Thru-You.com: Possibly The Coolest Website On The Internet.
Web remixer, Kutiman, has created a site called ThruYou, and it gives new meaning to the term Video Jockey. His page, which is more like a playlist, draws from elements of classic Disc Jockeying and Video Jockey while adding his own incredible formula to the process.
Kutiman searches through You Tube (exclusively) and finds videos that regular people upload of themselves playing instruments or singing. Slowly adding in, editing, and sustaining tracks allows him to gradually build his own Internet symphony. None of these people know that what they upload will be used for this project, so the task of matching tempos, keys, and good riffs is all done by Kutiman himself.
A lot of Video Jockey work is disorienting and not something one would watch or listen to while enjoying an afternoon. Kutiman’s ThruYou remixes, however, are so good that they could easily be played on the radio, and his videos could even air on MTV. Instead of just cutting music together (DJ) or just cutting up videos (VJ), he loops the audio and visual tracks to create a synchronized, fluid masterpiece.
Then there were the other sites: Triptych.tv, Screenful.net
Triptych.tv is classic net art VJ work. Strange images and sounds flash and loop on the screen simultaneously. Visual effects, like kaleidoscope filters and three dimentional forms are added to jump cutting clips that are usually from famous movies. I know it serves an artistic purpose, but honestly I’m just not that impressed. The meaning of the pieces is far from overt, and the final product can be attained with minimal time and effort. As far as I’m concerned, Kutiman’s ThruYou blows this out of the water. The time spent scouring the internet for the videos, editing them in such a synchronic manner, and just his sheer musical ear and ability makes Triptych look like childs-play. Doodles in what might be an incredible sketchpad.
Screenful.net is very much the same as Triptych. Looping famous audio clips to say “I don’t give a damn,” “Fuck,” and “Shit.” You can also scroll down the page and look at images that are related, it appears, by skulls. I saw this webpage before I looked at ThruYou and thought “eh.” Looking at it again now, after seeing ThruYou, it’s just annoying, and in the artist’s own words, “I don’t give a damn.” Show me something musically compelling or even something that was visually technical to align. As a musician and a filmmaker, it is obvious to me that Kutiman scrutinized endlessly over both the audio and video of his product.
Blogroll and Hyper X: Galleries
Blogroll honestly just confused me. When I made my original analysis I was sure that I just did not understand something, and despite my negative reception, I was somehow being ignorant. It seemed to be just a poorly formatted blog, with lots of dead links, and nothing overly compelling. However, with a closer look, I realized that Blogroll is not about Blogroll. Like Hyper X, Blogroll is an Internet Gallery, allowing users to navigate from a homepage to various pieces of Net.Art. So I credit them both as great sources for expanding understanding of art on the web; but ThruYou.com is where it’s at.
