Exploring the ways in which artists, artisans and technicians are intelligently expressing their creativity with a passion for culture, technology, marketing and advertising.
Nina Simone in a classic that’s made the rounds before but is worth looking at again. So much great work coming from students soon no one will be able to use the phrase it looks like a student project as an insult. Created by Tamara Connolly for a class with Gail Anderson.
Most people who’ve heard of Pogo, a young music producer who lives in Perth, Australia, know him for a series of songs built around snippets of dialogue and music lifted from movies. This isn’t the only technique that Pogo (born Nick Bertke) employs—many of his songs are agile, diverting hip-hop instrumentals that take no obvious inspiration from films—but it might be his most interesting.The melodic information in a work like “Upular,” one of the movie-based songs, comes from mostly unmusical moments in the 2009 Pixar film Up: the old man shouts something crotchety, the little kid says something cheerful, and Bertke plucks out syllables and vowel sounds and stitches them together into a tune you can hum. He sets this against a bed of chords sampled from Michael Giacchino’s score, adds a couple of understated cymbal tracks, and a pop song is made.
By the same or a similar process, we get “Bangarang,” from Steven Spielberg’s Hook; “Alohamora,” from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; and “Alice,” a dreamy swirl of sonic fingerpaint taken from sounds in the 1951 Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. The results are hard not to like (as The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan can confirm).
The movie-based songs are different, in a hard-to-place way, from Pogo’s other music, and from most pop songs in general. The reason, I think, has something to do with the way Bertke is taking one form (the feature film) and stuffing it into another (the three-minute pop track). Listening to “Upular” isn’t exactly the same thing as watching Up, but it’s as close as you’re likely to get without setting aside an hour and a half, finding a DVD player, and allowing yourself to slip out of this reality and into the one that directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson have made. Movies demand a lot of us; they ask for our eyes and ears and a fair bit of our time, and in return they build a world for us to live in for a little while.
Pop songs, on the other hand, don’t require nearly as much. They come and go in the space of a few minutes, and because they only occupy one of our senses, we can exercise or write an e-mail or clean the kitchen while we’re listening to them and still get more or less the bulk of their effect. If movies transport us out of this world and into another one, what songs do is make the ordinary world pop with colors we wouldn’t otherwise notice. You can walk down the street listening to, say, Sonic Youth, and the next day walk down the same street listening to Lily Allen, and though nothing will have changed except your soundtrack, it’ll seem like a very different street. And if you walk down that street listening to “Upular,” you’ll feel giddiness, and wonder, and a hot-blooded determination to see what lies over the next hill. This is what I feel, anyway, and it can’t be a coincidence that these are all sensations experienced by the characters in Up.
At his best, Bertke is wonderfully adept at boiling down the strongest feelings of a movie into the quick-consumption form of a pop song. Let’s be clear: in the case of Up and “Upular,” the song doesn’t displace the movie. It doesn’t, and can’t, do justice to the growth of the characters and the full emotional palette of the story (particularly the lovely, heart-quickening first act, generally regarded as the film’s best sequence, where two characters meet and fall in love and grow old together). You have to watch the movie for this. But you can’t watch the movie while you’re walking to work in the morning, and so the movie also doesn’t displace the song. If you want to feel some of the things that Up can make you feel—or Alice in Wonderland, or Hook, or Terminator 2, or any of the other films Bertke has dipped into and made collages of—and you want to do it at a time and place of your choosing, well, you’ve got the Pogo songs. They allow you to put some of those feelings in your pocket and carry them around for when you need them.
via theatlantic.com
There is something surreal and completely joyous in Pogo’s work. Pixar has gone as far as promoting the Upular mix on Twitter and Facebook.
Do you hear what I hear?
The TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment and Design) brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes.) Each conference is structured around an overarching idea. A TED Remix is a new juxtaposition of talks around a specific theme.
Related:
Ethel: web, wiki, facebook
Evelyn Glennie: web, wiki
Julian Treasure: web, twitter
Benjamin Zander: web, wiki
Sivamani: web, wiki
Ethel by Ethel
Light by Ethel
Evelyn Glennie’s Her Greatest Hits
Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life
Continuing the end-of-year, end-of-decade list compilation started here, interspersed with some of the best creative work of the year.
• The Awesome Brain Pickings Best Of 2009.
• Discovered in the Arjan Writes music blog, here is MPHO:
• The Big Picture, Christmas 2009.
• The Decade In Words.
• The New York Times The Year In Culture Slideshow.
• Inception Trailer:
• Wired’s The 15 Most Influential Games Of The Decade: Portal is still my favorite.
• BBH Labs’ A Quick Glance At 10 Of Their Best Blog Posts.
• Milton Glaser’s Ten Things I’ve Learned: From 2001 but still relevant.
• DJ Earworm’s United States Of Pop 2009: Amazing. Do you recognize all the references?
• Ten Gadgets That Defined The Decade.
• LA Times’ Top 10 Moments In Social Media In 2009.
• The Impossible Cool: A fantastic blog curating incredible images that are the essence of the impossibly cool.
• The Dieline: Another gorgeous blog curating the best in package design.
• Netflix’s Top Ten Most Rented Movies.
• The Year In Picture Shows.
• Vimeo’s 25 Favorite Videos Of 2009: Including this.
• Fuel Your Creativity’s Best of 2009 In The Creative Industry.
• Danger Room’s Top Ten Stories From A World Gone Nuts.
• Epitaphs For Our Favorite Folded Magazines Of 2009.
• Honda’s Everything Ad: Let’s celebrate the brilliance of good editors.
• The Decade In Communications Technology.
• Charles Isherwood’s Best of 2009 Theater.
• Slate’s Troy Patterson Selects 26 Cultural Moments Of The Decade: From A to Z.
• Macworld’s Top Ten Tech Stories Of The Decade.
• Picturing The Past 10 Years.
• 2009 NYC Holiday Window Displays.
• New Scientist’s Favorite Picture Galleries: Featuring a gallery of snapshots from an imploding star.
• Macworld’s 2009 Game Hall Of Fame.
• The Pogie Awards For The Year’s Best Tech Ideas.
• Top 10 Documentaries of 2009.
• Best Of The Decade’s Architecture.
• Fimoculous’ Year In Review: A mega list of eccentric lists, including a list of the worst renderings.
• Top Ten Book Cover Designs.
• The Decades 14 Biggest Design Moments.
• Ads We Hate, The Year’s Worst Commercials.
• The Year For Creatives.
• The Best of Open Culture 2009.
• Flicker’s Your Best Shots of 2009, The Seasons.
• KCRW’s The Business: The Hollywood Year That Was [Podcast, iTunes Link]
And the predictions:
• JWT’s 100 To Watch in 2010.
• 50 Trends For 2010.
• 32 Of Our Most Anticipated 2010 Entertainments.
And lastly:
• Ringing The New Year With A Drink For Each Time Zone.
And not just end-of-year but also end-of-decade. Here are some of the most interesting lists I’ve seen, interspersed with some of the best work I’ve discovered this year and some suggestions for creative gifts.
• Pixar’s Up
• Foreign Policy’s Top Ten Stories You Missed: Do you know about the hotline for China and India?
• The New York Times Year In Ideas
• Pop Culture’s Finest Moments Of 2009
• Newsweek’s The Decade In 7 Minutes:
• Amazon.com: Best Books Of 2009
• The Best And Worse Tech Of The Decade
• Milton Glaser Draws And Lectures:
• Creative Review Gunne Report 2009 And 2009 Epica Winners Featuring:
• PaperSpecs Top Ten Tips Of 2009: For my fellow printing producers.
• Open Culture Compilation Of Free Audiobooks
• 50 Of The World’s Best Design Blogs
• Slings & Arrows
• The Buzzwords Of 2009: My favorite “crash blossom.”
• The Best Films Of 2009 By Roger Ebert: You have not seen it yet, but you must watch The Hurt Locker
• The Decade In Culture
• Google Wave continues to confound most everyone. And then you see this:
• GE Plug Into The Smart Grid: This is the first example I encountered of Augmented Reality actually implemented. A whole creative department stood huddled around a computer, mouths open, uttering small cries of disbelief.
• YouTube, The Most Searched, The Most Viewed
• Life’s Pictures Of The Year
• MoMA’s Tim Burton Exhibition Website, and The Making Of
• The Hollywood Reporter: Top Ten Techs Tormenting Hollywood
• Johnnie Walker’s Walk: Perfectly produced, it is an astonishing blend of branding, filmmaking, performance, advertising and above all storytelling.
• Amelia: If you love dance this piece will make you reconsider what dance can be. It is ballet mashed up with urban in the matrix. Gorgeous.
• Brand New’s The Best And Worst Of Identities 2009: Have you seen the new AOL logo? What do you think?
• Tarsem’s The Fall
• Top 60 Japanese Phrases/Words Of 2009
• Chanel No. 5’s Night Train: Staring Audrey Tautou. Watch the full length video. Even the behind the scenes is beautiful.
• Ataque de Pánico! recently got Fede Alvarez, the director and animator, a big budget Hollywood deal, which reminds me of…
• …Alive in Joburg, which led Neill Blomkamp to direct District 9
• And speaking of Henry Jenkins, his book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
• Google Zeitgeist 2009
• The Year In Media Errors And Corrections: The internet never forgets.
• I love dance. I watch this on tv and realize that I may be witnessing the evolution of the dance form:
And then I learn there is more.
• The LXD is launching an online, episodic series, with hints of graphic novel myth-making all told through dance. This is a creative endeavor that is practically custom made for me.
• The 50 Most Interesting Articles In Wikipedia
• The Best Films Of The Decade By AV Club
• UNESCO and Google partner to deliver virtual access to World Heritage sites.
• The Noughtie List, the 00’s in Review. A comprehensive list of lists by kottke.org.
• Rolling Stone’s Best Of The Decade
• Top Ten China Myths Of 2009
• In The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession
• The Top 10 Flash Mobs Of 2009: If we are ever together in a crowded public space and music starts playing, people start dancing, there is a very big possibility I’ll be joining in.
• Time Magazine’s The Top 10 Of Everything 2009
• Vaporware 2009: Inhale the Fail: Technologies unfulfilled promises.
• The Big Picture, The Decade In News Photographs: These reiterate how challenging this decade has been.
• The Big Picture, The Year In Pictures: What a crazy year it has been.
• The Major Works Of Counterintuitive Thought Of The Past Decade
• Paloma Faith is the latest eclectic British singer to do the soul thing. A former magician’s assistant, she delivers a great record that feels a bit like the anti Amy Winehouse’s Rehab. Do You Want the Truth Or Something Beautiful
• National Geographic Visions of Earth 2009: Marvel at the variety of images and experiences that our planet creates.
• See Puerto Rico: Yes, I am biased, but the new tourism campaign for Puerto Rico is rich in history and beauty.
• The Ten Best Films You Won’t See This Year
• The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
• The 10 Most Innovative Viral Video Ads
• Top 40 iPhone Apps Of 2009
• 50 Most Influential Bloggers Of 2009: Have you met Gary Vaynerchuk?
• Adweek Media Best Of The 2000s: Gawker is the blog of the decade?
• Jill Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight
• Best New Blogs Of 2009
• 50 Ultimate Travel Experiences
• The Best TV Series Of The 00’s
• 40 Things That Were Popular At The Beginning Of The Decade That Are Not Popular Now: Remember Pepsi Twist? Exactly.
• The Millions: A Year in Reading
And of course, the predictions:
• Trendsspotting’s 2010 Social Media Predictions In 140 Characters
• CNN Tech’s 10 Web Trends For 2010
• Trendwatching’s 10 Crucial Consumer Trends Of 2010
Lastly,
• 100 Ways To Live A Better Life
A collection of links, ideas and posts by Antonio Ortiz.
What are you looking forward to?
What has surprised you?
What have you learned today?
Copyright © 2009-2024, Antonio Ortiz. All rights reserved. Shop at Amazon.com and support Smarter Creativity.
