. The points at which these two layers touch (caress) offer moments of “mending.” While mixing makes use of the cut, mending makes use of care.

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Minimalist musical mashup superimposing The Dead C’s “Suffer Bomb Damage” over top of Britney Spears’ “Radar.” The Dead C (Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, Robbie Yeats) are a seminal free-noise band from New Zealand. Part of the ongoing Britney Spears Best of Noise project. Many thanks to Abulafia: Electronic Folk Music for featuring this on their blog.

The first 8 tracks of this project were released on the concept album Britney Spears + Noise = HOT. Download the album for free.

“That there is an area between other forms of music where all of the “rules” which hold them apart cease to apply. All musics bleed into this Empty Quater, some exist more within, and some more without, its bounds.” (Bruce Russell, Free Noise Manifesto)

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Minimalist musical mashup superimposing Pierre Schaeffer’s avant-garde composition “Cinq Etudes De Bruits: Etude Violette” over top of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” Schaeffer is a composer and musicologist who was instrumental in pioneering musique concrete as an art form. Part of the ongoing Britney Spears Best of Noise project.

The first 8 tracks of this project were released on the concept album Britney Spears + Noise = HOT. Download the album for free.

“So these were the three circumstances that compelled me to experiment in music: I was involved in music; I was working with turntables (then with tape-recorders); I was horrified by modern 12-tone music. I said to myself, ‘Maybe I can find something different… maybe salvation, liberation, is possible.’ Seeing that no-one knew what to do anymore with DoReMi, maybe we had to look outside that… Unfortunately it took me forty years to conclude that nothing is possible outside DoReMi… In other words, I wasted my life.” (Pierre Schaeffer)

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The third in my series of Britney Spears experimental remixes, superimposing Arthur Doyle’s “Hey Minnie Hey Wilbur Hey Mingus” over top of Spears’ “Baby One More Time.”  Arthur Doyle is a free jazz saxophonist who played with many great musicians (Sunny Murray, Rudolph Grey, Sun Ra) though he remains largely unknown. Part of the ongoing Britney Spears Best of Noise project.

The first 8 tracks of this project were released on the concept album Britney Spears + Noise = HOT. Download the album for free.

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The fourth in my series of Britney Spears experimental remixes, superimposing Sun Ra and John Cage (from the album “John Cage Meets Sun Ra”) over top of Spears’ “Piece of Me.” Sun Ra is a free jazz space traveller and John Cage is an avant-garde composer instrumental in developing the use of chance operations in experimental music. Part of the ongoing Britney Spears Best of Noise project. Many thanks to Path To Unknown Worlds and Swen’s Weblog for featuring this recently.

The first 8 tracks of this project were released on the concept album Britney Spears + Noise = HOT. Download the album for free.

“The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.” (John Cage)

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Experimental video art mashup of Britney Spears and Marina Abramovic. Part of a series of film adaptations of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s “Capitalism and Schizophrenia 2: A Thousand Plateaus.” Many thanks to the fashion blog Eternal Optimist for reposting this recently. One of two works exploring Britney Spears shaving her head and its relation to gender.

“I have to tell you something – they say she is about to go through a nervous breakdown. I mean I am going through, almost practically every day, through a nervous mini-breakdown and nervous breakdowns are very necessarily. And artists who don’t go through nervous breakdowns I don’t trust them. I don’t think I even like them. They are no good. They are just square, too normal. For an artist to be normal is a disaster. So, leave her alone, you square, normal, boring people… It has nothing to do with what she is singing or not singing. I am talking about her as a person… I am talking about the inside.” (Jonas Mekas on Britney Spears)

“I suspect that the day Britney Spears shaved her own hair off represented a kind of Sartrean or Socratic argument (rather than, say, a nervous breakdown). She was, in effect, by the use of appearance, shrewdly de-mythifying beauty. The hair lies on the floor, “inexplicably faded” (Sartre), and the conventional notion of femininity likewise.” (Andy Martin, The Phenomenology of Ugly)

“I brush my hair with a metal brush held in my right hand and simultaneously comb my hair with a metal comb held in my left hand. While so doing, I continuously repeat ‘Art must be beautiful’, ‘Artist must be beautiful’, until I have destroyed my hair and face.” (Marina Abramovic)

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Concept album mashing avant-garde music (Sun Ra, John Cage, The Dead C, Pierre Schaeffer, Arthur Doyle) with Britney Spears songs. 1ST EDITION: 20 copies with hand lettered covers were given away free at Frederick Sound and Light Exploration Society art fair on October 9th (also featuring The Unknown Rockstar, The Doll, Pumice, Campbell Kneale, Matt Whitwell, Bryce Galloway, Drawing Silence and Claire Harris, among others). 2ND EDITION: 20 copies featuring the cover above were ‘sold’ for gold coin donation at the MyGalaxi art market on October 29th and 30th. 3RD EDITION: 10 copies were given away for free at Big Dick’s Best of YouTube screening at the NZ Film Archive. Subsequent editions have been produced for Wellington Zinefest and general distribution.

Part of the ongoing Britney Spears Best of Noise project. Listen to selections from the album on Soundcloud. Free download of the full 8 track album available at Multiupload (as well as here and here). There is also now a torrent on Pirate Bay. Update: Volume 2 OUT NOW!

“These are not remixes, as such, though I am interested in their relation to remixing. All I have done is superimpose well known avant-garde musicians over top of Britney Spears songs in the hope that multiple points of connection might be established between the two layers. I call this a rhimix. Remixes are are based on the “cut” (melding several tracks together, producing one). Rhimixes are based on the “caress” (mending several tracks together, producing a multiplicity of points at which they touch). The remix = juxtacomposition (comprised of different samples). The rhimix = supercomposition (comprised of different speeds).”

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Minimalist musical mashup superimposing Nam June Paik’s “Hommage A John Cage” over top of Britney Spears’ “Gimme More.” Nam June Paik is a Korean-born interdisciplinary conceptual artist who is often credited as being the “first” video artist. He also frequently worked with sound. Part of the ongoing Britney Spears Best of Noise project.

The first 8 tracks of this project were released on the concept album Britney Spears + Noise = HOT. Download the album for free.

“Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body’s new membrane of existence.” (Nam June Paik)

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