Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
A Few More Fanvid Forebearers
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2015 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Next week I'm speaking to a college class about my video art piece "Pipeline" which critiques the tech industry's hypocritical diversity narrative (making-of). When I posted the vid in May I also posted a list of some vids I'd learned from.
But just now I also remembered a couple of other pieces of video remix art I'd loved:
In 2008 Leonard and I discovered a super-erudite "lyrics misheard" video focusing on religious history, anti-oppression organizing, and Star Trek. If you have not watched "Wishmaster Misheard Odysseus' Idealist Alchemical Revolution" and you like silly juxtapositions plus extremely 2008-era "and now a few reminders of the US same-sex marriage debate" please take the five minutes.
And from just before the US general election of 2006, "Freedom", a witty and angry and comprehensively anti-George W. Bush montage. Warning: Upsetting photos throughout, including dead or injured people from Abu Ghraib, Hurricane Katrina, and the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps my favorite part is the extremely didactic 3:19-3:40 visuals atop the "that's what you get!" repetitions, reminding us to vote for specific Democrats and finishing with a triumphant shot of Ned Lamont.
In "Pipeline" I enjoyed the self-indulgence of inserting references I loved even though they'd only resonate with a teeny percentage of my viewers. And I got straight-up didactic and wordy with screencaps and onscreen text, and I got funny-angry in a way that's hit a chord with some folks. It's hard to trace precisely but I think KleistGeistZeit and mgarthoff helped me see how to do this -- thanks!
