Once in a while something comes along that is a faultless expression of the changing times we live in. In this instance ‘something’ comes in the shape of Israeli music producer and animator Kutiman and his online music video project ThruYOU.

ThruYOU is made up of eight music videos that Kuitman created by mixing together unrelated samples of individual musicians playing their instruments on You Tube videos. He spent weeks trawling through different clips and selecting ones that he could mash together to create coherent songs. The result is astonishing; full musical ensembles made up of unconnected strangers each playing their own ideas to themselves but each adding to the creation of anthems for a YouTube generation.

After initially only letting twenty of his closest friends know about ThruYOU, it has exploded into an internet phenomenon with over one million views in the first seven days that is was online. A ThruYOU website was set up showing all eight of the videos and the credits of all the people that are featured in the project and links to their original videos.

Kutiman’s ThruYOU project has summed up how social media has now changed the consumer landscape. This new web 2.0 culture has handed the power back to the consumer. No longer are we passive consumers of media. Instead we actively engage and participate in it to create mutual content.

The most brilliant aspect of this project is that Kutiman has empowered and given a voice to each of the musicians that he used from YouTube. Each song is created by a community. They are all unrelated individuals on their own but when connected to each other something bigger is created. This is the essence of any community online or offline.

I have embedded a couple of the ThruYOU videos here. Check them out and let me know what you think!


Check out:
ThruYOU websiteKutiman’s Myspace
Kutiman on Twitter