Fair Use is a New York-based trio founded in 2005 by musicians Zach Layton and Matthew Ostrowski and video artist R. Luke DuBois, based on the use of cinema as raw materials for experimental live performance. A typical Fair Use performance consists of the trio performing one or more culturally significant films live in their entirety in a condensed time frame. Each performance uses the picture and soundtrack of the film as the sole materials for an improvised set, which interrogates our cinematic memories through frenetic audio and visual processing and re-narration of the cinematic object. As their performances unfold, the trio evokes their own memories and impressions of the film as a highly subjective lens, for example by focusing on iconic moments in the films and lingering on them, or massively collapsing long sequences into mere seconds. Fair Use looks at our accelerating culture through the electronic performance and remixing of cinema, presenting classic films through time compression and audio and visual manipulation.
