DJ Spooky

How does DJ Spooky as an artist deal with visual sampling?  DJ Spooky investigates body language around him and incorporates reality into his film.  He explains in his interview that his goal was to shy away from the mainstream typical films and introduce a shocking view to his audience by showing the KKK and other shocking factors.  His goal is to make his audience think outside the box.

How does DJ Spooky make use of recurring images, and repetition, in his work: 1. on a storytelling level? On a more abstract level? DJ Spooky sees repetition works with the music using it as a motif/image.  Working with electronic material, he uses repetition to hold his piece together.  He is fascinated with social circuitry, applying a shape to each person to visually describe their personality and mood.  He manipulates the audience's focus with his shapes to emphasize moods.  In addition, he will have the 'black' people actually be white and vise versa in order to make a statement.

What does DJ Spooky have to say about how he holds his works together, or makes transitions? He explains that he works with electronic material (digitally altering pieces) he produces repetition throughout his piece to hold together his work.    He also engages his audience by visually applying puns within his piece to make his viewers think.  He has emotional content with repetition to replay over and over in one's head that will be stuck on their mind for a while to think twice about.

Does the above resonate with anything you encountered in working with sound this term? Give examples of how your process is similar, and/or different.  When creating my sound pieces, especially my abstract sound, I took DJ Spooky's approach to engage my audience.  I chose to have loud unexpected sounds to surprise my listeners and make sure they do not fall asleep from boredom throughout my piece.  With a twist in a work of art, an audience is more likely to thrilled and attentive to the entire piece.

If you were a critic reviewing this film, would you give it a more positive or a more negative review based upon this question: Does the work do what DJ Spooky says he hopes it will do? As you answer this question, write as if you were writing an article for a newspaper in which you have to describe to the reader what they would see as you support your critique with specific observations.   The film is such an abstract piece that everything visually works effectively.  DJ Spooky's music coordinate with the visual representation shown.  In addition, every excerpt is different whether it is a passage, citizens, or emotionally strong clips which bring out the diversity throughout the film.  The music in the background resembles an investigation where as DJ Spooky is presenting the long term criminals vs. the public lifestyle.

Watch Rebirth of A Nation. Choose two images that are very different form one another, but which are sequenced one immediately after another in the film. Make screen shots that show the stages or steps of transition between the two photos.

 Transitioning from a portrait to a video clip beginning with the shuffling of leaves, DJ Spooky successfully morphs the first picture into the next.  He chose to use an abstract motion of multiple rectangular 2d linear boxes that overlapped each other in motion.  Taking the colors from the first photograph and morphing them into the illusion to switch to the video clip allowed a smooth transition.  The first frames incorporate the first photo in the far background while the end frames resemble the first frame of the video clip.  DJ Spooky excelled in his ability to use a digital reference in order to illustrate a smooth alteration between frames.