Webspinna

Pokemon Theme Song

Dubstep Digimon Theme Song

Thunder Storm

Technologic

Poem 0:07

Overpower

Charizard 2:20

I See Fire

Greese 0:21

Pikachu!

Trouble When You Walk In

Music

Digivolve

Colors of the Wind 1:14

Overpower

Electro Ball

Defeat

The Winner is Ash! 5:16

Music 0:15 

Artist's Statement

                I love the opening line of The Ecstasy of Influence.   "Plagiarism or Inspiration?"  I really appreciate that approach.  I think that building on the artistic achievements of the past is a perfectly legitimate creative strategy.  What if when the laptop had been invented it had been shot down because someone had said "Um, I feel like you're just copying and slightly altering the existing invention of the computer.  That is super unoriginal."  That would be ridiculous, and yet somehow, that happens all the time in the world of art.

                A massive amount of the humor in our modern day entertainment media comes from pop culture references, so much so that if you are not up to date on them, many jokes will go completely over your head.  Conan humorously addressed this on his show  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxA_DFtbVXk ).  Often, it is by taking a well known line or catchphrase and placing it in a different context.  It is funny because we recognize the reference and appreciate the creative recontextualization of a familiar icon.  There were a lot of laughs during the Webspinna battles and that is why. 

                Creating a persona was fun, and for me, it was an opportunity to revisit and embrace something I had loved as very young child but had not seen for over a decade.  I took on the character of Ash Ketchum from Pokemon.  I starting watching it again on Netflix, remembered why I had loved it as a child, and fell in love with it all over again.  Pokemon is just great, and I loved diving into it. 

                I really enjoyed the creative process of choreographing the live mix.  I loved having to really think about what element of the character I was going to hone in on, and then search for sound clips that communicated that theme specifically.  I really enjoyed the collaboration of this project.  Having a partner to share the creative process with was great.  It was my partner, Max Carter, who suggested I play Colors of the Wind from the movie Pokahontas.  I do not know that I would have necessarily thought of that on my own, and it was my favorite moment of our Webspinna Battle.

                The performance was a blast, but one thing that was interesting for me was that I was so focused on getting my clips ready and set to start at the right moment within each clip that I almost forgot to relish in the character for a bit of it.  This surprised me because of my background as an actor.  For a minute, I almost forgot that I was on stage, not just the sounds I was cueing.