You 3b: Remixed YouTube Tryptichs

The ease in which YouTube has allowed users to share digital video has helped enable a variety of projects that exist as offshoots of the service: the video mashup, web vlogging stars, and now, frame by frame visualization tool yooouuutuuube.com. Perhaps a little less known is You 3b. A project of former Eyebeam fellows, You 3b allows for the live remixing of YouTube videos.

On May 16th at Postmasters in New York, the  Artists Meeting collective will be using the program to live-remix YouTube videos into media art tryptichs.

They explain:

Today anyone can be a star. The famous, the infamous and the everyday Vlog webstars are here today and possibly gone tomorrow. Andy’s 15 minutes of fame now barely last 30 seconds and the YouTube phenomena creates instant fame to be quickly replaced by the next lunchtime sensation or overnight international viral hit by a 5 year old kid from Nebraska named Fred.

Through a process of performative appropriation and the over-sized projection of three simultaneous video streams on the gallery wall, Artists Meeting spins YouTube videos into triptychs using the unique features of You3b.com and the process of “digital wandering” or “drifting” through the parallel universe of public online video. While formally simple, the effect of presenting videos normally consumed privately by individuals in this public setting creates an uncanny, unsettling and sometimes hilarious effect on the viewers through the looping sequences, overlapping sounds and beautifully awkward combinations of artworks created by amateur and professional video makers.

Contributed by Lisa Baldini