(no subject)
As I slog forward on my summer project, in the background, I'm listening to Erik Davis give a talk on nature, imagination, spirituality and technocracy.
Nature and Imagination: Introduction, The Imaginal, Creative Imagination, Ayahuasca Dreams, Death and Science, Imaginal Earth, Creative Technocracy.
I'm also listening to this vid on the history of the Amen Break, a particular sample which forms the basis of a hell of a lot of hip hop, raga dub, techno etc etc. Gets into the beginnings of sampling culture, the politics and economics of copyright.
"Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture (Judge Kozinski)."
And Girl Talk: Illegal Art at its Finest:
"Gregg Gillis aka Girl Talk is best known for his wild live shows, super hot beats and, most controversially, that his music is entirely derived from other popular artists. Under current copyright law, Girl Talk's blatant use of samples is considered stealing. Gregg considers it fair use and positive promotion for other artists. As debates over copyright are fueled by the ever growing remix, mashup and digital sampling culture we now live in, we have to ask ourselves- Is it ok to have so many restrictions, with the threat of legal action, on what is fair game for making art?"
Live at the Epicenter (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) should give you a feel for his work.
***
What I'm wrestling with today:
“Modern science’s way of representing pursues and entraps nature as a calculable coherence of forces. Modern physics is not experimental physics because it applies apparatus to the questioning of nature. Rather the reverse is true. Because physics, indeed already as pure theory, sets nature up to exhibit itself as a coherence of forces calculable in advance, it therefore orders its experiments precisely for the purpose of asking whether and how nature reports itself when set up in this way (Hedigger, The Question Concerning Technology).”
“We do not ask for the influence or effect of technology on the human individuals. For they are themselves an integral part and factor of technology, not only as the men who invent or attend to machinery but also as the social groups which direct its application and utilization (Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, Marcuse)."
ETA:
“But man does not experience this loss of his freedom as the work of some hostile and foreign force; he relinquishes his liberty to the dictum of reason itself. The point is that today, the apparatus to which the individual is to adjust and adopt himself is so rational that individual protest and liberation appear not only as hopeless but as utterly irrational (Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, Marcuse).”
Nature and Imagination: Introduction, The Imaginal, Creative Imagination, Ayahuasca Dreams, Death and Science, Imaginal Earth, Creative Technocracy.
I'm also listening to this vid on the history of the Amen Break, a particular sample which forms the basis of a hell of a lot of hip hop, raga dub, techno etc etc. Gets into the beginnings of sampling culture, the politics and economics of copyright.
"Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture (Judge Kozinski)."
And Girl Talk: Illegal Art at its Finest:
"Gregg Gillis aka Girl Talk is best known for his wild live shows, super hot beats and, most controversially, that his music is entirely derived from other popular artists. Under current copyright law, Girl Talk's blatant use of samples is considered stealing. Gregg considers it fair use and positive promotion for other artists. As debates over copyright are fueled by the ever growing remix, mashup and digital sampling culture we now live in, we have to ask ourselves- Is it ok to have so many restrictions, with the threat of legal action, on what is fair game for making art?"
Live at the Epicenter (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) should give you a feel for his work.
***
What I'm wrestling with today:
“Modern science’s way of representing pursues and entraps nature as a calculable coherence of forces. Modern physics is not experimental physics because it applies apparatus to the questioning of nature. Rather the reverse is true. Because physics, indeed already as pure theory, sets nature up to exhibit itself as a coherence of forces calculable in advance, it therefore orders its experiments precisely for the purpose of asking whether and how nature reports itself when set up in this way (Hedigger, The Question Concerning Technology).”
“We do not ask for the influence or effect of technology on the human individuals. For they are themselves an integral part and factor of technology, not only as the men who invent or attend to machinery but also as the social groups which direct its application and utilization (Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, Marcuse)."
ETA:
“But man does not experience this loss of his freedom as the work of some hostile and foreign force; he relinquishes his liberty to the dictum of reason itself. The point is that today, the apparatus to which the individual is to adjust and adopt himself is so rational that individual protest and liberation appear not only as hopeless but as utterly irrational (Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, Marcuse).”