Introduction
Mash-up commonly refers to a mix of images, sounds, being initially attributed to music industry, as an audio technique of putting together two songs, blending them by placing the vocal track of one song over the instrumental part of the other song (O’Brien & Fitzgerald 1). Sonvilla – Weiss (9) talks about a mash-up culture, which contains several identifiable elements such as “collage, montage, sampling or remix practices” from one or from multiple materials, in which pieces from these materials are mingled, combined and re-combined, altered, manipulated, copied, for creating a new item, while still maintaining perceptible elements from the original piece, while not still perceived as original. O’Brien and Fitzgerald (1) discuss about a remix culture, as they define the mash-up, being dominated by amateur creators, who now take the roles of producers, by cutting and pasting, sampling or jamming the content for generating a distinctive material.
Body
Applying this technique to individuals is like a metaphoric representation of one’s personality. Therefore, the concept of mash – up also defines individuals, ideas or items. When discussing about mash-ups as referring to individuals this signifies that the person in cause is regarded through a blended image: the image other people have about that person and his actual, real nature. Visually, this implies that the individual in cause acquires a visual representation that is given by other people, who perceive him in a way and when his real nature reveals, the visual representation blends in, towards an end image that contains mixed elements from what the others thought of the individual and what the individual is really like. “The Fall of Super Human” clip depicts precisely this aspect, athletes’ transformation and their image through a mix of how they are seen by other people and how they are, as humans.
The mash-up clip “The Fall of Super Human” is a collage of images brought together into material that depicts the rise and fall of three super humans, three athletes (Lance Armstrong, Oscar Pistorius and Marion Jones) who where enjoying a high popularity before personal scandals outburst. The clip mingles images that reflect the glory and the good days of these three athletes. Therefore, initially, the material presents these three super human in their moments of glory: Lance Armstrong, the worldly known bicyclist leading plutons and winning title after title, and then enjoying his popularity, valued through mass media and praised for his incredible performances. Next, Marion Jones is followed as she wins the gold medal for running, being presented smiling, happy for winning the competition. The clip next blends with images of Oscar Pistoriois, the special Olympic athlete, as he starts the running course. These images are mixed, altered, and interfered with other images, showing other world champions reaching the highest peaks or overcoming themselves and their competitors.
The clip also follows the athletes’ decline, starting with Armstrong’s fall, which determines the fall of many other cyclists, causing a chain reaction. This is a symbolical representation of an iconic image falling and deepening in increasingly more problems. The movie makes references to the allegations brought to Armstrong of using stimulants for reaching his performances, which is unethical, not tolerable and a condemnable action in the sport world, sanctioned and sentenced (Wilson, “Lance Armstrong”).
In parallel, the clip follows Marion Jones and Oscar Pistorius’ decline, from being appreciated and adulated sportsmen to coming in front of judges, as they were accused for taking steroids (Jones (Wilson & Schmidt, “Olympic Champion”)), or for homicide (Pistorius (Shaw, “Oscar Pistorius Shooting”)). Both of them have passed through media scandals that affected, even ruined their image. It is of high impact the blending and the immediate annexation of two images, which actually are covering each other: Pistorius starts to run as the gun fired. Here, the firing gun has a double connotation: it is used to indicate that the competition has started and also for suggesting that Pistorius murdered his girlfriend, as she was cheating on him (Shaw, “Oscar Pistorius Shooting”). Using the red color is a strong clue for indicating passion, desire, but also rage, fury, and blood, the outcome of shooting a person. Moreover, the bullet, the symbol of the shooting, follows Pistorius until the Trail room, where he outburst and hides his face in his hands. Here, the clip integrates a print screen from ABC World News television, which uses a band for presenting the title of the material (“Charged with murder, Star Athlete Breaks Down in Court”). The print screen from ABC placed on the same red background and the fact that the bullet still circulates, following Pistorius in the court room indicates, once again, a manipulation, through the use of imagery and visual techniques. While Pistorius’ image is permanently followed by the gun and bullet, Marion Jones’ image is doubled by the visual representation of a syringe, and it rapidly changes into illustrating Armstrong, as the image of the syringe persists and it is next entering one’s skin, an image that is jammed with the visual representation of pills, as they diffuse into a thick red substance, allusively referring to how drugs enter blood.
The following scenes from the clip visually transpose the viewers into the world of the sedatives, of the stimulants, hormones, pills, steroids, transmitting the idea that this world of needles, of injecting hormones, of testing
The clip next presents the athletes as they transform from the heroic figures that world knows them as, into malicious, raged persons. This part of the clip is also mixed with a special sound, as there is used a lion – like roaring for showing Pistorius’ evil, animal nature, and this is a direct manipulation, as it encourages the viewers of the clip to consider him a brute, and to consider Armstrong a raged man, driven to madness by his desire to be the best, as he also makes faces and yells.
Mingling Armstrong’s evolution from the king of the “Tour of France” to the trial time and the moment when he admits to using steroids with Oscar Pistorius and Mario Jones’ decline illustrates the human nature of the super heroes, their weakness, their feelings, their desires, their outburst.
The sound permanently follows the image, imposing also a rhythm in which the visuals are presented and indicating the evolution or the decadence of the athletes, by emphasizing the more intense moments or the key visual elements of the clip, which allows for the message that the movie wants to transmit to be suggestive. The music that joins the video is also a mix, repeating the sound over and over, with small interventions that announce the changing of the course of movie into a more intense sequence. Parts of the song are copy or cut and pasted later into the song and the song evolves as the clip advances with the images of the rising sport stars. The music dilutes in the moment when Armstrong falls, remains on the background when Pistorius yelling sounds like a roar, it grows again when the clip presents dirty money, as a symbol of the corruption from the sport, continues on the same rhythm during the visual representation of the drugs, syringe, hormones entering human blood, it becomes somehow abrupt towards the end of the clip as an indication of the nearby end (of the clip and of the three athlete’s sportive lives) and it enters again in the background, while the clip emphasizes the sound of an old typing machine writing what it seems to be a scientific conclusion “We proved again that Super Humans don’t existyet some people still believe that rules do not apply to them” (“The Fall of Super Humans”).
This clip represents an example of mash-up, as it presents all the elements of such a material. During the description of the key elements that compose this clip, there were indicated such techniques as the mix, the blend, the collage, the inserted print-screens, repetition, copy/cut-paste method, annexation, combination of images, manipulation of image and sound for creating the final product: a mash-up of visual representations of how three athletes raised and fell. All these elements were taken from already existent materials and their content was cut and inserted into this clip, creating a different new clip, which represents a new material.
Regarding the aspect of creating new materials from the already existent ones, O’Brien and Fitzgerald (1) observe that this act is representative to the rap culture, and it usually defines the user, who is no longer solely the receiver of certain messages, but a creator of the message also, through employing this mixing technology, which carries a creative value.
As defined by Sonvilla – Weiss, the result of a mash– up is a completely new material, which still maintains the properties of the original material only that they are so mixed and mingled and modified, that it cannot be told which was the initial material.
However, O’Brien and Fitzgerald (1) are actually condemning the mash-up industry, considering it illegal, as the creators of such materials re-uses original materials, without having the right to reproduce them, violating like this the copyright law.
In addition to this, after analyzing this clip there can be deducted that by employing this mash-up technique, of mixing and remixing images, music, text, there can be easily manipulated the truth or various actions or facts. Therefore, despite its creativity benefit (considering the fact that the creators of mash-ups prove ingenuity and a sense of novelty), this technique can cause serious harm to people, or can jeopardize the reality, as the creators of these materials can make use of various techniques for fabricating the truth and then posting it on web, or on television, where large audiences can have access to it and visualize it, leading to being misinformed or manipulated.
Conclusion
Voices may say that these materials are cool, engaging and even informing, as they succeed in reflecting in a visual – symbolic manner something that the news, or articles, for instance, cannot transmit. As cool and engaging these materials may look, and indeed they are, because this essay does not neglect their artistic value and the smooth combination of elements, their outcomes are of serious concern. People do not look at these materials as simple divertissement materials, and they are not intended as such. They are intended to persuade, to form opinions, to manipulate, to misinform, towards an imposed direction, produced by the creators of these materials.
Works Cited
O'Brien, Damien and Fitzgerald, Brian. “Mashups, Remixes and Copyright Law”. Internet Law Bulletin. Vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 17-19. 2006. Print.
Shaw, Adrian. Oscar Pistorius Shooting: Shocking Picture of Blood – Soaked Bathroom Where Paralympian Shot Dead Reeva Steenkamp. Accessed on 13 June, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/oscar-pistorius-shooting-shocking-picture-1923590. 2013. Web.
Sonvilla-Weiss, Stefan. Mashup Cultures. New York: Springer. 2010. Print.
The Fall of Super Humans. Accessed on 13 June, 2013, retrieved from http://vimeo.com/61898313. 2013. Web.
Wilson, Duff & Schmidt, Michael, S. Olympic Champion Acknowledges Use of Steroids. Accessed on 13 June 2013. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/sports/othersports/05balco.html?ref=marionjones&_r=0. 2007. Web.
Wilson, Jacque. Lance Armstrong’s Doping Drugs. CNN. Accessed on 13 June, 2013. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/15/health/armstrong-ped-explainer. 2013. Web.
