THE REMIX & THE GLITCH

Lecturer Dan Bins

‘There is no such thing as an original idea.’
Walter Benjamin, Work of Art in Mechanical Reproductio

Walter Benjamin was a German academic and escaped the Nazi’s only to commit suicide later. He has written the seminal book, Work of Art in Mechanical Reproduction. Benjamin raises the issue that with the emergence of changing technologies (film, sound) it popularised ideas and spread them around the world. Benjamin considered how reproducing something changes it.

‘Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be… The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.’ Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Without the source the copy loses all meaning and authenticity.

‘… the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.’ Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Today we have a multitude of ‘authentic’ media experiences, particularly social media. It adds another layer to our experience of the world to perhaps a pure ‘Pure Aurora’ as Dan proposed, a more authentic space than the real world, that we get a sense of someone through their engagement with social media. Is this a more pure mode of engagement?

REMIX THEORY

The aesthetic of sampling by Eduardo Navas is a seamless music such as experience ‘Beat Matching’ a high hat beat. DJ was the true remixer and sampler, using two turntables, slip cueing and amplifying. Then home computers changed the mashup experience. Girl Talk music, is an artist who samples and remixes to form a totally new music track.

TASK

Listen to the Girl Talk mix and guess as many samples as possible:

• DMC
• The Cure
• Duran Duran
• Jackson 5
• Salt and Pepper
• Sonic Youth
• Led Zepplin
• Beatles
• INXS
• Mash up Break downs.
• Pop Art

Glitch Art

The digital fragmentation that occurs in digital forms are accentuated and/or exploited to find their own form or protocol.

‘Glitch art is often about relaying the membrane of the normal, to create a new protocol after shattering an earlier one. The perfect glitch shows how destruction can change into the creation of something original. Once the glitch is understood as an alternative mode of representation or a new language, its tipping point has passed and the essence of its glitch-being is vanished. The glitch is no longer an art of rejection, but a shape or appearance that is recognized as a novel form (of art). Artists that work with glitch processes are therefore often hunting for a fragile equilibrium; they search for the point when a new form is born from the blazed ashes of its precursor.’  Video Vortex Reader 2, p.341

REFLECTION

I didn’t realise the extent of mixing and sampling or how much you could change something into a completely new sounding track. It’s an interesting proposition that Benjamin raises about the authenticity of a something that has been reproduced. For example, listening to a recording of a live band is not really the same as attending the event. So, have you had a less authentic experience? I would counter what you haven’t experienced you can’t miss and with the reproduction you can project or find meaning to the music.