The 50 Best Inventions of 2009

It took Kutiman just two months to finish ThruYOU, the project that would make him both a musical pioneer and an Internet celebrity. Kutiman — a.k.a. Ophir Kutiel, an Israeli musician — took footage posted on YouTube by amateur musicians and mixed it together (drums, piano, synth, theremin, vocals, whatever he could find) into video jams of amazing funkiness, in the process creating an all-new art form that combines DJing, video montage and found art. Some of the players are just goofing around. Some aren't even very good. What makes it work is the performers' unjaded enthusiasm, the hypnotic effect of the looped samples and the sheer serendipitous grooviness that brings it all together as if it were meant to be.