Readymade777, Youtube Video Artist [Interview]

Update (3/10/2010): Since this interview ran, Youtube pulled the account of Readymade777 for reasons unknown to the artist. They have started a new account for their video art. http://www.youtube.com/readymade7777

The best part of Oh Word TV, a section of this site devoted to curating web videos, is that it’s given me cause to explore off the beaten path of YouTube. I don’t remember where I first learned of Readymade777 but it was love at first site.

As a video artist Readymade777 draws from a palette of american cinema, tv ads, pornography, and our own generation of DIY exhibitionists from the amateur (webcam) to the professional (Paris Hilton). The subversive video mixes they craft are funny except when they’re alienating, erotic until they’re grotesque. Motion picture through a distillation process yielding both a cipher and a roller coaster ride.

The artist was kind enough to agree to an interview by email.

Can you explain the concept of a readymade? In particular, how is a readymade different from other types of video collage work?

The term “readymade”, as you might know was originally applied to art through the Da Da artist Marcel DuChamp. It describes art created from the undisguised, but often modified, use of objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a mundane, utilitarian function. Marcel Duchamp was the originator of this in the early 20th-century.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917.

I collect pre-existing media, take them out of their context and juxtapose them into my own mess….which makes sense to me. I call it “readymade video art”. It’s a rather selfish individual pursuit, but then most artistic endeavors are.

Each one of these films is a natural progression for me. All I’m doing is exploring a completely different part of my mind, and it is a truly long, repetitive process, which is always evolving. Each one of my pieces are a RELEASE for me. When I complete them, just as with my painting, I feel free from all my “fences”. This allows me to get all my aggression out. I don’t stop on a piece until it has a flow. You know when you watch art films or collage pieces, they may have some lasting value or some kind of relevance, but they seem uneven or jilted or occasionally completely uninteresting. I am trying to buck that stereotypical trend. and allow my pieces to transcend into a unique form of entertainment so practically anyone can draw some sort of pleasure from at least a second of one of my pieces. I won’t stop til there is that flow, and it feels complete…sometimes it can take months.

I feel I’ve observed that flow in your work, through a repetition or expounding of ideas and images. Via the way clips build on each other: often with funny editorializing on what we’ve just seen or especially patterns emerging, like a leitmotif. For instance things like the blood imagery and the return of the vigilante black cat figure in Sex Sells.

Could you speak for a bit on a topic that’s dear to my heart – what’s it like having YouTube be the platform where your art lives?

Youtube!! It’s such an important element to all of my motivation. When I first set out to start making these pieces, I made them for myself. I realized though that Youtube could be such a great forum though to get the most honest feedback possible; anonymous viewers spewing out raw commentary. This was not a bunch of friends who felt forced to go to one of my art shows and come up to me and tell me how awesome my artwork is. That is a dishonest obligation we all feel when we are subjected to art that a friend pushes upon us. Youtube allowed for people I don’t know to trash me if my stuff was shit. I loved that, and it helped me form my thoughts and grow, and start to create content that had that “wow” factor rather than a bunch of uninteresting fluff that only made sense to me. Since I started making better work as time went on, I took into account the YOUTUBE”S evolution as a relevant pop culture medium and tweaked my work accordingly, knowing that people would watch these things on the small square/rectangle that YT provided. It’s been amazing because as of the last few months, people have approached me about projecting my work as an installation in an art show. Just this last weekend, I anonymously curated a presentation that was close enough to where I lived that when the show was up, I snuck over to it and watched it in a way that someone else thought it should be viewed. I loved it! It was a blast seeing my work projected on a big wall.

And YouTube aside from providing an audience, provides source material for your videos, usually in the form of webcam girls. Which is certainly a new kind of muse. I’m interested in the various women of your videos. One thing that I’ve found fascinating is how the erotic stuff in the vintage videos can blow the roof off the current videos. For instance the girl dreaming and kneading her blanket with her hand. And then from there on up to webcam girls.

Yes, as far as sexuality goes, it is something that is ingrained in us. It’s how we are wired, and it is a permanent fix on the male psyche. It will show up in my work just like all the other driving forces. Consumerism, money, politics, pop art, and a myriad of other things. It always seems as though the naked human form is rather taboo on youtube though, as if it were something to be ashamed of. This is rather maddening to me, so i don’t allow it to get in the way when I’m editing. It seems to me as though the current eroticism of todays culture has been made less effective because it is so mind-numbingly uncreative. This might be the reasons that you found the older vintage clips to be more appealing.

You recently had quite a few fellow youtubers saying “I am Readymade” for one of your videos. A Spartacus moment. A comment on co-creation?

The I Am Readymade video was made in its conception as a fan appreciation piece, which eventually spiralled into many other things. It’s one of the only works will you will actually see my face saying the phrase along with everyone else. I had a lot of fans inquiring about my identity (secretly hoping and praying that I might be that girl, Dani who appears in a lot of my earlier videos.)As a response, I asked most of my youtube friends to send a me a clip of them saying “I am Readymade” There was no direction. They just had to say it, and I told them I would do the rest. Eventually though I started asking a bunch of my personal friends to say it too while I filmed them. The result was the mammoth that you watched. It was huge undertaking.

Do you consider yourself a feminist? A media critic?

I am a feminist (as it was taught to me), which is a person who believes that women should have the same rights and be treated the same as men. There is no hidden agenda. So in its purest form, feminism could be equated to masculinism. They are one and the same. A media critic? who me? Each one of my pieces are mere reflections of the evolution of media. They are rorschach tests. Your reaction to a piece is exactly the right reaction.

See more from Readymade777 on YouTube.