Apposites Ottract

2005, 3:01 min, color, sound

Bell-Smith and Pandian's re-edit of a 1989 Paula Abdul music video was created from a lo-res Web video, creating a look that references YouTube hobbyist remixing and fan edits. In their version, one line of the song - "I like to smoke" - is seamlessly substituted for other lyrics, turning the rote rhetoric of the original pop song into an absurdist dialogue. By exploiting the song's structure, they not only call attention to that structure, but also question the cultural environment within which it was created.