Jeff Howe may be credited for bringing the
“crowdsourcing” concept to the public’s attention,
but it was a few years prior that the Beastie Boys brought it to
our attention with
Awesome...I Shot That!. Half a decade later, the crowdsourced music video
has become ubiquitous…we might even say an established form of contemporary art.
The Johnny Cash Project: From
“The Wilderness Downtown” to
“House of Cards”, director
Chris Milk and infographics wizard
Aaron Koblin have
reimagined the music video, infusing sentiment into the digital experience. Earlier this year, just days before what would have been Johnny Cash’s 78
th birthday, the duo teamed up on a video project for Cash’s last-ever studio recording, “Ain’t No Grave.” The resulting video,
The Johnny Cash Project, is being created entirely from online contributions sourced through the site’s
virtual drawing studio. So far,
250,000 volunteer fans from 172 countries have submitted their own frames. With this much crowdsourced content, no two viewings will be the same. Still accepting new contributions, it is our living portrait of The Man in Black.
One Frame of Fame: The members of Dutch band
C-mon & Kypski are self-proclaimed “genre-blending geniuses,” serving up everything from funk, hip hop and ska to electropop, polka and Klezmer. Having already established themselves as skilled turntablists—Kypski has taken home the DMC World DJ Championship Dutch title six times—the band is now showcasing its creativity by hooking up with designers
Roel Wouters and
Jonathan Puckey to create a crowdsourced video for its song
“More is Less”. The project, called
One Frame of Fame,
lets fans reshoot any frame with their webcams and upload the clips into the video in real-time. The website refreshes every hour to ensure that each of the 26,000+ (and counting) contributors can admire their work on the site.
Love The Earth: While on a safari in Tanzania,
Imogen Heap found herself feeling more contented than ever. Inspired, she asked her fans to send in clips that made
them feel connected to nature.
Thousands of submissions ensued. She then forged a creative partnership with social entrepreneur
Thomas Ermacora to piece together a 30-minute concept video,
Love The Earth. The film premiered earlier this month at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where it preceded an orchestral performance of Heap’s score. (Those not attending were able to watch it as a
live HD webcast.) This
wasn’t the first time Heap harnessed the power of the Internet to connect with her fans and, with Ermacora as her collaborator, we suspect that
it won’t be the last.
