Scratch Video a mutant hybrid of scratch DJ music and guerrilla TV

scratchvideo/design/sources/sampling/tv

Scratch video is a medium which uses recorded TV as a source in collage. Television images are highly recognizable, striking a responsive chord with audiences. Sampling television means breaking copyright law.

British music producers Jonathan Moore and Matt Black, known collectively as Coldcut, added software developers to their sizable list of job descriptions with the release of the "trigger" software VJamm. Moore and Black feel broadcast television is a site to collect samples to play with in VJamm:

"We decided to take a stealth approach by presenting it as a program to remix Coldcut videos and add your own samples should you wish. But the sub-genda is that you can remix television samples from your own video-sampled clips." (Computer Music 80)

Watching TV is an entirely different experience actively looking for samples like a prospector digging for gold. Recording TV samples means actively considering what is on the screen, in case it becomes useful later on.

Copyright 2000© Hart Snider