Shelf Empowerment: Sampling Lessig’s ‘Remix’

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This coming week, thanks to the gracious invitation by artsjournal.com‘s “Mind the Gap” blogger, Molly Sheridan, I’ll be participating in a discussion of Lawrence Lessig‘s most recent book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, along with a great and esteemed crew: Corey Dargel, Marc Geelhoed, Matthew Guerrieri, Lisa Hirsch, Brian Sacawa, Alex Shapiro, and Steve Smith.

Needless to say, the subjects of Lessig’s Remix are close to this website’s heart, especially such issues as copyright reform, free culture, collaborative creativity, and the unintended consequences of technological development.

To supplement the discussion, each of this coming week’s five Downstream entries will focus on some theme from Remix, starting tomorrow, Monday, with “netlabels” — the growing phenomenon of independent record labels that release their music entirely for free download.

You can follow the discussion at artsjournal.com/gap.

Images of the Week: Marina Vendrell Renaut’s Soft Machines

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Technology goes plush in the hands of Marina Vendrell Renaut, who has a show now at the Oakland, California, gallery Johansson Projects. Below is a characteristic piece:

The exhibit consists of soft sculptures, some large-scale, some small, some containing radio-controlled cars. And then there’s the piece above, made of “faux fur, fox fur, crocheted yarn, beads,” as well as three “pullable musical devices.” The one below, “Musical Marmot,” is made of “reclaimed marmots, knitted yarn, and musical device.”

More at johanssonprojects.net. The show, which also features work by Kate Eric (the collaborative pseudonym of Kate Tedman and Eric Siemens), runs through May 2. The opening, if you’re in the area, is on March 21.

Quote of the Week: The Sounds in David Foster Wallace’s System

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

From “Wiggle Room,” a short piece of fiction by the late David Foster Wallace, from the March 9 issue of The New Yorker:

    “The room was silent, except for the adding machines and the chattering sound of that one kid’s cart that had a crazy wheel as the cart boy brought it down a certain row with more files, but also he kept hearing in his head the sound a piece of paper makes when you tear it in half over and over.”

The “he” in the room is an IRS auditor, a character in a longer work, Wallace’s third novel (The Pale King), from which this short story is excerpted, and which was in progress when he passed away by his own hand last year.

The story is online currently at newyorker.com.

More of Taylor Deupree’s “One Sound Each Day” MP3s

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

A handful more of recent “One Sound Each Day” posts from New York”“based Taylor Deupree. March 11 brought one listed as “outside on a beautiful day, though the track opens with the sound of a distant airplane that could, in a dark mood, resemble a bomb slowly falling (MP3). On March 8 Deupree took a brief break from field recordings of the semi-natural environment, and allowed himself a little electronic action, putting a synthesizer through a delay loop (MP3). Also, some excellent radio-signal gibberish from a cab service (MP3) on March 6; writes Deupree: “this is the sound of the CB/relay system that the drivers use to communicate with their home base. i assume they know what it all means…”

[audio:http://www.12k.com/onesoundeachday/march/mar_11_2009.mp3|titles=”March 11″|artists=Taylor Deupree] [audio:http://www.12k.com/onesoundeachday/march/mar_08_2009.mp3|titles=”March 8″|artists=Taylor Deupree] [audio:http://www.12k.com/onesoundeachday/march/mar_06_2009.mp3|titles=”March 6″|artists=Taylor Deupree]

Follow the ongoing series at 12k.com/onesoundeachday.

DJ /Rupture Reworks Langston Hughes (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The New York radio station WNYC invited various musicians to rework Langston Hughes‘s poem Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, among them the prolific DJ /rupture (born Jace Clayton), whose “Is It True?” (MP3) takes a recorded version and puts it through voice-tweaking technology that speeds up the spoken word, even as the music veers deep into the downtempo.

[audio:http://audio.wnyc.org/culture/dj_rupture-is_it_true.mp3|titles=”Is It True?”|artists=Langston Hughes & DJ /rupture]

No doubt Rupture — who is a conceptualist remixer at heart — was tempted by the Hughes poem’s investigation of recorded sound:

    From the shadows of the quarter
    Shouts are whispers carrying
    To the fartherest corners sometimes
    Of the now known world
    Undeciphered and unlettered
    Uncodified unparsed
    In tongues unanalyzed unechoed
    Untaken down on tape—
    Not even Folkways captured
    By Moe Asch or Alan Lomax
    Not yet on safari.

    …

    And the whispers are unechoed
    On the tapes—not even Folkways.

More on the project at wnyc.org, and on Rupture at negrophonic.com.