I wanted to let you know that Kanye came into my art exhibition here called Mail Order Monsters and saw a video by video artist Takeshi Murata [above -Ed.] and loved it and freaked out and that is where HE totally ripped off this idea.
The piece he copied is called PINK DOT. I think you can find it on his website or maybe on ratio 3 website (his gallery in SF).
Takeshi invented the technique of reprograming the way your computer reads video and compresses it to make the swirly pixel stuff you posted on your blog. It is not called “roundabout” or whatever your blog said, I mean maybe that is what Kanye calls it? Sounds retarded.
Takeshi is 31, RISD grad, and recently taught some seminars and posted some instructions on the technique so others have been figuring it out too I guess.
He has been doing this for 5+ years and is well known in (parts at least) of the artworld as the creator of this technique
He is really really bummed that both Kanye and Chairlift copied this technique with no credit to him, as he has invested years of his life creating it, and it would be awesome if you looked into his work and maybe re-structured your chronology on this a bit.
You don’t have to, I mean, artists get ripped off all the time. But I thought this information might be interesting to you
Kathy Grayson
Dear Kathy,
Holy Shit.
Sincerely,
SBTVC
Dear Street Carnage,
Yeah. Here’s a link to Takeshi’s ratio3 page and his Deitch page.
Poor guy. He was nice enough to teach his tricks in public and then people go and do this. The Chairlift video guy is definitely a person who sat through his talk. He’s a little fucker that lives in Bushwick or something.
Thanks again!
Kathy
PS if you wanna read the mini-debate on my blog its here. Check Wednesday, February 18, 2009.
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OH SNAP!
02.24.09 at 11:35 pm
well done, kathy.
02.25.09 at 12:07 am
IT’S REALLY EASY TO CREATE THESE EFFECTS ON ACCIDENT BY HAVING A CORRUPTED MOVIE FILE (DEPENDING ON THE CODEC), BUT TO ACTUALLY CONTROL IT AND USE IT IN AN ARTISTIC WAY LIKE HE DID IS NON-TRIVIAL. HE DEFINITELY DESERVES CREDIT.
ALSO COLOR ME NOT SURPRISED AT ALL THAT KANYE IS NOT INNOVATIVE. WHAT A SHOCKER.
02.25.09 at 12:11 am
Actually the “with no credit” part is completely invalid. Even in the link that you posted yourself (to MTV) says verbatim: “Welcome to Heartbreak” director, Nabil Elderkin, told MTV News late Tuesday that the technique is called “data moshing.” It’s been employed by a number of artists in the past, he said, most notably Takeshi Murata.”
He gave you boy a shout out, stop crying.
02.25.09 at 12:32 am
NICE ONE! he defnintley credit Takeshi…. check out his MTV interview.. also unlike charlift video which is a direct rip off of the techinique the Kanye video actually went beyond and use lots of techniques and transitions..
02.25.09 at 4:23 am
its not even an interesting technique – you should all calm down
02.25.09 at 4:27 am
gimmick.
02.25.09 at 6:56 am
steamer’s right. also, i wish kanye picked a better song off the album. and when i saw off the album, i mean not on it. because it sucks. except for paranoid.
02.25.09 at 7:19 am
Didn’t The Presets do this, in Are You The One? Years ago…
02.25.09 at 8:55 am
Anyone with a show titled “Mail Order Monsters” isn’t allowed to complain about people co-opting other people’s ideas.
02.25.09 at 9:19 am
Yeah, I’d have to agree it’s not that great of an effect. Sure it’s interesting, but it’s kind of like drop shadows, outer glows (or inner glows for that matter), or the “Kid Stays In the Picture” effect with photos in AE. Mind blowing for 4.637 seconds at that particular point in history, and then summarily run into the ground by every hack “artiste” on the planet. Chairlift sucks, countdown starting now to when that chick goes solo.
Takeshi Murata should get all the credit in the world, but he also should have seen this coming.
02.25.09 at 10:16 am
The director of the Kayne video does credit him publicly in that article. This guy shouldn’t be crying about how he’s getting no credit – he should be crying that his life’s work and passion has amounted to a flavor of the week music video gimmick.
02.25.09 at 10:45 am
FUCKING BITERS
02.25.09 at 3:02 pm
this was his life’s work?
02.25.09 at 5:38 pm
You can actually get the same effect by playing your video through an ICHAT videochat at a low bandwidth (the dropped packets make the random pixellated effect), and recording it on the other end. I saw the chairlift video and assumed that that was how they did it/the inspiration for it. Because of this fact it’s impossible to deduct whether or not Chairlift and/or Kanye copied Mr.Takeshi’s work (although the fact that Kanye was at one of his shows is rather incriminating) or were inspired by the cool looking freakout of ICHAT.
02.25.09 at 8:03 pm
Antares autotune is more shocking than this shit
02.25.09 at 10:40 pm
Actually the director Nabil does mention Takeshi in a Mtv news article as seen in the quote below.
“Welcome to Heartbreak” director, Nabil Elderkin, told MTV News late Tuesday that the technique is called “data moshing.” It’s been employed by a number of artists in the past, he said, most notably Takeshi Murata. Elderkin explained that for “Heartbreak,” he used it to convey the haunting element of the track, which is the opening number on 808s & Heartbreak.
02.26.09 at 12:04 am
hey “ya fuck” read up a couple posts.
02.26.09 at 2:33 am
[...] Artist Takeshi Murata is upset that popstar Kanye West hijacked his method of video compression to create his most recent music video without giving him any credit. Apparently West saw an exhibition of Murata’s work at Deitch and flipped over it and rushed his video out. (via street carnage) [...]
02.26.09 at 3:54 pm
Pastell Kompressor
Owi Mahn & Laura Baginski 2004
WOWOWWOW! i guess he didnt invent it?
03.01.09 at 6:56 pm
I have heard the same story too many times before to believe it: poor independent creative artists are ripped off by the industry and don’t get the credits…
this way of experimenting with digital video is in the air since latest 2003 ( e.g. tatjana marusic: http://tatjanamarusic.com/flash/woman.html )
and actually everybody sees something similar when videostreams breakdown about everyday. so you could even say the people, who invented this kind of videocompression invented this effect, i’m shure they thought about what would happen if errors occur. It’s still an interesting effect, and the work of murata is great, no doubt. but if he complains about his ideas being stolen, i wonder about his concept of creativity, as he himself seems to use found footage…
05.17.09 at 3:41 pm