It's not a first for me, but it is a rarity - today I'm writing about non-musical mashups! (See my first foray into the visual mashup world...) A few weeks ago, someone drew my attention to this BoingBoing article about artist Tim Klein. It makes total sense: puzzle manufacturers use the same pattern to cut pieces for many different puzzles (the process is known as die-cutting). Because of this, it's possible to easily combine pieces from multiple puzzles without doing any additional cutting. Klein takes advantage of this, and produces puzzle mashups like this one:
(Image used with permission.)
These mashups are so effective, because, like musical mashups, they're obviously not random. The one above, which Klein has appropriately titled "Iron Horse," is perhaps the most clear example of that. To me, this piece tells the story of the industrial revolution, of the rise of railway transport, of the objectification of animals, and even of disappearing wildlife in the United States. It's rich in potential for new meanings.
His pieces often feature a juxtaposition of something man-made with something from the "natural world," like the piece at left, entitled "Timekeeper." The giant redwood keeps a different scale of time from the clock tower - it speaks of centuries, not hours and minutes. The clock tower measures human time, but the redwood lasts much longer than our short lifespans. But we cut down these beautiful life forms to make things like clock towers, thereby exerting our control over the natural world.
This is the value in mashups - they give the artist an opportunity to combine two things that were not designed to go together, but become inextricable in their new context. The new context is a finished work on its own, but both source objects are still discernible. When these two sources are placed into conversation with each other, each gives the other new meaning.
(Image used with permission.)