Thinking About Style

While I was watching Blade Runner again this week, I kept being reminded of what a massive influence it has been on subsequent depictions of the near-future, whether in film, on television, or -- perhaps most prominently -- in videogames. Something about the overall look and feel of Ridley Scott's picture, what we might call its "aesthetic", continues to resonate with people who try to imagine how the world might one day soon become both more dangerous and more exciting.

Back in the 1980s, the fact that Blade Runner showcases the multicultural dimension to future Los Angeles -- think of the giant advertisement with what appears to be a Japanese lady; the street-side stall where Deckard eats a bowl of Asian noodles in broth; the strange way in which the character played by Edward James Olmos speaks, mixing words from a variety of languages -- was thought by many to a way of expressing the fact that American society was in decline.

These days, when even people in places like Oklahoma and West Virginia tend to have a passing acquaintance with "international" foods and the goings-on in other nations, that aspect of the film tends to stand out less than its relentless gloom, with barely a trace of daylight and constant rainfall. As I mentioned in class, the film and the 1968 Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on which it is based were preoccupied with the radical changes that might happen on Earth in the event of nuclear war that did not destroy the planet outright, particularly the belief that a massive increase in ambient particulate matter would lead to massive global cooling. Now, by contrast, most of us in the Southwest and West are more concerned with the opposite prospect, a world becoming progressively hotter and drier, which makes the idea of a dark, wet Los Angeles in 2019 seem especially strange.

Regardless of what features of Blade Runner your attention is drawn to, though, I think it's safe to say that it makes as big an impression -- or perhaps an even bigger one -- with what's going on in the background than the story does in the background. It's isn't only <em>about</em> style, obviously, but a screenplay or a summary of the plot is not going to convey what makes the film interesting and important. And that makes it very useful for getting us to think about aesthetics more generally.

I was looking today at the writings of Nick Land, a kind of futurist thinker who helped found a movement called Accelerationism, and was struck by the ways in which his breathless, convoluted prose in some ways resembles the cluttered, obscure look of Blade Runner:

"An animal with the right to make promises enslaves the unanticipated to signs in the past, caging time-lagged life within a script. The variably -scaled instant of innovation is shackled to the historical temporality of inheritance, obligation, and propositional thought, projecting future time as a persistent dominion of the past (rigorously correlative with a repression of real numbers). Now is delimited as a moment, and pluralized as linear succession. Theopolitical false memory syndrome deifies reason, subordinating distributed systems to serialization, unitary historical time, linear determination from a pseudotranscendent primordial element, and the dominion of the word. Monocult gerontocrats launch their whitelight demented onslaught against amphibian nomadism, smothering the earth in priests, cops, and bureaucrats. Cultural eradication of the sacred. Imprisonment within the face. The socius cancerizes a head, cephallic concentration, rationalizing itself into nuclear capital. K -insurgency parallel communication goes underground into occulted spaces."

What I mean by this is that Land goes out of his way not to explain how the different terms he uses here relate to each other or even how he means for us to understand them individually. It's like he wants us to make our way through the lexical obscurity of his sentences, keeping an eye and an ear out for any monsters that might be waiting to pounce on us. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this kind of writing when it's also trying to convey an argument -- as opposed to aspiring to be poetry -- but I do find it interesting to think about and respond to.

Living Through a Phone Screen

     We have talked a lot about what is unique and original vs remakes and copies. We have also talked about how a lot of people live through a phone screen. Some people mentioned it in their show and tells, and I thought it was an interesting point. Many of our teachers and other adults tell us that we were born with a phone in our hands. We grew up with the internet and technology.
     Just the other day, I was with the professor I am doing research with and we ran into another one of my professors when we were trying to get into a lab. We asked him if he knew the code, and he said, "No, but I have the key. I am incapable of learning the code since I have the key. Kind of like how you are incapable of learning logarithms". Then he tried to test me, asking what the log of 2 is, which is one I actually know. A grad student had walked up at this point and told a story of when a girl next to him asked their professor for a calculator and he handed her a slide ruler. Back in high school, I was also doing research with a professor, and he told me I didn't know how to do algebra. If you think about it, that is partly true. As students, we rely so heavily on our calculators that we actually don't know how to do the math. We just know how to make our calculators do it.
 (I got a little side tracked but it was interesting to think about...back to my point...)
     We often see pictures on the internet of events where all the younger people are on their phones trying to capture the moment, while older generations are actually watching the event and taking it in. Someone said something in class about when we take a picture with our phone instead of just looking, we don't remember it as well or as incredible as it might be. Another thing people do is take Snapchats of big life events happening. I saw one of someone proposing to his girlfriend, and instead of it being something intimate, he was on his phone taking pictures of her. Of course everyone wants pictures of when they get proposed to, but they shouldn't be the ones taking the pictures.
     In China, there was a proverb we heard that said, "A split second becomes an eternity". To me, this seemed to be talking about a mental picture where you stop, taking a breath, and absorb what you're seeing. Not necessarily taking a picture that may or may not be mysterious deleted. So it is better to mentally take in your surroundings than to not look and just try to get a picture because you think that has a better chance of lasting than your memory.

Sampling and Remixing in EDM

Recently we discussed sampling while in lecture. Sampling by definition is the taking of one sample of a sound recording and reusing it in a new song as an instrument or sound recording. This can have many legal implications due to copyright infringement, which is why a huge controversy sprung up when digital sampling of hip hop became so widespread. Though as long as the rights are granted, then sampling is completely legal.
Today sampling is still prominent, especially with the rise of electronic dance music. Electronic Dance Music, known as EDM is a genre of music where djs sample many pieces and put a twist on it that makes it more hype. One current example of this is of a very well-known artist Kaskade, Kaskade and CID recently released a new song called "Sweet Memories" which is comprised of a sample of the timeless Motown song, "Same Old Song". "Same Old Song" was written by the Four Tops in the early 1950s. Kaskade uses this sample and to people familiar with Motown music, the sample is instantly clear.

The Four Tops lyrics:
Now it's the same old song
But with a different meaning
Since you been gone
It's the same old song

are replaced with Kaskade and CIDs' lyrics:
Your sweet memories I want to dance to all night long
All night long, all night long

Though the lyrics are far from similar, the music behind it (the beat) is exactly the same. This is what we know as a sample. Some may find it unoriginal to use someone else's work for the success of their own song, but I hold a different perspective. I believe sampling across different genres is a smart way for songs to be successful across genres of music. Most people would not enjoy the sonf by the Four Tops, especially in this generation. So Kaskade and CID have enhanced their song so that it reaches a new audience. When sampling is used it allows people to look back at old music and appreciate its originality, even if they love the song only in its new element. Essentially it is a compliment to the original artist that their recording was so beautiful and talented that it gave inspiration to a new song.

We also discussed remixing. Remixing by definition is an alteration of a piece of media from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the media. Remixing is constantly done within EDM by multiple artists. The minute a new song is released by a big name DJ, then every other DJ decides to remix that song. Personally, I like remixing as some DJs may have a good song, yet it is not the type of EDM that I like. Then DJs i do like can reuse that song and alter it for their listener's interests. EDM has many different subgenres, yet songs cross genres religiously as DJs remake almost every popular new song. For instance, the song "Feel the Volume" by Jauz is remixed by Joyrde and I think Joyrde's version is better.

All together, remixing and sampling may seem like unoriginality at its finest, though I think it is the sharing of pieces of media across borders of music. These styles of making music allow original songs to reach even greater potential. Songs are able to expand to new audiences and inspire artists. It allows for a collectivitisc culture of musically inclined artists.

Covers

               In our recent class discussions, we have been talking a lot about remix culture. We’ve discussed how easy it is for artists to sample parts of preexisting recordings and sell them as their own. This has gotten me thinking about covers of songs and how easy it is to make them. Now that virtually everyone can record themselves with the touch of a button, people can upload videos of their own covers with ease. Most pop songs that are released now are covered hundreds or thousands of times.

I remember reading once that new artists cover songs because that’s how they get recognized. If an unknown artist writes an original song and posts it on YouTube, the chances of it ever getting viewed are miniscule. If they cover a well-known song, though, their cover will pop up whenever someone looks up that song. This is another way (in addition to remixes) that people are getting recognized for others’ work.

Covers are also a way that songs become more widespread and well-known. Without covers, artists would have millions fewer people listening to their pieces every day. On the other hand, people are getting thousands of views for their covers of songs while the original artist is often not getting any financial compensation for the use of their work.

               There is one group I love who has sustained their entire careers by covering other artists’ songs. Pentatonix is an acapella group that rearranges pop songs, records them, and performs those songs on tour. In fact, this group has won Grammys for their arrangement of a Daft Punk medley and for their collaboration with Dolly Parton to rearrange her song “Jolene.” Pentatonix have been able to build their reputation though their arrangements because they put their own twists on songs and present them in a completely new way. More than that, their vocal skills are outstanding. I personally believe that the reason they are so famous is their talent; they didn’t get famous because of the artists who originally wrote the songs.

               In the Copyright Criminals video, one of the people they interviewed said that he thought it was lazy to borrow other artist’s music; he said that remixers were “taking something that was already awesome” and not putting any of their own work into making something “awesome” themselves. To an extent, I think that’s true. However I also believe that sometimes, people that cover or remix songs make them even more awesome than they originally were. Just the other day my friend was playing a remix of an Elle Goulding song in the car. While it was playing she said, “I love this remix. I don’t really like the original song, but this is cool.” So perhaps remixers aren’t stealing something that’s already awesome, but they are taking something that isn’t awesome yet and making it so. In that case, the original artists should be thankful in a sense. They are getting a wider audience to listen to their song without having to change anything about it themselves.

               Covers have become a part of our culture as much as remixes have. As media technology progresses, they are becoming increasingly easy to make, edit, and share. While the original artist might not be getting all the credit for these covers, I overall believe that they should be grateful. Their songs are reaching wider audiences, becoming more popular, and sometimes are being improved upson. These are just some of my thoughts; I am interested to read what others think about covers and how artists should get proper recognition for them.

Reflection on Copyright Criminals

I found the documentary we watched in class last week, Copyright Criminals, very interesting, specifically because it challenged my preconceptions about sampling. I’ve always enjoyed music that made creative use of samples. For me the creation of a song in this format can be as inventive an offering as that of any original work. Despite this, I was moved by some of the arguments put forward by dissenters featured in the documentary - particularly as it relates to Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”.

In the context of sampling, I think people are right to take issue with a song like this. It takes the bassline of a fairly well known pop hit and loops it without any perceivable manipulation. I would label this as a poor use of sampling. But I think where the critics of sampling featured in the documentary are wrong is in using an example like this to disregard the entire genre. Because their criticisms largely begin and end with songs like these, they never delve into the more inspired regions that this method of making music has to offer.

However, this raises an interesting question. What makes for an interesting use of samples? A few things that come to mind are the employment of obscure samples, the combination of various, unrelated samples to create something entirely original, and the manipulation of elements of a sample.

Obscure samples are interesting if only because of the immense time commitment on the part of the sampler. Sifting through old records at a record shop is almost a prerequisite in this case, and samplers working in this space have often been labeled as “crate diggers”. Oftentimes the samples used in this case are relatively unknown pieces of music. The sampler is almost giving these songs a renewed life.

Though in a genre like hip-hop these samples are often looped and maybe some drums and a bassline are layered beneath it, where it gets even more interesting is when alterations are performed on the underlying sample. Messing with the way certain segments of a song are sequenced (“chopping”) or pitching up/down vocals are all staples of hip-hop production.

Still, what I find most amazing about sample-generated music is when several distinct samples are strung together to create something new. It’s inconceivable how much time it must have taken to find not only one, but a few clips from obscure sources (so as to avoid copyright laws) that perfectly complement one another. It certainly requires a unique talent that is difficult for us to recognize because of the underlying way in which the music is created. Ignorant of the nuance involved, it can certainly feel like stealing or making music off the backs of real musicians. I'll end with some songs that I think use sampling creatively. 

Response to Sedona's Show and Tell

Hi Sedona,

I personally love Disney as well, so I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and video! I have always put aside the thought that Disney is a monopoly because of the magical aura that you mentioned. Truthfully, it's always only been a magical and happy place to me! I never considered the expenses, the time it takes to get there, the amount of walking and waiting for rides, or the number of workers required to keep up that magical touch.

My boyfriend also participated in the Disney College Program in Fall 2015, and he absolutely loved it. However, he did realize that same feeling of smallness you mentioned. It's so hard to stand out in such a large corporation like Disney, and I think he felt that was the only downside. In my opinion (based on what my boyfriend shared with me), I totally agree with everything you discussed in your show-and-tell! He is still just as in love with the magic of Disney as he was going into the program, but he seems to have more enlightened view of HOW this magic works. It takes an incredible number of workers to maintain, obviously, the physical appearance of the park, but also the wonderful aura of it.

Your presentation stood out to me because it made me realize how relevant Disney, of all things, is to our course and the media of the world. I agree with you when you don't think this magic is lying, but I also think that its original intentions back with Walt Disney were to entertain people and make them experience magic that they can't get anywhere else. Over time, though, I do feel that Disney has had to adapt to the world and the media surrounding it so it can still live up to everybody’s expectations. Even though it is ever-changing, I feel like it has the same magical aura, just evolved into something that matches the world’s desires. Does that mean it’s not the original Disney?

I would compare it to modern dance; modern dance began back in early 1900s and has evolved since, but we still call it “modern” dance. Isn’t the definition of modern to operate in the modern day, 21^st century? We are continually changing how we dance in a "modern" style, but it still has the naturalistic and simple feel (aura) to it. It’s just adjusted to how we feel we can best express ourselves in a naturalistic and simple way, which varies constantly and varies between persons as well. The aura and the appreciation of it is still there.

I don’t think that Disney will ever lose its aura, but it will always be changing in some way, even if we don’t notice it. It might be small changes, like taking away selfie sticks; or it might be large changes, like adding Star Wars Land. Either way, Disney hasn’t lost any of its magic (yet) as a result of adapting to media, but I guess we don’t know what the future holds!

Thank you for the awesome and thought provoking presentation, Sedona—and thank you for choosing Disney!

Have a great weekend! :)

Cinderella

As we continue to discuss the originality of movies or the lack thereof, I find it is most evident in fairytales. Fairytales like Snow White or Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast are so often recreated that the storyline is often confused. Cinderella is the most common fairytale to be recreated. Since the creation of Cinderella by Walt Disney in 1950, there have been various recreations of the story of Cinderella. Even this creation is a recreation of the original Brother Grimm’s story. Just to name a few versions of Cinderella in no particular order:

1. Ella Enchanted

2. Enchanted

3. Into the Woods

4. Ever After

5. A Cinderella Story

6. Another Cinderella Story

7. Cinderella Man

8. Roger and Hammerstein’s Cinderella

9. Cinderella (2015)

10.Walt Disney’s Cinderella

11. Cinderella II

12. Cinderella III: A Twist in Time

13. The Glass Slipper

14. Happily N’ever After

15. Cinderella (2000)

16. Charming

This list may seem long, though this list only includes the many popular versions. My video that I showed in my show-and-tell shows what movies are highlighted as the best versions. There are hundreds more versions all around the world of Cinderella. So the question comes into play about how original stories can be when the storyline continues to be stretched and altered with each new version. Cinderella is constantly altered in creative and imaginative ways.

Have writers become so unoriginal that they have to copy the stories of others or is the story so original that writers find success in remaking it? The versions vary slightly from the typical story of Cinderella that everyone knows; a young girl loses her father and becomes daughter to an evil stepmother who uses her as a maid, but after going to a ball a young prince saves her from her fate. This storyline is so well-known, especially after each recreation, though to be recreated and not an exact copy then it has to be changed in some slight way. Almost each of the versions have become successful because of the strong emotions for the original. They may be copies of an original story, but the story is so successful that even the recreations have become originals after time. So time seems to play a role in the originality of a story.

Even Disney chose to remake its own original animated movie and recreate it. This time they decided to use live action, but they knew that it was time after seventy-five years to bring back something so original and beautiful. The story is based off of the original storyline and the only difference is the difference in animation and live action. Yet even though it lacks originality it became so successful.

This means the beauty must lie in the original and not in the recreation. The original movie is rooted in each of its recreations. Because recreations involve the original then they are beautiful due to the use of originality. Each new version of Cinderella may lack an original storyline, but is capable of being on its own original depending on the variations. The success of the original will always be deemed greater as it was the first of its own success, but the recreations can still be successful because of the original that it pulls success from.

Originality is also not always reflective of the most original, but the most successful. Walt Disney’s original Cinderella story is a spinoff of the Brothers Grimm tale. The tale is not well-known because it was not as successful. It is the original or at least where the “original” originated from. So maybe success can be more important than originality. If everyone builds off of one solid idea, then eventually the most successful will be the most well-known. Cinderella is such a great story that has become more popular than any other fairytale, not just because of its originality, but because of its many many many recreations. It just happens to be that Walt Disney’s original animation of Cinderella is the most well-known.