Image source: Dusty Groove

Text source: Nettime.org and Djspooky.com

November 20, 2005
The following is an interview with Carlo Simula for his book
MILLESUONI. OMAGGIO A DELEUZE E GUATTARI (Cronopio Edizioni)

Contributions will include Guy-Marc Hinant (Sub Rosa), Philippe Franck (transcultures, le maubege), Bernhard Lang, Tim Murphy, Achim Szepanski – and many others. I think it’s an update on some issues that have been percolating.

Smell the brew.
Paul,
Tunis, Tunisia 11/20/05

1) You’ve often referred in your interviews to how much contemporary philosophy has influenced your work. Foucault said “Un jour, peut-être, le siècle sera deleuzien”, how much and in which way Deleuze and Guattari influenced you? And what you feel is interesting in their work?

The idea of the “remix” is pretty trendy these days – as usual people tend to “script” over the multi-cultural links: the economics of “re-purposing,” “outsourcing” and above all, of living in an “experience economy” – these are things that fuel African American culture, and it’s active dissemination in all of the diaspora of Afro-Modernity. My take on Deleuze and Guattari is to apply a “logic of the particular” to the concept of contemporary art. Basically it’s to say that software has undermined all of the categories of previous production models, and in turn, molded the “computational models” of how “cultural capital,” as Pierre Bourdieu coined it, mirrors various kinds of production models in a world where “sampling” (mathematical and musical), has become the global language of urban youth culture. Eduoard Glissant, the Afro-Caribbean philosopher/linguist liked to call this “creolization” – I like to call it “the remix.” Philosophy is basically a reflective activity. It always requires a surface to bounce off of. We don’t exist in a cultural vacuum.

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Image source: gohomeproductions.co.uk

Text source: earcandy_mag.tripod.com

December 17, 2004

Intro:
Some call it artistic musical creations, while others cry that it is blasphemy! It is all the rage in the U.K. and it has even gone mainstream, with MTV U.K. celebrating it on “MTV-Mash”. This new craze is called “mash-ups” and it involves taking the vocal from one song and joining it to the instrumental track of another. For instance, take a “mash-up” like “Paperback Believer”, which uses the musical track of the Monkees “I’m a Believer” with the vocals from The Beatles “Paperback Writer”.

Probably the best-known of the recent mash-up’s is the notorious “Grey Album” by Dangermouse, which mixed Jay-Z’s “Black Album” with The Beatles “White Album”. In February, when the record label EMI overreacted and blocked distribution of “The Grey Album” it pretty much created an instant hit.

And earlier this year, David Bowie had a contest in which he asked fans to create a new song using computer music software to blend or “mash up” two existing tracks – with the winner winning a car!

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Image source: http://www.stern.de/computer-technik/
computer/556287.html?eid=551201

Text source: Yahoo News

Mar 9, 2007

NEW YORK (Billboard) – You could spend the better part of a day listing the things Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five did first: In the embryonic days of the New York rap scene, they were among its first superstars, they helped pioneer the freestyle battle and Grandmaster Flash was instrumental in inventing the art of break-beat DJ’ing.

Legend also has it rapper Mele Mel was the first to dub himself an “MC”; fellow rapper Cowboy is credited with coining the term “hip-hop.”

So it makes perfect sense to add another first to the list: On March 12, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five will become the first hip-hop act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was 25 years ago that their groundbreaking single “The Message” helped hip-hop kick down the door into a world of bigger audiences, and in their third year of eligibility, the act — comprising Grandmaster Flash, Kid Creole, Mele Mel, Scorpio, Raheim and the late Cowboy — will join a class that includes R.E.M., Van Halen, Patti Smith and the Ronettes.

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(Source: CTheory.net)

12/4/2001

[…]

JANNE VANHANEN: “Neuro-transmit me these empty sounds” — Chicks On Speed: “Panasonic Rip-off”.

The above caption is from a track built on an existing Pan(a)sonic piece. The Chix are probably referring to the “empty” quality of the sounds Pan(a)sonic music consists of: sine waves, test tones, crackles & claps arranged in a strict rhythmic grid. Your question made me think of the possibility of empty sounds, especially as I’ve recently been listening to German composer Ekkehard Ehlers’ “…plays Robert Johnson” and “…plays Albert Ayler” where he tackles the question of reference in digital music. The pieces don’t “play” their referents in the sense of having samples of their recorded work included, but try to refer to them on a more abstract level.

Ehlers states in The Wire (issue 212) that “‘Reference’ is a basic structure in digital music” and it seems he tries to subvert this referentiality. Can non-referential, “empty” sounds be produced in the context of referring machines (turntables, samplers, computers)? Of course this technology makes the concept of acousmatic music possible in the first place, “neuro-transmitting” sounds to listeners without the gesturality of a performer or awareness of the sound source.

[…]

(Source: O’Reilly Policy Devcenter)

02/24/2005

What do you get when you mix P2P, inexpensive digital input devices, open source software, easy editing tools, and reasonably affordable bandwidth? Potentially, you get what Lawrence Lessig calls remix culture: a rich, diverse outpouring of creativity based on creativity. This is not a certain future, however. Peer-to-peer is on the verge of being effectively outlawed. Continuation of the current copyright regime would mean that vast quantities of creative content will be forever locked away from remix artists.

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