This remix by freeyourpixels is a short yet eloquent critique of the US Marines “Red Stripe” online ad campaign. The remix uses still images and TV commercial clips for source materials and implements additive text and precise match-on-action editing techniques to unite them. The red stripe transitions the viewer from one clip to next and was created using After Effects. It’s a brilliant, yet simple, visual motif which echos the brutal imperialist history of the US Marines. The Scarlet Stripe, said to commemorate the bloodshed by US Marine officers during the 1846 Battle of Chapultepec in Mexico, is more often referred to as the Blood Stripe.

Category: tv commercial
Topic Tags: capitalism, corporations, government, iraq, marines, military, terrorism, violence, war

Dictators and authoritarian leaders including Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet and Jean-Marie Le Pen lip sync to the 1966 hit song Born Free sung by Matt Monro. Remixed by Swedish filmmaker and musician Johan Söderberg as part of the Read My Lips video series created for ATMO Films between 2001 and 2004.

Category: music video
Topic Tags: government, military, violence

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face. Forever.”

The above George Orwell quote accompanies this vid by Lila Futuransky which deals with cinematic depictions of oppression and resistance. She weaves together appropriated footage from three sci-fi films set in a near future London; 28 Days Later, Children of Men and V for Vendetta. These are remixes over the song Rabbit in Your Headlights by the band Unkle. The result is a re-constructed vision of a fear-driven future and also a vision of the resistance.  She particularly challenges the ways in which gender, race and sexuality play out in those futures.

Lila has carefully re-contextualized many of the characters in these films including erasing the male V character (along with his torturing of Evey “for her own good”)  and removes the character of Theo as the white male savor of Kee in shots from Children of Men. The vid also pieces together an inspiring montage of resistance which inserts images of queer relationships in between the shots of street protests and sabotage. For much more detail on the concepts behind the creating of this vid check out lila’s web page for it.

Category: vidding
Topic Tags: activism, gender, government, hollywood, military, race, sexuality, vidding, war

This remix, by a group calling themselves “Paul Harvey Oswald”, combines a significant amount of appropriated source material. In addition to news segments, sports footage, commercials, television clips, and additional text, this remix relies heavily on the strategic placement of repetitive sound bites.The result is a blunt critique of American consumerism, mass media and car culture.

Category: short film
Topic Tags: advertising, cars, consumerism, corporations, military, war

A very disturbing remix from the video artist trio Wreck and Salvage. While not all of the collective’s work is political, this one definitely is. Titled “Club Iraq” because it combines rapper 50 Cent’s famous song “In Da Club” with audio of Bush’s invasion speech coupled with home videos taken by US soldiers in Iraq and posted on YouTube. The juxtaposition of the audio tracks and the armature footage US solders goofing off in a war zone, acting like immature boys and saying horrifically insensitive things to and about the Iraq population makes for a sickening, depressing yet poignant Political Remix Video. These troubling unflattering home videos and the thousands like them posted online are likely part of the reason the Military banned myspace and YouTube from its servers in 2007

I offer this warning before viewing, the clips of military personal use explicit language, imitate sexual acts with each other and will most likely make you feel at least slightly ill.

####

Category: music video
Topic Tags: bush, iraq, military

My most recent political remix video created from tv commercials, blockbuster movies and news footage from Iraq and Afghanistan. The alternative title for this remix is “teaching our children”.

####

Category: tv commercial
Topic Tags: identity correction, military, torture, war

Another anti-military recruitment ad done by laying a DIY voice track over the original visuals of the commercial. The video was created by an activist group from Grand Rapids to both send a message and also as self promotion, more and more grassroots groups are turning to remix of corporate messages in their activist campaigns.

####

Category: tv commercial
Topic Tags: identity correction, military, war