Can I Get An Amen?

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Nate Harrison‘s Can I Get An Amen? is a nice audio installation (now part of the exhibition ‘Anna Kournikova Deleted By Memeright Trusted System – Art in the Age of Intellectual Property’, presented by Hartware MedienKunstVerein) that unfolds a critical perspective of perhaps the most sampled drums 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.

Also check out Bassline Baseline, Harrison’s documentary about the history of the Roland TB-303 Bassline Synth. “The dead-panned ‘documentary’ video attempts to explore how and why creative tools fail and how increasingly more options, parameters or intermediaries devised during a tool’s research and development phase don’t necessarily lead to increased expressivity or virtuosity during the tool’s lifetime of actual use, unless the super-structure of its cultural context is dramtically reconsidered.”