A Few More Thoughts on Mix Tapes

After frustrations with the original concept, my mix tape evolved into “Tunes for Traveling.” As you may have surmised, this was basically a roadtrip CD. I decided I wanted to make just such a tape for summer vacations. My friends and I pile into a car and drive somewhere at least once a summer, and these tracks were meant to capture and enhance that feeling.

It turns out making a good mix tape is far more difficult than just tossing songs onto a CD. I was frustrated several times when I finally admitted to myself a few songs just weren’t going to make the cut. Some rubbed against the theme, others just didn’t have quite the right feel (since I had to buy most of them ahead of time in order to figure out where they fit I was even more reluctant to toss them out). Anyway, I wasn’t exactly satisfied with the order/contents of my final product. I think I needed a team of music experts to assemble the perfect list of driving songs. During my meager existence I feel like I haven’t had the proper exposure or time to specialize in any such mix. I was also irritated with my tools. I kept trying to fix the fade and overlap between songs, and in the end the CD burned differently than the playlist suggested on my computer. Photoshop further annoyed me as I worked on the cover. The booklet was tricky too; figuring out how to do it on the computer proved too much. Even after the simple cutting and pasting I was still faced with a stapler that couldn’t reach far enough to put the staples in the right places!

The plan was to try making my mix tape as much like a tape as possible. I decided to create an A- and B-Side, with a switch-up in between to cement the change. The A-Side was meant to represent the excitement and potential for adventure of the ride out. The B-Side was meant for the more reflective, slow ride home. I was frustrated that I couldn’t balance out the two sides like on a real mix tape (I just couldn’t find enough that I liked for the B-Side). I also tried to make the liner notes look a little more like an actual mix tape, writing some of it by hand. I think some of my liner notes came close to what I was hoping to do; there are jokes that anyone outside of Hortonville would miss.

Don’t get me wrong, the mix tape has been my favorite project so far. The thing is I’m a perfectionist when it comes to stuff I really like, as well as creative work like this one. While I have a hard time looking past a few things I would like to change now, other people have said they thought it turned out well. This project has inspired me to continue the process of creating mix tapes, although I think it will take longer in the future. Maybe someday I’ll perfect the techniques of transition and flow, then I can complain about kids and how nobody makes a good mix anymore.

Mix Tape Reflection

Although I’m tempted to say the mix tape project was our most unusual foray into authorship so far, I just can’t; that honor belongs to the plagiarism experience. However the mix tape may have given me the most radically new conception of what it means to be an author.

Mix tapes seem really straight-forward: you take songs you like and toss ‘em onto a tape or CD. To the untrained eye, perhaps that’s true, but to those who studied under Jack Tripper there’s a great deal more. Somehow taking songs which you never wrote, recorded, performed, purchased, sang anywhere outside of the shower, or even learned the real lyrics to becomes a new form of writing. There is almost an art in selecting the tracks and arranging them on the tape. The only thing I can really compare it to is when we did cut-ups. Mix tapes sample a huge selection of songs and sounds to create a new composition. They combine this “newer” understanding of authorship with “original” liner notes written by the person assembling the tracks. While the liner notes usually have some kind of song information, they are very open to creativity. They’re a place for thoughts and plans as well as poetry, jokes, and dreams. For people reading mine, and I’m guessing there will be a few since I’ll leave it on the floor of my car, the liner notes are probably going to come off a little strange. That’s alright, the guys on the roadtrip will know what I’m talking about.

I think a mix tape, or at least those made subscribing to the formula we studied, can say a lot about a relationship. Everything from song selection and liner notes to the cover hints at a lot that can be conveyed. As I continue on from this point, granted more slowly, I think it will be interesting to see what else comes out from mix tape making. This was a relatively light-hearted project, so it should be interesting getting into some heavier stuff.

Some Thoughts on Cut-Up

Cut-ups are done by taking magazines, newspapers, personal writings, etc. and totally reassembling them. As far as I can tell there is no set technique for doing this; some cut pages into blocks and randomly assemble them, others search for specific lines and thoughts which they order in such a way as to create something new. The "author" could approach this with no vision for the finished product at all, only randomly taking and pasting parts, or he might take a more active role in selecting and ordering, even inserting or changing the text to a certain degree.
As I see it, Cut-ups are a strange concept which somehow manages nonetheless to construct an original product. How this is possible when using only other people's work, I'm not really sure. There almost seems to be some magical moment, between the cutting and the gluing, where the Muses breath life into the Cut-up and it begins to stand and walk on its own. I don't know exactly how Cut-ups have been used in the past but I think they have a lot of potential. I don't necessarily think a traditional book could survive a Cut-up, but I think there are certainly other areas that might be interesting to experiment with. I wonder how far the Cut-up method has been taken; into photography, film, art?
My Cut-up is below. I took all the parts from the November 16th, 2007 edition of the Isthmus. The first version is what I imagine a cut-up would look like if you were to unknowingly encounter it. As you read, ask yourself whether you could believe it had been intentionally written word-for-word like it is now. The second one I have color-coded to each article I borrowed from. I just include it because it may be fun to check your suspicions against.

Cut-Up

Isthmus

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense. I know for a fact there is no evidence to connect what the school teaches with any kind of atrocities.

Kids will enlist, but they’ll probably be black-and brown-skinned kids, or Hmong, and blue-collar kids who aren’t laser-focused. You escape by slaying people in dark alleys and grungy buildings. If the sons and daughters of the elite and professional classes were clad in olive drab and routinely being blown up in IED booby traps, the killing can feel a bit like a one-trick pony; hide in a shadow, sneak, kill, repeat. Gangster life is our cultural paradigm, played out as big business by the powerful, as crime by the powerless. In an era of gated communities, privatized public services, Blackwater mercenaries and revived left wing suspicion of the military: savages…eager to glut their savage thirst with the blood of the vanquished.

Murders, torture and other atrocities carried out by soldiers trained at the School of the Americas; I feel this is my right under the law of man and the law of God. Its graduates have committed human rights abuses throughout Latin America, including the murder of nuns and priests. It hands out scary literature to little kids at fast-food restaurants. It seeks total animal liberation: no meat or dairy in people’s diets, no hunting or fishing, no use of animals in medical research. Even seeing-eye dogs don’t make the cut. The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

Isthmus II (colors indicate different articles)

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense. I know for a fact there is no evidence to connect what the school teaches with any kind of atrocities.

Kids will enlist, but they’ll probably be black-and brown-skinned kids, or Hmong, and blue-collar kids who aren’t laser-focused. You escape by slaying people in dark alleys and grungy buildings. If the sons and daughters of the elite and professional classes were clad in olive drab and routinely being blown up in IED booby traps, the killing can feel a bit like a one-trick pony; hide in a shadow, sneak, kill, repeat. Gangster life is our cultural paradigm, played out as big business by the powerful, as crime by the powerless. In an era of gated communities, privatized public services, Blackwater mercenaries and revived left wing suspicion of the military: savages…eager to glut their savage thirst with the blood of the vanquished.

Murders, torture and other atrocities carried out by soldiers trained at the School of the Americas; I feel this is my right under the law of man and the law of God. Its graduates have committed human rights abuses throughout Latin America, including the murder of nuns and priests. It hands out scary literature to little kids at fast-food restaurants. It seeks total animal liberation: no meat or dairy in people’s diets, no hunting or fishing, no use of animals in medical research. Even seeing-eye dogs don’t make the cut. The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

Assorted Thoughts on "Rhythm Science"

DJ Spooky’s “Rhythm Science” sparked new thoughts and questions through surprising means. The writing is really only a part of the argument; the book’s design and execution adds more to the way in which Spooky speaks to us.

The most immediately obvious feature of the book is the hole right in the center. We discussed this fairly thoroughly in class so I’ll only briefly comment. The hole as the first and most logical conclusion is part of the mixing board on the cover and every text page that follows. It penetrates straight through an otherwise solid object, all the way to the “C” side. In a sense turning the pages becomes an act of selecting a record or CD, a degree of control and empowerment is returned to the reader. I liked the comment of one classmate who said that there is no central or definite meaning, only the nothingness it all swirls around (I think Spooky says several times that he’s trying to play around his points, so that seems right on). My thought on the issue is essentially spoken on page 13: “But I’m more concerned with praxis—how to foster a milieu where dialog about culture becomes a way to move into the pictures we describe with words, text, sounds…” It seems to me the hole is an open doorway inside a potentially intimidating work.

The alternating pages are a subject of study. One spread is white and rough while the next is green and smooth. On the white pages comes the expected text of a book, albeit a text interrupted by the hole. The green pages present an illustration and a few words from the previous page (which I only noticed later are also on the white pages). This art is strange but possesses a sort of flow. The quotes are a continuation of the previous page, once written in the narrative and once in the background, next leaping onto the green. The drawings continue this flow to some degree. I notice in most if not all of the drawings there is an element taken from the previous fold. The exact construction of these pages is less clear to me. I think we all grasp the meaning of the “spooky” ghost, but several of the others are a little less clear. The one I saw repeated a lot was the Playboy bunny icon. I didn’t understand why at all until I came to the B-Side. I’m guessing the bunny is “the prostitute” although I’m not sure I understand the full-impact of this. The prostitute seems to be a major part of the argument, so much so that it holds down its own side and encroaches on the other.

A few stray thoughts floating around: I’m still trying to understand the reasons for the scientific terminology that’s so prevalent throughout the book. I know it’s called “Rhythm SCIENCE” but I’m sure there’s more to it than that. There’s also the musician’s terminology—many groups I’ve never heard of. I wonder how it reads to someone inside DJ culture.

As for the C-Side, I haven’t finished listening to the entire thing yet but as I do I’m trying to determine how it’s a continuation of A and B. I think the music could make for a very effective story telling technique because of its power to take us places and make us feel things, while at the same time remaining fairly subjective. In fact I’ve been trying to read the book more like listening to a CD. When I read the first section I wasn’t in the right mindset. I decided to go back later and get in the mood for it. What I found was that the read was far more enjoyable and hit the right note, if you will, when I had the right attitude to go with it. Other than that, I think it’s pretty obvious that the C-Side has crept into A and B. Portions of the text fly away and become musical with just a little beat behind them.

In summary, DJ Spooky’s “Rhythm Science” makes its case in a very strange and multi-dimensional way unusual to the average reader. In building a multi-faceted creation, I think Spooky transcends the constraints of paper and ink and gives his words a life beyond the cover not frequently found in print.

Further Thoughts on Sampling

As I wrote in my Reflection (below), I enjoyed Sampling the most of all the projects thus far. I think Plagiarism, even as an assignment, was still too morally murky for me to really have fun with. Ghostwriting was entertaining because of the creative challenge inherent to it, but I was also frustrated trying to match a style of poetry that was less developed, maybe, than what I'm used to reading. Sampling, however, left me with a genuine feeling of authorship. Even the Sampling derived largely of copyrighted images felt like a new creation that I had made. I think the process of Sampling is a creative one, and that taking those elements and assembling them into something new is as valid a form of authorship as any.
That said, I'm curious how everyone went about their Sampling. I tried using the Creative Commons Search Engine (http://search.creativecommons.org/), however I had trouble getting anything of substance with it. Maybe I was looking for the wrong things, but I didn't find it especially helpful. I know Joe said the Directory is a more effective way to go about a search. In the end I basically gave up and just used a bunch of things I drew by hand.
I'm also curious how everyone planned their arguments. I basically brainstormed some thoughts on authorship (no author is entirely free of influence, the author is not limited to the written word, there is a legal battle frequently pitting large established groups against individuals over the future of what can be used, etc.). From there I chose recognizable images that could convey those thoughts, which proved fairly easy. In my Sampling every piece is intentionally placed (for example, the moon and snow are part of the second Sampling for a reason despite looking like filler). I tried to make the overall appearance part of my argument as well, taking space and positions into account. It might take some thought but I believe there are reasons for everything. How did you all do your Sampling?

A Reflection on Sampling

Sampling involves taking an array of images and words, typically from popular culture, and recombining them in a novel fashion so as to create an argument. Although I was familiar with the idea of Sampling in the abstract, I didn't realize Sampling was considered an important part of creativity, particularly one threatened by extensive copyright restrictions.
While I'm still uncertain what Sampling sounds like in the context of music, I learned that Sampling can be quite effective in making a statement or an argument. Sampling is typically an appeal to the eye, and is therefore made as aesthetically pleasing as possible (something I struggled with as I worked on my Sampling). Sampling can be done relatively quickly, and can carry considerable weight. As I reflected I thought it similar to the old saying: "a picture is worth a thousand words." When an author makes his appeal in the form of Sampling, he engages his audience (I'm not sure the appropriate term) by asking them to read into the work. He encourages them to search, to interpret, to engage the medium in a way that is different from an essay or article.
As I underwent the transformation into Sampler, I quickly realized free access to many resources trumps free access to limited resources. For a Sampling to be effective (in my humble opinion), the Sampler has to connect with his audience on a certain level. The ability to take well-known images from the popular culture can create a more meaningful argument by sheer virtue of recognition. The Sampler's work is understood at a variety of levels because of the cultural subconscious. While an argument made with permissible material can be very effective, it is certainly more difficult for the Sampler to articulate his argument while tip-toeing around legal repercussions. I believe we as a society have universally recognized symbols, many of which are under the ownership of a select few. A Sampling may find ways around the control of these powers and retain the spirit of the argument, but it may lose the power of its message by restraints placed on instantly recognizable images.
Regarding my work, I felt the argument that ripped and reused without concern for legality created a more effective statement. The possibilities were easily more plentiful and I felt I could make the Sampling richer through certain well-known images. I am unfortunately new to Photoshop and similar software, and with time constraints, I ended up making my Sampling by hand. As I thought about that I realized just how much more digital Sampling can do. In that way I felt increasing respect for Samplers. To me they are just as much an author as the individuals who created the elements incorporated in the Sampling. There is a definite creativity, a very clear innovation and alteration, which makes Sampling unique. I think Sampling is the most accurate picture of creation and authorship we have. As has long been known, there is almost nothing written completely uniquely. No author is an island; he is influenced and draws on the work of humanity's greats. It is his manipulation, his tweaking and shifting, his imagination, his new angle, that truly represents authorship.