Notes on Remixing the Presidential Election and the Influence of Vidding
It has been a couple months now since I released my latest political remix “So You Think You Can be President?” (SYTYCBP). In that time it has been viewed around 20,000 times via various video-sharing sites and has been linked to and discussed on blogs about remix culture, politics and humor. Not bad for a politically transgressive and critical video, especially considering its nine minutes long and has a relatively slow narrative build which does not exactly follow the formula for political humor on YouTube. So a week before Obama’s inauguration I wanted to write this wrap-up post to share some of my creative process, motivations and influences for that project.
Over the past two years we saw a flood of remix videos on the topic of the 2008 US presidential elections. Some were creative, entertaining or down right hilarious but ultimately, for me, many ended up feeling a bit like amateur commercials eerily similar to the candidate’s own nationwide television-advertising campaigns. I had hoped this torrent of politically inspired mash-up activity would yield more videos critical of the election process, of the presidency as an institution or of the candidates’ strikingly similar policies on key issues. I had for the most part been avoiding participating in this remix frenzy but as November 4th drew closer I was still disappointed with most of the remixed messages created thus far. So I decided to throw my own remixed perspective into the ring.
Building a Critical Culture with Political Remix Video
An essay I wrote about Political Remix Video for the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria. Published in the Ars Electronica 2008 Catalog in both English and German. I would also like give love and respect to bell hooks and her writing for being an inspiration to my work on these topics.
Building a Critical Culture with Political Remix Video
by Jonathan McIntosh – June 6, 2008
In March of 2003, I found myself glued to the television watching in horror and disbelief as American bombs rained down on the people of Iraq. Like many people living in the United States, I was deeply disturbed by our mainstream media’s cheerleading for war and their childlike fascination with military weaponry. As each broadcast seemed more and more void of humanity or concern for Iraqi lives, I was compelled to grab my video camera, hook it up to the screen and begin recording the carnage. Especially unsettling for me was the surreal juxtaposition of happy-go-lucky TV commercials for major brands scattered in-between news reports of an ancient civilization being laid waste in real time before my eyes. It was that absurdity coupled with my sense of outrage at the sheer injustice being perpetrated, which informed my first Political Remix Video (PRV) works. [1]
I loaded the newly captured digital video into my computer and began to remix, still not sure what would emerge. The result was a collection of biting, yet humorous, re-cut and re-framed TV ads fusing commercials with news footage. Once completed, I made the decision to disseminate these newly transformed works free to the public via my website and later through popular online video sharing tools. I was particularly drawn to the online distributing method because of the populism inherent in the medium. Online video offered a direct conduit to and from the general population. I wanted my remixes to reach a larger and diverse audience, which would be impossible had I chosen galleries, festivals or other more traditional means of video art delivery.
