The Guggenheim museum, a museum known for its modern and contemporary international art, recently held a contest of YouTube submissions called “Youtube Play, a Biennial of Creative Video”. The contest was held by the Guggenheim to showcase the work of the world of online video, a constantly expanding realm of “art”. Many aspiring artists, in this age of technology, choose online video as their medium of choice, creating a shift in visual culture. The Guggenheim received over 23,000 online submissions, which they have narrowed down to 125 and will eventually limit to a 20 top choices on Oct. 21.
Among the submissions is a parody of Allen Ginsburg’s “Howl” called “Yelp”. Allen Ginsburg was a beat generation poet, who opposed the conformity of the ’50s. “Yelp”
portrays this age of technology and the 21st century and is a plea to “unplug”.
You can view the other 124 videos at youtube.com/play.
Take a look around and choose your favorites; who knows, they might just win.
Very intersting. I am astounded by the numbers of responses that the internet allows. 23,000 responses?!!! The “Yelp” video is quite interesting from a number of perspectives. It cribs several well-known lines and the clear “zeitgeist” of Ginsberg’s original, which is much longer: http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Ramble/howl_text.html
I think this already says something about the shorter attention spans of the internet age: with so much data to peruse, who has time for a such a long poem?
I thought the many images were well chosen, especially for the nostalgic value. It really was a simpler time just 6 years a ago before YouTube was created. the use of Carmina Burana to stand in for generic “important sounding” musical soundtrack is self reflective: there is a very funny video that lampoons Carmina Burana’s pompous text (in Latin), reimagining it as English poetry of mock self importance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAzvKt_8lk