foto Miguel Manso
The roots of sampling can be traced back a long way in cultural history. They reach from the Cento poems of antiquity to the quodlibet (Latin for "whatever pleases you") in the literature and music from the 16th centuries, from Arcimboldo's portraits and Bach's fugues to the myriomas in the everyday culture and games of the 19th century with the help of which landscape motifs could be permutated horizontally into combinatory panoramas. Although sampling is not a standard or obligatory term it should not be confused with the different forms the quote, the copy, the replica, appropriation, or collage can take. In contrast to the quotation it is not about a purposeful transfer of meaning and context. it is, much rather, a method of fragmentation, de-contextualization and transformation. A piece consisting of foreign quotes or found footage is not yet a product of sampling. Only when the single parts, in their combinatory logic, are transformed, made rhythmic, and structured in a way so that the individual samples do not function as quotes anymore but as generative basic material for a logic going beyound the parts, we can speak of sampling.
Thomas Feuerstein,
Sample Minds - Materials on Sampling Culture, Stefan Bidner, Thomas Feuerstein (Hg./Eds.)
Sampling and Art
