Michael Bell-Smith’s version of R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet was something I was not expecting to hear. While R. Kelly chose to tell his story in succeeding order, one song after the other, Bell-Smith chose to mix everything into one piece. I am not a big R. Kelly fan due to some of the various things that came up in the media involving him, but I am familiar with a lot of his songs. Bell-Smith’s version played out all chapters of R. Kelly’s “hip-hopera” at once which was difficult to listen and pay attention at the same time. I listened to it twice and both times it reminded me something similar to “white noise” which we hear on things such as TVs and radios. When listening to the track you can hear different parts that stick out in you head and it makes you think back to the song. I have seen all the videos, which are just as ridiculous as the lyrics, which accompany the songs and some of those images came up as well. Toward the end of the piece, it sounds as if each different song reaches their climax at the same exact time.
Cory Arcangel’s Super Mario Clouds web log was an interesting read, although I am not familiar at all with programming and code. I think pretty much everyone is familiar with Super Mario and can relate to what he was trying to do. However, erasing everything in the game but the clouds wouldn’t make for that much excitement. Both artists used some form of reconstructing another artist’s work. It is hard for me to consider either art though because it seems like both artists were just toying with their work at home, but I guess art can take on many different forms.
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