Mixing it up...a reflection on sampling

After completing the sampling assignment, I have generated a few lingering thoughts regarding copyright and sampling which, consequently, have sparked this reflection on my own sampling experience as well as the larger role of sampling and copyright in our entertainment industry as a whole.

Copyrighted Material: With my sampling piece I focused on copyright, plagiarism, and sampling from a musical standpoint, as we focused much attention on musical downloading and the RIAA’s role of regulating musical content. My canvas features three separate aspects of the music industry and the images are blurred together when looked at from left to right. The first portion or panel of the canvas portrays musical production by the artist while the third, far right, panel is a take on musical reception by the general public. In the middle portion of the canvas, there is a focus on everything that happens in between production and reception. This specific picture is a snapshot of someone sampling music, mixing it up to make it their own. The edges that border the middle photo blur into the ones beside it. Likewise, the entire canvas has been changed to grayscale. The first picture is much darker while the last one is much brighter. Once again, the middle photo serves to link the two together as it is a gray tone somewhere in the middle of the outer two. I chose to present my image like this as a suggestion that the things we have learned about regarding sampling, copyright, and similar regulations are not clearly defined in a black and white fashion. Lessig demonstrates the potential for each individual to interpret the meaning of such regulations differently, and consequently, the entire canvas features different shades of gray. As there are various viewpoints, interpretations, and opinions about copyright, there is no clear black and white coloring defining the canvas. The images and edges blend together in shades of gray further suggesting this ambiguity. Another attribute of my completed piece which connects the artist to the industry to the audience is the headphone cord that stretches across the entire canvas. It is the only image that touches in each of the three panels and serves as a subtle marking of the interdependency of each part on the others. If there were no audience to receive the work, there would probably be no need for copyright. Similarly, if the copyright section were to be removed from the canvas and society in general, there would be nothing to connect the artist to the audience or regulate the relationship between the two. Overall, this canvas suggests the need for copyright in our entertainment culture, but also addresses the caution that needs to be taken when considering copyright. In class, we have been addressing the different viewpoints that one can take on such issues and through my canvas, I hoped to further the vagueness of such regulations as well as the role they should play within our entertainment culture.

Original Material: It was much more of a challenge to make the same argument regarding copyright using my own artwork and photography. Although this can most obviously be related to the fact that relying on other people’s acclaimed work is easier than developing and utilizing one’s own, I think that part of this challenge had to do with the mere fact that it is difficult to recreate something that you have already created once before. Moreover, it was easy creating the first canvas because I had my message and ideas ready; however, when it was time to create the second, I had nothing new to bring to the assignment. I expelled most of my good ideas on the first canvas, and essentially began to run out of new ones by the time I completed the second. Instead, I was left trying to duplicate my previous thoughts in a new way, which was much harder than I had imagined. For this canvas, I utilized some of the same techniques such as blurring the edges between the photos to signify a blurred distinction between copyrighted material and our understanding of it today. Instead of utilizing only three main panels for this canvas, I assembled it in the form of a collage, consisting of multiple images. Like the first canvas, all of the images are grayscale. This was helpful when it came time to blend the images together, as the colors easily and quickly faded into each other. Although my attempted message for this piece was the same, my means of getting their differed. I think this collage method of assembling the canvas was a little more difficult as my pictures were less organized and it was harder to manage the canvas as a whole. In addition, I think that my overall message is better portrayed and can more easily be understood by the first canvas of copyrighted material; however, the second one attempts to recreate a previous idea, and does so adequately at least. Overall, reconstructing this second canvas to make my same argument was more difficult to do and presented me with some unexpected challenges that affected my sampling experience as a whole.