Editors' Notes

Maria Damon and Michelle Greenblatt
Jim Leftwich and Michelle Greenblatt
Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt

A Visual Conversation on Michelle Greenblatt's ASHES AND SEEDS with Stephen Harrison, Monika Mori | MOO, Jonathan Penton and Michelle Greenblatt

Letters for Michelle: with work by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Jeffrey Side, Larry Goodell, mark hartenbach, Charles J. Butler, Alexandria Bryan and Brian Kovich

Visual Poetry by Reed Altemus
Poetry by Glen Armstrong
Poetry by Lana Bella
A Eulogic Poem by John M. Bennett
Elegic Poetry by John M. Bennett
Poetry by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
A Eulogy by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Joel Chace
A Spoken Word Poem and Visual Art by K.R. Copeland
A Eulogy by Alan Fyfe
Poetry by Win Harms
Poetry by Carolyn Hembree
Poetry by Cindy Hochman
A Eulogy by Steffen Horstmann
A Eulogic Poem by Dylan Krieger
An Elegic Poem by Dylan Krieger
Visual Art by Donna Kuhn
Poetry by Louise Landes Levi
Poetry by Jim Lineberger
Poetry by Dennis Mahagin
Poetry by Peter Marra
A Eulogy by Frankie Metro
A Song by Alexis Moon and Jonathan Penton
Poetry by Jay Passer
A Eulogy by Jonathan Penton
Visual Poetry by Anne Elezabeth Pluto and Bryson Dean-Gauthier
Visual Art by Marthe Reed
A Eulogy by Gabriel Ricard
Poetry by Alison Ross
A Short Movie by Bernd Sauermann
Poetry by Christopher Shipman
A Spoken Word Poem by Larissa Shmailo
A Eulogic Poem by Jay Sizemore
Elegic Poetry by Jay Sizemore
Poetry by Felino A. Soriano
Visual Art by Jamie Stoneman
Poetry by Ray Succre
Poetry by Yuriy Tarnawsky
A Song by Marc Vincenz


Join our Facebook group!

Join our mailing list!






Jeremy Hight: Who are some of your influences?

Matthijs Vlot: Influence is everywhere. Do not want to pinpoint this too much. Can be in art, entertainment, poetry or whatever. But also just some girl you have a crush on or something.

But my main influence when i started doing this was how hip-hop and dance producers took snippets of soul and funk records to create new works.

Public Enemy's production team "The Bombsquad" for example, they really made an impact by creating new records with sometimes using up to 20 samples in one single song.

What I like so much about sampling, is the fact that it's close to the very fundamentals of creativity.

All ideas are build on other ideas, so in my opinion all creative work can be considered a mash-up.

From that perspective today's copyright and patent laws can be considered very unfruitful for culture to evolve.

JH: Your work is both cut up edit fun, super cuts and brilliant commentary; what terms do you think best describe your work?

MV: For me, I try to strike a balance between all of these. If entertainment is good enough it may also contain commentary or artistic value. And if art is good enough it might also be entertaining.

JH: What most interests you about the archive and working with the growing mass and depth of film clips and data to work with/from?

MV: I always found new technology inspiring and as this big data revolution is taking place, it's just logical for me to get on that train and see where it takes me.

JH: Can you describe a bit of your process?

MV: First I need to have some kind of concept or idea, then usually i will try to find some key clips which give me the confidence to go ahead with this idea.

Then I will try to find as many good clips as possible and then I'm going to the edit stage and try to glue 'em all together, this can sometimes be quite a puzzle. Usually timing is everything, obviously when there is music involved, but also without it. Sometimes just a half a second more or less between two sentences can make or break a joke for example.

JH: What are you working on right now?

MV: A small little clip featuring Marty McFly from Back to the Future 3.

JH: What brought you to your work with editing and re-contextualizing video?

MV: Like i mentioned before, when a started doing this i was very much into soul and funk samples. I started doing art-school, the first year i did graphic design and i leaned a bit of how to think in concepts, the second year I switched to AV. I did some stuff using a camera at first, but I figured out in that in modern media culture we are surrounded by images all day and i thought it would be more relevant (and fun) to use all these images in a new context, rather than keep on adding more images.

JH: Have you seen a progression in your work since your first video edit works?

MV: Definitely yes! My first video, or at least the first one i considered a success, was just a plain minute of Dutch call-tv. I just zoomed in and slowed it down and that was enough for that particular context.

My recent work contains way more cuts and sources, but in the end it doesn't mean that much, since i think the most important thing is just simply having a good idea, some kind of funky twist.

JH: Which of your works do you find has had the biggest response?

MV: Hello! The months after it went viral, I saw something like 5 similar type of video's appearing online and people crediting me as an inspiration. Felt very honoring. Even Jimmy Fallon took notice and Lionel Richie liked it too, he did not even sue me for stealing his song, but instead he was tweeting my film. That was hopefully a glimpse of how a ideal world could look like somewhere in the future.



Pin It       del.icio.us