German bureaucratic hell as art: media artist samples 70,000 songs, fills out paper forms for each
German media artist Johannes Kriedler has created a 33 second composition that fairly samples an astonishing 70,200 separate songs... each and every one of which must be registered with GEMA (the German RIAA) with formal paper documentation. The tune itself is not very catchy, but that's not the point: the art here is exposing the absurd paper hell of German bureaucracy.
Johannes Kreidler - product placements - English version [YouTube via MAKE]
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I'd love to see the cost to the German taxpayer - or to the GEMA - to process the paperwork for those 70.200 separately sampled songs.
And then, I'd love to hear the extended dance remix, the collaboration with Sarah McLachlan, the radio edit and the pop-top-40 hooks mashup.
Love the fake news conference with "flash bulbs" going off in the background.
Who is the bigger bureaucrat? The "artist" filling out those forms or the Artiste who processes them?
I'm sure they'll find a way to sue him anyway. Where there's a bill, there's a way; that's the RIAA's motto.
It's just a hoax - even down to the badly faked news conference.
33 seconds divided by 70,200 separately sampled songs gives less than half a milli-second each.
Even if he had 10 tracks playing simultaneously, that is under 5 milliseconds each.
He's demonstrating that it takes a ridiculous level of effort to do something ridiculous. So what?
That's like someone taking all the novels in the English language, cutting them down into individual letters and then reassembling them into my own unique sentences and novel of my own.
If I did that, then filled in paperwork requesting that I use the letter 'e' from someone else's novel 70,200 times .. what would that prove? That the system is broken or that I'm an idiot?
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