http://www.frieze.com/comment/article/variations_on_a_theme/"
Link: Frieze Magazine | Comment | Variations on a Theme.
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"Music critic Paul Morley has written a catalogue essay (designed by Dexter Sinister; published by Film and Video Umbrella) to accompany a recent installation by American artist Cory Arcangel, a couple thousand short films about Glenn Gould (2007).
"Or rather, Morley has assembled most of the text in the same way that Arcangel assembled his video montage – from fragments found on the Internet. (((Oh come on, who can't like that?)))
"Arcangel’s installation consists of a version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1741) meticulously constructed from YouTube samples of individual notes played by amateurs. By making the connection between YouTube and Gould, the bricolages invite a comparison between user-generated content and the production methods of the modernist-creator figure....
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"As Kirby indicates, far from leading to new forms, user-generated content has tended towards retrenchment and consolidation – for example, YouTube (for the most part) recycles old material, or else provides a space in which millions of aspirant stars ape idols whose status – established by the old systems of distribution and valuation – remains secure.
"Instead of being cowed by the relentless demands for viewer participation, both cultural producers and the much-derided ‘gatekeepers’ need to find new ways of asserting the primacy of production over consumption. They need to find ways of stepping outside seamless circuits in which ‘everyone’ is implicated but no-one gets what they want.
"In another catalogue essay for a couple thousand short films…, curator Steven Bode argues that Arcangel’s installation is ‘less an advert for networked participatory culture than an index of people’s increasing atomisation.’..."
