Little Red Riding Hood

A great animation inspired by Röyksopps 'Remind Me.'



 Röyksopps 'Remind Me.'



ASL REMIX

In his 2008 book “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy”, Lawrence Lessig points out the use of the remix done through new media as a new way of communication and production among the masses and as the revival of the RW (Reading Writing) culture.  He compares this phenomenon to a written essay when the remix quotes contents from audios, videos or other sources in order to create something new.

He also remarks of the importance of communities, because “remixes happen within a community of remixes. In the digital age, that community can be spread around the world. Members of that community create in part for one another. They are showing one another how they can create.  That showing is valuable, even when the stuff produced is not”. (Lessig, 2007:p77)

One of my favourite YouTube videos can be categorized as a remix. It was done by B. Storm, an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter. In this video, he translates to ASL the lyrics of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”. Besides the translation, he also makes his own version of the video creating something new and interesting.

 

A big variety of ASL music videos can be found on YouTube. Some of them are very good produced and some others are not even well translated.  However, they can be seen by a wide range of viewers that comment actively on each video correcting the ASL translation or participating in a constructive and compelling way since they are interested in Sign Language.

Transforming this songs and translating them to Sign Language in order to appropriate them among the Deaf Community (meaning not only Deaf but interpreters as well) is another example of the revival of the RW culture that Lessig talks about (or should i say RS? reading signing?). In this particular case, the remix cannot only create communities, but can enhance pre-existing ones.

REFERENCES

Lessig, Lawrence (2008) Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. New York: Penguin Press. Chapter 4 – RW, Revived, pp.51-83.

WEBSITES

B. Storm  personal YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/user/st0rmfx

The Infinite Monkey Theorem in Latin America YouTube singers

In my last job, my colleagues and I used to watch YouTube videos in order to distract us or simply to waste our time (just like it commonly happens in any other workplace nowadays).

One day one of them told me “you have to see this video, it is a song about Israel, a message of love from Latin America to our brothers in Israel”. That sentence got me a little confused, and not interested at all; but well, it was our lunch break and we had seen enough cute kitten videos.

When I first saw it, I could not believe my eyes. The song is called “En tus tierras bailaré” (I will dance in your land), which describe the singers’ wishes to go to Israel, to dance in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to find an Israeli boyfriend, and to strengthen the relationships between Israel and Latin America.

The video starts with the male singer watching some random interviews of people talking about the violence in Israel. After that, he shouts, “No way, It cannot be! No!”  The rest of the video is constituted by bizarre settings and backgrounds while the singers talk about the wonders of Israel.

Now, after more than a million views, these individuals are three of the most famous YouTube singers in Latin America.

La Tigresa del Oriente (The Tigress from East): She is a 65 year old Peruvian woman who dresses and acts like a tiger and claims that Lady Gaga stole her style.  She used to be a make up artist for a local channel in Peru until she decided to post videos in YouTube in order to accomplish her dream of becoming a singer. Her first song is called “Un Nuevo Amanecer” (a new break of dawn).

Delfín hasta el fin (Dolphin until the end): He is from Ecuador and his most famous video is called “Torres Gemelas” (Twin Towers), where he talks about the love of her life being trapped in the Twin Towers during 11/09. After seeing the news in the television (just like he does in the Israel video), he shouts the now famous phrase among Latin YouTube viewers “¡NO PUEDE SER!” (No way! It can’t be!).

Wendy Sulca: She is from Peru and is the youngest of them. She started her YouTube music career when she was a girl. Her most famous song is “La Tetita”  (the boobie) where she talks about wanting her mother’s breast in order to be fed. The video shows Wendy’s cuddly toys, mothers feeding their babies (including a pig and her piglets) and men trying to grab a woman’s breast.

When I first saw these videos I could not stop laughing, and I must confess that I saw them several times.  But after a while, I really started to worry about the user-generated content that is produced in Latin America and that is becoming famous through YouTube.

Why do they sing a song for Israel? Are they familiar with the politic conflicts in that country? Why does Wendy Sulca wants to find an Israeli boyfriend? Why do they sing in a zoo with monkeys, or in a park with camels and llamas? Why do they insert images of an aquarium, of random people or of places that are maybe not even located in Israel? Why does this video has more than 1,500,000 views and their individual videos  between 3 and 5 millions? Why is this song played in several discoteques and bars across Latin America? Why do they have fans and followers? WHY?!?!!!

Now, after reading Keen’s (2007) comparison between the infinite monkey theorem from T.H. Huxley and today’s technology among amateurs, everything makes sense. I can see them as “dancing stuffed monkeys” that  are also “making monkeys out of us” (Keen, 2007:p.5).

REFERENCES

Keen, A. (2007). The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday, pp.1-9

WEBSITES

Tigresa del Oriente YouTube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/LaTigresaDelOrienteC

Wendy Sulca YouTube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/WendySulca

Delfin hasta el Fin Website

http://www.delfinecuador.com/

Lamebook and the shameless monkeys

"We are blogging with monkeylike shamelessness about our private lifes, our sex lives, our dream lives, our lack of lives, our Second Lives" (Keen,  A. 2007. "The Cult of the Amateur", p.3)

My life on the screen

Since the internet came to my life it has played an important role in my relationships.

It all started in the year 2000 when I was a big fan of the Britpop music. None of my friends were fond of it so I started browsing the internet in order to look for people interested in Britpop singers and bands.

I started logging to an English-speaking chat room of the music band "The London Suede". One day I asked if someone was from Latin America. A girl replied “Me! I am from Mexico”. She recommended me  a yahoo group constituted by Spanish speaking Suede fans.

I immediately signed up, and started commenting about the songs and the band with people from Spain, Chile, Argentina and México. It was really fun and enriching to find people with my same music preferences.

Two years later, the group migrated to a forum named "El Club de Suede en Español" (The Suede Club in Spanish) where we discussed about other groups, and gradually, about other things too.  We talked about our daily activities, our love life, our problems, our looks (since we started uploading our real photos) and other personal matters. 


Later on, and with the arrival of MySpace and Facebook and our daily use of IM, the Suede club started to loose its importance until it was finally closed.

Throughout this 10 years the people from the Suede club have become part of my closest friends and  I have met face-to-face with almost all of them when we have had the chance. Two guys from Spain came to my country on vacations, and the girls located in different towns nearby have visited my city and stayed at my place several times. I even went with one of them to London for the last concerts of Suede in 2003.

In Turkle (2004) words, I have experienced my sense of self in terms of “multiple windows and parallel lives”.  I explored online my particular interest for music bands that were not popular in my offline environment. I  expressed my thoughts in bulletin boards and newsrooms while interacting with real people and new ideas.  I received and shared not only  information about music, but advices, personal histories and happy memories that transformed my social life and my multiple selves.

REFERENCES

Turkle, Sherry. (2004) ‘Wither psychoanalysis in computer culture.’ In Kaplan, D.M. (ed) Readings in the philosophy of technology. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp.415-429.

The Friendy Internet