Webspinna Battle

Here's an excerpt from my chapter on "Performing" from Arts Education and Literacies that may help explain the Webspinna Battle a little more.

Mr. Amerika’s [1] twelfth grade media arts class has been exploring different intersections of media and art—interactive installations, performance art which incorporates projections, crowd-sourced-web-based collaborative projects. Really wacky stuff. But these kids ain’t seen nothin’ yet. In the last few days, the class has discussed the ways in which artists remix media—appropriating images, audio, video, etc. and recontextualizing them in their work. Today, as the students enter the classroom, the lights are dimmed. Electronic music hums in the background. The chairs are stacked in the corner. And two glowing computer monitors are positioned on opposite sides of a high table at the head of the class.

Suddenly, Mr. Amerika enters the classroom wearing a red sequined blazer, dark sunglasses, his hair styled into a neon orange mohawk. The students are amused but not entirely surprised, given their teacher’s frequent, odd antics. But they break out in laughter and applause when they see their principal, Miss Bliss, enter the room wearing a full-tilt Ice Queen costume, complete with white faux fur, icicle earrings and a crystal scepter. Without saying a word, the two walk to the computers and face each other. A recitation of Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice” plays, and then suddenly Mr. Amerika clicks and the classroom erupts in series of sonic explosions. Sounds of engines revving and Metallica guitar riffs fill the room. Then Miss Bliss interrupts the barrage of sound with the intro to Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby,’ followed by sounds of waves crashing and avalanches thundering. The performance continues for a few minutes, each performer furiously clicking and cueing their songs and sounds—machine gun fire juxtaposed with the roar of a waterfall, Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” followed by “Mr. Snowmeiser,” sounds of hot and cold, fire and water, until finally Miss Bliss ends the sonic skirmish with a final, fatal blow—“Let it Go” sung by the ice princess herself. Mr. Amerika bows, as if to say, ‘I’m not worthy,’ and the students erupt into loud applause.

After the lights go up and the principal returns to her administrating, Mr. Amerika explains what just happened. The Webspinna Battle, the class’ next assignment, will require pairs of students to develop personae that embody some concept—Fire vs. Ice, Light vs. Dark, Nintendo vs. Sega, etc. Then the pair will mine the Internet for songs and sounds related to this concept. They will collect these links, creatively mix their collection of audio, and rehearse their remix-battle before they, in full costume, perform a live battle by navigating, cueing and clicking sounds from their arsenal. Mr. Amerika clarifies, “It’s like Street Fighter 2, but with streaming sounds and songs as fireballs. Hadouken!”

“So, can we edit the songs and sounds together and then just play the remix on the day of the performance?” asks one student.

“Absolutely not!,” Mr. Amerika retorts, seeming almost offended at the suggestion. “As artists and media-makers, we’re like recluses, in our studios or our editing bays. We’re creative, but in a private, self-conscious way. Stage actors and dancers, musicians and stand-up comics—even TV weatherpersons!—exhibit their skill and creativity in front of other people, through live, enacted performances. They experience their art…bodily, corporeally! That’s something I want you precious little hermits to experience. Adrenaline!”

After some additional instructions, the students pair up and spend the next week planning their performance. Mr. Amerika works with each pair, helping them craft characters, search the web for clips, and rehearse their epic audio battle. And as per usual, Mr. Amerika is constantly peppering the students with questions about their artistic motivations and spurring them forward with off-the-wall advice.

“Angels vs. Devils? Hmm.” considers Mr. Amerika as he meets with a pair of students. “Pretty heavy stuff. You’ve got to ask yourselves what a couple of young punks can contribute to this age-old battle. Five-minutes of Mormon Tabernacle Choir versus Megadeath is going to get old. So, what do you have to bring to the table?”

The students hesitate.

“You, Beelzebub,” Mr. Amerika addresses one of the pair. “Who is doing your bidding in the world these days? Reeking havoc and raising mayhem at every turn?”

“Um…Justin Bieber?” the boy responds, with a wry smile.

“HA!” Mr. Amerika laughs aloud. “Excellent! You’re on to something. You don’t have to abandon those medieval motifs of halos and pitchforks, but just reimagine them within the context of American pop culture. The Biebs is a perfect place to start!” Mr. Amerika turns to the other student, “And you Miss Celestia?”

The girl responds confidently, “Well, I think if JB is the devil, than Taylor Swift is definitely an angel.” Mr. Amerika smiles with approval. Taylor Swift continues, “And so maybe it’s a battle between pop culture we hate and pop culture we love.”

Bieber chimes in, “I play ‘Blurred Lines’ and you play Pharrel’s ‘Happy.’”

Swift responds, “You play Chris Brown, and I come back with Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies.’”

“Brilliant!,” Mr. Amerika jumps in. “And remember to consider not only your choices of songs and sounds but also your comportment. How does JB act? Miss Swift?”

Taylor responds, “I think he should be jittery and desperate, frantically clicking away, while I just calmly, confidently destroy him with pure awesomeness.” Mr. Amerika applauds the pair’s smart ideas and continues to help the class develop their performances.

The day of the battle arrives, and the students come to school in full costume—Waking vs. Sleeping, Young vs. Old, Zombies vs. Aliens, Harry Potter vs. Star Wars. It’s better than Halloween. The students have carefully selected their audio clips, exploring soundboards and online games, preparing live collages of movie quotes, sound effects, famous speeches, and pop songs.  

As the first pair of students takes their places at the computer monitors, Mr. Amerika addresses the class. “Welcome gladiators! You have prepared well for this moment. But remember to ride the flow of the experience. If it makes sense to improvise, to rip into a face-melting solo, to pull a wicked killer combo, follow that impulse. Ready…Fight!”

It’s a riot. Pair by pair, students perform their battles, prompting applause, laughter and dancing among the crowd. But perhaps even more fun, is that between battles, the students take turns, impromptu, taking the open mic to freestyle rap, do impressions, cover popular songs, and tell funny stories. One kid even performed some tricks with his skateboard on the scuffed linoleum floor. Needless to say, by the end of the class, a crowd of other students and teachers has congregated in the back of the class and in the adjacent hallway to get a peek at the performance.

The following day, Mr. Amerika discusses the Webspinna Battle with the class. He starts by simply inviting their unfiltered responses, which include the word ‘awesome’ quite a bit. Eventually, some more substantial reflections are made.

One student offers, “I really liked coming up with an idea for the battle. Characters, costumes, sounds. Finding things that fit together to make an interesting, tight performance. Ours was Waking vs. Sleeping, which makes sense because that’s a battle I fight every morning.”

The students laugh. Mr. Amerika responds, “Costume design, sound design, scoring, acting and choreography, even. These are all elements we’re familiar with in movies, and they’re all here. But in a jumble. But you did a great job at making this mess a unified mess—aesthetically, thematically. Talk to us about your creative process, you two.”

Waking and Sleeping discuss how their initial idea was to take something from everyday life and make it artful. “Who doesn’t debate pushing that snooze button? It’s something we all relate to, but it’s not something we usually think of as material for an art project.” They continue, discussing how they designed their characters—Sleeping came in rumpled pajamas, with messy hair. “I didn’t even brush my teeth or take a shower that morning. You know…for the sake of authenticity.” Waking, on the other hand, wore a bright yellow warm-up suit, and admitted to drinking no less than three energy drinks that morning.

The discussion continues. Later, a student adds, “I thought the coolest part was all the cool talents that people ended up sharing in between the battles. That was…”

“—Awesome?!” interjects Mr. Amerika. “Yes it was. What do you think class? We’ve made a lot of cool art together in class, but no one has ever spontaneously done impressions in here. Why?”

A student responds, “Probably because you’re getting us to feel comfortable around each other. We dress up and do this battle, and we’re free to let loose a little. But that creativity and that energy doesn’t end when the assignment ends. It just keeps going.”

Mr. Amerika holds his hands to his face. “I think I may weep. Thank you…Thank you all.” The bell rings, and the students continue to their next (and inevitably far more boring) classes.

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[1] While my own media arts students perform a Webspinna Battle, I owe the idea for this activity largely to Mark Amerika who’s Remix Culture course at the University of Colorado, Boulder has held Webspinna performances for years. For more information on these performances, check out “Net Sounds,” a special issue of The Centre International D’Art Contemporain de Montreal’s Electronic Magazine edited by Amerika.