Who needs to sit out on the beach and watch the sunrise when you can just stare at your computer screen?

Are Mash-ups mob art?

A group of persons stimulating one another to excitement and losing ordinary rational control over their activity. Mob as defined on Dictionary.com

Mash ups, an interesting art combining, altering and remixing sound, video, software code and pictures to create a new, indipendant expression or tool. They are often exiting, humorous or thought provoking, and the legal and ethical boundaries have yet to be set in stone. We create them without concern because other people create them, part of a mob mentality. Here are contemporary mash ups I found interesting this week.

Zombies Walk I first heard this song when I downloaded a B-sides album by Sufjan Stevens month ago. Its an interesting mash of one of his songs and a hit song by Kanye West. Then again, I may be bias because it reminds me of riding in my friend Johns boat last summer.

X-men Last Standing Ovation - This just needs to be seen to be understood. Pure hilarity and very well done.

The title of this post is a direct quote from coolgooglemaps.blogspot.com
"Who needs to sit out on the beach and watch the sunrise when you can just stare at your computer screen and track it across the globe. Much much easier that way." This refers to a Mashup that alows you to do just that, track the sunlight as it is cast across the globe. Cool, but better than the real thing?

My last example, Chili Pepers Wet Sand is a video on you tube. While it is seemingly very elementary, is nothing more than a slideshow put to a song, does this qualify as a mash up? It takes seporate elements, fuses them together to make meaning, and a release an expression.

In class on Thursday I would like to discuss what qualifies a mash up, and what are its limitations, if any?