Grandmaster Flash Player
Also a 10min full experiment version here.
References for Submitted Clip
Justin Beiber (2018) ‘Down to Earth’, Justin Beiber, YouTube Website, accessed 27 August 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi9Li3GfpgM
Corio D (1982) Grandmaster Flash [image], David Corio Website, accessed 27 August 2024. https://davidcorio.com/
OCEVN (2023) ‘Kanye West – Flashing Lights (Alternate Intro), prod. OCEVN, YouTube Website, accessed 27 August 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0Cw1SLdxxE
Reflection
The idea for my desktop performance began with a vision back to early perceptions of the internet. Perceptions that were hopeful, decentralised and joyous for a new form of communication and step towards globalisation. I imagine at this time the world and its possibilities felt like a big dance party. At this point in my conceptual development, I took inspiration from Nam June Paik’s video art piece ‘Global Groove’ (1973). The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes Paik’s piece as “as colourful collage of clips including diverse groups of musicians and dancers intercut with commercial footage and previous video works by Paik” (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1973). Paik’s predictions of the potential of digital spaces were forward thinking, and the idea of sampling information was ahead of its time. Coincidentally, in the summer of the same year the Hip-Hop genre was said to be born in the Bronx – it’s epicentre being prominent rap group ‘Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’. Grandmaster Flash spearheaded a musical movement of looping and sampling, creating ‘quick mixes’ for MCs to speak on (RollingStone 2023). My piece incorporates these ideas of blending and borrowing media, sampling and looping sound – making a playful homage to the godfather of modern DJing in the process and the naivety of the early internet. The entire piece is about ten minutes long, though I have submitted a minute long portion. I used the website YouTube, traditionally a free, flash player operated site (though no longer) and it’s time-post shortcut (1-0 keyboard keys) to loop and mix videos together. I also toy with the playback speed and volume of the videos. All the sound created is live with no editing. The tempo is upbeat, the sound is noisy and artificial, the vibe is strangely ethereal. I appear, as the DJ artist in the centre of the screen with windows to my left and right mimicking the symmetry of a DJ deck, and the spectacle of watching one of these performances. An image of Grandmaster Flash appears burnt into the screen, glowing with a spiritual aura (the longer version of my performance also begins with ‘The Message’ by GMF and the Furious Five (1982). There is also a hand drawn animation I created at the bottom of the screen; this essentially mimics the accompaniment of these musical performances with a visual attribute. The animation is a dance sequence interwoven with pop culture imagery, leaning into the digital overwhelm. I’m really excited about this concept and hope to develop it further, either in this studio or in my own practise. I hope to be able to refine my materials further to create a smoother and more coherent musical piece by mastering the limitations of the resources. I also think there is potential to build a movement around this concept with themes of accessibility, open-source materials and digital performance, having live artists MC over the YouTube mixes on camera and working with even more abstracted audio samples. I also think it could be interesting to create a DJ desktop performance using videos of DJ performances uploaded to YouTube.
References for Reflection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1973) Global GrooveI, The Met Website, accessed 27 August 2024. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/856929
The RollingStone (2023) Grandmaster Flash on Rap’s Earliest Days and Why We Need to Remember the DJs, accessed 27 August 2024. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/grandmaster-flash-dj-history-of-hip-hop-quick-mix-1234805729/