A YouTube Relevance Project: "8 weeks in LA" This project is part of a series of projects exploring YouTube, the idea of "relevance", the repositioning of roles in entertainment, and the reprocessing of the video object. The output of this project consists of 8 (or 6, 4, 2*) large flat screen television monitors continuously cycling through the events that occurred during the artist's specified " 8 weeks in LA" (June 1 st - July 31 st ). Each day's events were constructed using the headlines from the LA Times and a short personal description of what the artist did on that particular day while in Los Angeles. For example, July 14 th : "Israel Blocks Lebanese Coast" & "Horrible Day Woke Up at Sara's with Black Eye and Bruises." The words and phrases from each day's events were entered into YouTube's relevance algorithm and the corresponding videos are displayed together in a pre-determined layout. Each day has two corresponding layouts (one from the public, The LA Times, and one from the private, the artist's experience) and anywhere from 3-8 videos on each of those layouts. The result is a 3-7 minute patchwork of recycled video clips for each of the 61 days sampled. The matching text slowly appears underneath each video as it is played. Each of the YouTube videos in this piece is extracted from the site on the particular date represented. Also, each video is defined by YouTube's "Sort by Relevance" feature. The title of this feature (and the connection it implies) brings the idea of relevance into play. *There could be as many as 8 monitors or as few as 2 monitors depending on space and the sound restraints. In other words, it is possible to show this project on 8 or 6 or 4 or 2 monitors depending on the venue. Ideally the monitors would be placed over ten feet apart and the audio would be played through the speakers (not headphones).
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