Paul B. Davis: Two Interviews

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The Creator's Project, an internet TV station showcasing artists, has a video story up on Paul B. Davis, one of the founders of the BEIGE Programming Ensemble (with Cory Arcangel, Joe Beuckmann, and Joe Bonn) and later a pioneer of a technique of messing up video popularly called "datamoshing." The story of datamoshing (who came up with it, when it originated, how it came to public attention) is one of the topics covered, and also Davis's early hacking of Nintendo games.

About a year ago, around the time Rhizome.org did a story on datamoshing, I had an online chat with Davis. We never finished it, and it runs rather long, but please give it a read. As Davis explains in the Creators Project story, he decided not to pursue datamoshing in his UK gallery show after the appearance of the technique in a couple of heavily promoted pop music videos (by Kanye West and Chairlift). Our interview was done while he was thinking about those issues* so it fleshes out some of the things he says in the Creators Project story about the problematic aspects of recycling pop culture. The interview also parallels the Rhizome chat, where I was actively sounding off at the same time I was talking to Davis.

*For example, a question Davis asks when looking at YouTube mashups (or other art), "What does this tell me that isn't immediately obvious?" was incorporated in his post-Kanye UK show into a piece called Critical Space Headgear.

Update: Added new link to my Davis interview.