Raz Does Newsletter - Media Instrumentality Project (pt1 of x)
Hey y'all! Hope alls going well.
I’ve been thinking about art existing in an age of overstimulation (oVeRsTiMuLaTiOn, if you are eternally plagued w this). As usual. But this time, I’ve been thinking of art as a form of creation(corny, I know). And how the leading innovators of society create their art. Through the use of mixed media. Am I edging myself off, as I also am a mixed media artist? The world may never know (yes). But I’m seeing how mixed media, or intermedia (A combination of several forms of mediums to create one thing) affects more than visual arts.
This idea is gonna b pushing my “Media Instrumentality Project” emails, where Im thinking of how completed projects are repurposed and re-understood with a new and different meaning.
I love music. I think even more so than visual art (shhh). And I think that mixed media really is currently pushing audio the furthest. But mixed media in the sense that people are combining and altering completed songs through the technique of “sampling”.
“Music sampling is the process by which a musician or record producer uses a portion of an existing song in a brand new recording, looping it and layering it with new music in a new context.” -Masterclass (link below)
From Kanye to Surf Gang, modern music sampling has repurposed older songs into what I consider to be a “loaded image”, except in a recognizable sound. These loaded sounds can refer to ideas from older songs and recreate them, to build off of that original image into a new yet recognizable track.
We recognize things we’ve already seen, so we already have a slight understanding of these new repurposing of old sounds. We have memories already attached to songs we’ve never hear before.
-Is this a way we’ve grown with the internet? Where old digital media is revisited through remixing and sampling?
-Does this close generational gaps, especially as age is becoming less of a social system of undeserved respect?
-Is this actually a preservation of memories, and a focus on the past as opposed to looming fears of the future?
-Is Prince’s Purple Rain the best sample to be used in a song?
Some thoughts, ideas, and questions while making art.
Much love,
Faraz
*I have no idea how but it’ll happen, retrograde or not.
**the email title is a neon genesis evangelion ref, because as a young artist I am forced to reference it at least once in my career lmfao
The art of sampling in music has an interesting history, read all about it here...