ARCHIVE

Youtube (YT) is an archive. An archive not only for movies and pictures, but also for music. That is why it is widely used, not only as a video platform, but also as a music platform. As a music archive, YT contains composed music, but also sounds, tones, voices and noises.

The existing music on YT can be divided into music, recorded in the non-network world (such as a record, video documentation of a performance, or a film/television production), and music that comes from the network context. The range of the archived documents spans from anthropological and ethnological scientific recordings, to classical music to popular and avant-garde music. The documenting and posting of people’s own plays or songs, where I also include filmed recitations or how to's, all fall under the domain of artistic forms of action. I would particularly like to highlight the phenomena of the use of "power tools" such as "Inbflat" or "doodle guitar" and the many mashups and remixes found in the videos on YT.

The Internet presents a symbolic reflection of our world. But, as YT clearly shows, the symbolic worlds of the network not only take over our sense of orientation; they also overlap and overwrite our perception, as in a feedback loop. As an archive of recordings (including sounds) of our habitat, the natural as well as the cultural, YT comprises a unmanageable amount of various notes and is, similarly as Wikipedia, constantly expanding with the voluntary cooperation of the participants. The symbolic overlapping and exchange of what is perceived, no longer take place only within our human reason, but are instead externalized and materialized in the form of recording devices. The phenomenon of records is not a new one, but today it is happening in real time, so, if we take part, our world is being formed just by our participation.

To place the video documents gathered in this manner in an order is almost impossible, because their quantity exceeds anything seen so far. Since people can’t handle these archives anymore, the ordering is assigned to algorithms. An enormous amount of parallel worlds are automatically and dynamically designed in an algorithmic arrangement in a way that inhibits our direct access (reflection, overview, understanding). In my opinion, order, which provides identity, should only be created individually; on excerpts and in this way maybe it can reconcile the individual with the mass society. The abundance of individual positions, despite the enormous social pressure for uniformity, that has emerged so far and continues to emerge, is evidence of a remarkable desire for experimentation, which fascinates me again and again, giving me strength and hope as well as motivating me to participate directly in this form of collective cultural work.

Curatingyoutube chose for itself, in dealing with the phenomena of YT, a method that allows comparative analysis, but also enables to deal with the multitude of phenomena in terms of aesthetic and associations: Selecting and arranging videos in the grid.

For the "Radio Arts Space" by radioCona, instead of depicting a specific art canon, I've decided to introduce the enormous musical and tonal variety of the network archive "Youtube". In addition to this, I have selected some subjects, which I consider exemplary and compiled the corresponding videos to a video grid. These grids serve me as an instrument/playlist/sound bank, from which I then select videos or music intuitively. The music/sound pieces can be played in parallel, mixed, lined up and repeated. Different variations can offer new perspectives, interpretations and sound journeys.

- Robert Sakrowski