![[UN]COMMON SOUNDS](wp-content/uploads/2010/04/uncom_blog.thumbnail.jpg "proyecto de documentación e investigación de la creación sonora experimental")
CAN I GET AN AMEN? Nate Harrison
June 28th, 2006
Can i Get an Amen? es una instalación sonora basada en un tocadiscos y un disco de vinilo especialmente creado para ello donde el artista norteamericano Nate Harrison reflexiona sobre el sampling y los derechos de autor. Un excelente trabajo donde Harrison, basándose en el mítico loop (uno de los breaks mas usados y escuchados durante la historia reciente) de un tema de los hermanos Amen de 1969, analiza y pone en duda los valores en los que se basa la creación musical basada en el sampling y la “delicada” relación que mantiene con la industria.
El video (quicktime, 18 min. aprox) de la instalación que incluye la grabación completa, se puede bajar desde la web de Nate Harrison.
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Can I Get An Amen?, 2004
recording on acetate, turntable, PA system, paper documents
dimensions variable
total run time 17 minutes, 46 seconds
Nate Harrison is an interdisciplinary artist working with electronic media. He has worked on projects and exhibited for The American Museum of Natural History, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Experience Music Project, Seattle, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, BIAS Sound Collective, Taiwan, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, PBS, Showtime and various independent film projects. In 1997 Nate founded the New York electronic music microlabel töshöklabs, which has been featured in publications such as XLR8R, URB and CMJ. He has also recorded music for the CO.AD and Record Camp labels. Currently Nate co-directs ESTHETICS AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (www.eslprojects.org). He earned his B.F.A. from the University of Michigan and his M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts. Nate lives and works in Los Angeles.
Can I Get An Amen? is an audio installation that unfolds a critical perspective of perhaps the most sampled drum beat in the history of recorded music, the Amen Break. It begins with the pop track Amen Brother by 60′s soul band The Winstons, and traces the transformation of their drum solo from its original context as part of a ‘B’ side vinyl single into its use as a key aural ingredient in contemporary cultural expression. The work attempts to bring into scrutiny the techno-utopian notion that ‘information wants to be free’- it questions its effectiveness as a democratizing agent. This as well as other issues are foregrounded through a history of the Amen Break and its peculiar relationship to current copyright law.
