Wednesday June 23, 2004

Karaoke: Recoding the Corporate?

I have long believed that karaoke videos — those little passion plays that appear behind the lyrics when you’re trying to get your rock star on — are a by-product of — or perhaps a sort of on-deck circle for — the San Fernando Valley porn industry. Hey, you’re already kissing and wearing bad clothing. We’re running video. Why not?

BoingBoing, however, is advertising an opportunity for video artists to get serious about the medium by contributing fresh karaoke clips for use at the ISEA2004 conference in Scandinavia. I am a little worried that the organizers might be taking karaoke a bit too seriously, though.

“From Tokyo to Tallinn, the ubiquitous, democratic form of entertainment activates national identity, nostalgia, sentimentality, and glimmers of rock-stardom,” the call for entries proclaims. “Individual performances transform this generic format into ironic, campy, critical and individualized meanings. Erupting within the entertainment-industrial complex, these do-it-yourself appropriations recode the corporate into the personal.”

Um, yeah. Personally, I just want to watch something other than a guy stalking a nice newscaster lady every time I need to belt out a rendition of The Grassroots’ “Midnight Confession.”

Posted by jim at 10:58 AM ||