(for There is always a machine between us at SF Camerawork)

I am everbody/me/us and who I am, (my "technicity"), and our/my relationship to POP culture is defined by my remixing, reinterpretation, remashingup of me and it. IT (culture) is something that is sometimes more owned by experts, aristocrats, IP record labels, and MTV, but I can mess with it more easily ever since the Internet was born. Its hard to remember how it was being pre-Internet but still even then there was UK Scratch Video, Portapack Video Artists, DIY Public Access Television, (Paper Tiger Television), Street Rap, and even before that there was FOLK MUSIC and humming on the street and card games. Instead of a folksy distributed shared network of more or less equally talented SINGER/SONGWRITERs, on YouTube and other video blogs, funny frictions happen between HIGH and LOW culture. Britney Spears is HIGH(LY produced) culture, and whatever small town high school student imitating Britney dancing, recorded with a low res cell phone video and uploading it to YOUTube is a high/low culture re-mix. This TENSION, the gap between highly produced culture and imperfect, karaoke imitations reminds me of humming along to a Walkman or dancing thriller moves to Michael Jackson when I was a kid in the 1980's, (we recorded ourselves singing pop songs on cassette tapes). Or its like Smosh's renowned YouTube video reenanctements of games and retro-futuristic stuff like Mortal Combat and Transformers, staged inside their suburban teenage boy bedroom. The offtune notes, the static, the pixelazaton, and the noise are kind of beautiful in a low tech, was once high tech way.

But youtubing also is erasing this gap between megaproduced and DIY, and low tech vs. high tech become irrelevant. (Will there be no ultra-megaproduced stuff to imitate in the future?) Youtubers remake DIY videos made by other youtubers, remakes that are neither that much better nor worse than the original, an endless stream of permutations. Like Kaylee and Sarah's remake of Smosh's gay "Dolls" scenario, (a girly twist on an adolescent confrontation with homophobia). Youtube is many things for many people, its a way to share moments before sexy megaproduction took over, like videos of Reaggaeton star Ivy Queen rapping in New York with other Puerto Rican kids in bulky winter clothes, (recalling the raw early days of Hip Hop). Youtubing seems more young than old; kids in cities, kids in suburbs, kids from all different countries and ethnicities. Its a way for teenagers to relate, (not always nicely), to outside of their own racially segregated communities. Like white boys Smosh imitating hip hoppers and gang bangers with aluminum tinfoil gold teeth and hub caps, and Azita's punky version of African American Priscillea Raena's stunning youtube performance of the Dictionary. (I can watch Priscillea Raena's version again and again...)

 

 

 

Lady Sovereign VS. TETRIS - Love Me/Hate Me (Lamboy Rmx) by DJ Teva

Mortal Kombat Theme by Smosh

Dolls by Smosh

Kaylee and Sarah dolls (Dolls Remake by kayboo000)

Bjork by la hora chanante

Gringuito likes Narco Corridos

Jairo "El NarcoCorridos" 1ra parte

The Noise 5 (Ivy Queen and the Noise)

Baby Rasta y Gringo , Ivy Queen y The Noise

The Dictionary by Priscilla Renea

Azita Sings the Dictionary