Cory Arcangel is SO HOT it hurts. In this work Cory has edited together cats stepping on pianos to recreate Schoenberg’s atonal masterpiece Drei Klavierstücke op. 11. The only thing I can think to say about this artwork is, “DAMN! I WISH I HAD THOUGHT OF THAT!!” And for me, that is the highest compliment of all (also – try playing all three at once and remixing them as you listen). Thanks to Drawing Silence for bringing these to my attention.
A fucking HOT remix of John Cage’s 4′33″ by Dick Whyte made from 68 different YouTube performances. 4′33″ has become one of the most performed songs on YouTube, with hundreds of people offering their interpretations (from the silly to the sublime, and often both at the same time). In a sense 4′33″ has become a modern folk-song, a musical meme. HOT HOT HOT.
HOT internet sound engines by pioneer net artist Peter Luining. Enlightenment Room #72b contains a number of interactive flash sound generators. I won’t bother explaining these works – just click on either of the screencaps below and start playing (turn your speakers up). HOT!
HOT video art by Michael Bell-Smith made by superimposing the first 12 chapters of R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet over top of one another. This is what I imagine it is like being inside R. Kelly’s brain. SO HOT!
HOT mashup of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up by DJ Morgoth (video by YouTube artist PrepaidSkater659). Depending on how it is presented, this is also an example of RickRolling. What is a RickRoll? When someone sends you a link to something you would be interested in, which actually leads to a video of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. Although the meme is relatively pointless on its own, it has produced some HOT artworks as a byproduct, such as this mashup. Unfortunately DJ Morgoth’s website has been removed due to legal harassment, but this track is still available on MashupCiti as part of the album Guilty Pleasures Vol. 2 – RICKRAWKED (and all over YouTube). Thanks to Brent Willis for bringing this to my attention.
HOT music created by the computer program Emily Howell. As Chris Wilson writes, “Ms. Howell’s ancestry dates back to 1980, when Cope — by then a successful human composer — hit a brick wall while trying to write an opera. Cope, a genuine polymath with an aptitude for computers, had been playing music his entire life and was respected among modern composers, but around his 40th birthday his ideas started to dry up. In desperation, he wrote a computer program to generate random melodies and musical ideas.” Supposedly the first results were “unlistenable” (I’d love to hear them) and this caused Cope to rethink his approach. “We don’t start with a blank slate,” Cope says, “In fact, what we do in our brains is take all the music we’ve heard in our life, segregate out what we don’t like, and try to replicate [what we do like] while making it our own.” (read more)
This resulted in the creation of his first virtual composer “Emmy” (EMI: Experiments in Musical Intelligence). 30 years later Cope has finally unveiled his second virtual composer Emily Howell, whose first album From Darkness, Light was released earlier this year. Unfortunately most of the discussion around Emily’s music takes one of two positions: 1) it is as good as human composition (surprising!) or 2) it is clearly the work of a computer (soulless!). However, these questions do not interest me. What interests me is how it sounds, irrespective of our mechanical-human prejudice. And I am here to say Emily’s music sounds HOT!
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“If only Beethoven or Chopin could explain their methods as clearly as David Cope. So when Cope’s program writes a delightful turn of musical phrase, who is the artist: the composer being emulated, Cope’s software, or David Cope himself? Cope offers keen philosophical insights into this question, one that will become increasingly compelling over time. He also provides us with brilliant and unique insights into the intricate structure of humankind’s most universal artform.” (Raymond Kurzweil)
