OK Go & Kutiman: Live from the Guggenheim

On Thurs­day night, the Guggen­heim Muse­um and YouTube unveiled the win­ners of a high­ly pub­li­cized video con­test, YouTube Play: A Bien­ni­al of Cre­ative Video. The con­test orig­i­nal­ly gen­er­at­ed 23,000 sub­mis­sions from 91 coun­tries, and, from there, Guggen­heim cura­tors culled a short­list of 125 videos. Then the big moment: 20 win­ners were select­ed dur­ing an awards cer­e­mo­ny held last night at the muse­um.

The cer­e­mo­ny itself fea­tured per­for­mances by artists who have made YouTube inte­gral to their art – above we have Kuti­man, the Israeli artist known for his moth­er of all funk remix, giv­ing the audi­ence some­thing rather dif­fer­ent: a live mashup of Brahms’ “Hun­gar­i­an Dance,” accom­pa­nied by the Non­ame ensem­ble from the Jul­liard School and YouTube Sym­pho­ny Orcher­stra play­ers. And to wrap things up OK Go, the unof­fi­cial kings of YouTube, per­formed ‘White Knuck­les’ and ‘This too Shall Pass.’ Keep a close eye on the YouTube chan­nel ded­i­cat­ed to the Bien­ni­al of Cre­ative Video. The win­ning videos will almost cer­tain­ly be com­ing online soon.