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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Youtube Commentary Project

Artists Space, a New York-based alternative space, has selected a piece of mine for a webcast project of theirs. They've started a monthly "Youtube Commentary Project," in which artists select a clip on Youtube, and lay some commentary over it, in the manner that a commentary track might be laid over a DVD. Mine, below, tries to link together Marilyn Monroe, Dirty Harry, Richard Brautigan, and the color red within the space of a minute-- over a clip of a gun-owner playing with his .44 Magnum.



And these are the prior Youtube commentaries:

Steve Lambert (who is a friend -- he went the extra mile of getting several people to read aloud the "comments" posted to the original video, a clip of Leonard Bernstein conducting Shostakovich -- he was amused by the fact that even "high culture" material on youtube attracts extravagant vituperation. I have been working on a couple ideas reacting to the "culture" of comments on the web, but Steve cut into it in a very funny and direct way):



Jon Rubin on Milton Friedman:



Nina Katchadourian on a drawing of a freehand circle:



Cesare Pietroiusti on a performance by the Italian diva Mina:



The Artists Space youtube channel is here (and features much more material than the youtube commentaries). I think the notion of Youtube "Commentary Tracks" is a wonderful idea, and an interesting strategy for "curating" the material that's out there on youtube -- I think I'll continue to make ones of my own, outside the auspices of Artists Space's project.

1 comment:

  1. Your little "review" is in alignment with the small reviews A.O. Scott and others post on the NY Times. The gentleness of the voice inside the petite screen certainly miniaturizes the discourse- oh, and it's youtube.

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