Slashdot Mirror
William Gibson on The Age of The Remix
wordisms writes "William Gibson of Neuromancer fame gives his thoughts on remix and innovation in the digital age, in a short essay at Wired Magazine entitled God's Little Toys. From the article: 'Our culture no longer bothers to use words like appropriation or borrowing to describe those very activities. Today's audience isn't listening at all - it's participating. Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical. The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital.'"
Its interesting that he calls them "God's little toys," perhaps telling us somewhat of their potential power(no not literally). I must agree with that assessment. I've always loved the idea of really being able to make whatever I can imagine, especially when it comes to computers.
The remix is the very nature of the digital.
Excuse me while I gag...
MS just kinda "remixed" HTML etc. for IE and Frontpage! On a more serious note this is very true ... change is the nature of computers. Digital anything is very malleable and stagnation sucks.
I am Spartacus
Remixing is like admitting you were wrong. Source
I'm pretty sure his enthusiasm for the mix culture will wane the first time his new novel gets remixed and redistributed.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
First, reading the article, paragraph, how many people know what the heck coruscating means? (definition here)
Anyway I don't know where the line is, but somewhere it is there albeit not a bright line. I loved the re-mix (don't remember who, don't remember the name of the song) where Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride was the core of the piece but I would be disappointed if credit isn't extended and a cut of the profit isn't provided to Steppenwolf for providing the original inspiration and music. Certainly if someone were to digitally re-master any song in its purest and most original form and release that as their own work they would be guilty of out and out ripoff. But, a song with hints of the motif or melody of some other work is more subtle and probably more difficult to clearly state theft of said original work.
In classical music it was quite common for composers to "rip off" a theme or motif of another composer and incorporate it into another original work. In many cases it was considered the ultimate homage to the original creator.
I guess for me it boils down to how much is added by the "new" artist's work. Some of the re-mixes I've heard come pretty darned close to ripoffs.
It's a bit sad to see something like this go...it wasn't around for very long. Urine-stink hangs around for like ever, but not this...I'm no poet, so I can't compell you to hold on, can I? Not with words....
Today's audience (uh huh) isn't listening at all - it's participating (uh huh, yeah). Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record (biggups to B.I.G.), the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical (what's up, foo'?). The record, not the remix (rica rica reeeemix), is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital (Inch'allah).
Peace out, homies.
I call every physical representation of an event a "record". I think people who visualize black plastic disks when I say "record" are old fashioned. Because I mean the arrangement of physical signs, like grooves, optical pits, magnetic intensities, electrons, collected for reproduction of the event. Whether it's vinyl, CD, tape, Flash, fossils, tapestries, or even human memories. The Internet has made the physical instance of the media a detail only important to geeks. The record transcends all of those.
I'm not surprised Gibson thinks of vinyl when he thinks of "record". He's a geezer like me. And he even claimed, through the early 1990s, that he didn't write with a computer, but rather a typewriter. Not only is the already-arrived future not evenly distributed, but the departed past is still sticking around in some places.
--
make install -not war
The cor problem with remixing is that it takes something already created to make something new and different. Once everyone is doing it, then the core pieces used to create the remix will gradually dissappear. Someone, somewhere has to be making original content- otherwise there is nothing with which to cut and paste. As more and more of the arts become cut and paste, the more degenerative they will become. I think remixing is indicative of less creativety, not more.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It can be overused and vary in its artfulness. You can grow tired of it and long for more organic, old school sounds. The remix is NOT the very nature of the digital. Digital just brings the DIY ethic that had existed since analog to more people at lower price points and with more flexibility. It doesn't change the fundamentals of the musical art form. It is no surprise that Wired sees yet another technologies as world changing society upheavals, when they are just another hammer.
Since we're on the subject of remixes, I think it's important to point out that many remixes are not legal. The folks at http://www.downhillbattle.org/ are working to let mixers into the ballgame, so to speak.
Also from the folks at downhillbattle.org comes http://bannedmusic.org/ which distributes some music that has been banned for copyright reasons (mixes and sampling). Included are the Double Black Album (Metallica's black album mixed with Jay-Z's black album) and the Grey Album (Beatle's white album mixed with Jay-Z's black album). There is much more stuff there, too, so check it out if you're into music advocacy.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Unlike Gibson's good luck with "cyberspace", remix culture is already well-established, and has little room for authors to talk about it without knowing anything. In fact, it's already full of them.
-mkb
From TFA:
"Our culture no longer bothers to use words like appropriation or borrowing to describe those very activities. Today's audience isn't listening at all - it's participating. Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical. The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital."
Hmmm, I know a few DJs, and they all spin vinyl...
-FL
Sounds a lot more like "open source" to me.
"Screw slashdot." -- Linus Torvalds
There's nothing new about remixing. Writers have been doing it for years, making reference to classic works, or their contemporarys.
But we need a bit of something new added each time. I think the modern trend is adding less and less, recycling rather than referring to. A bit like the Hollywood model of making a 4th,5th,6th,etc movie using the same tired old characters, rather than trying something completely new.
After all, The beginning of chapter eight of Virtual Light was stolen almost word for word from a story published in Mercury Rising magazine.
Please, drop that idea like it's a hot potato.
Really.
It's the 21st century, pretend for a second that you can behave like a member of it and not whatever hollow you "learned" that attitude about others from.
Science sees no racial distinctions among us, why should you?
i got five in a row, I win!
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
"I remixed a remix.......it was back to normal!"
The medium is the message! I'm OK, you're OK! Men are from Mars, women are from Venus! All I really need to know, I learned in kindergarten! This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius! Don't trust anyone over 30!
Gibson needs to go back and learn how to write before his techno-utopianism has any credibility. After all, he is a writer, and if he isn't good at his primary job, his extracurricular plausibility suffers. It's like a second-rate actor spouting off about Scientology.
Before anyone defends his authorship, I suggest they stop thinking of Ayn Rand as a gifted novelist as well.
you don't rip off if you attribute (ut all of your work no longer can be produced as spontaneously as a /. post. :-)
If I can find out (because you put down how in the margins or in an appendix somewhere) where you got something, then it can be assumed that you haven't just pulled the idea either from somebody else (plagiarism) or our of your ass (inane, though original in the strictest sense of the word.)
Of course the problem is how to do this without sounding like a phenomologist or other BS artist.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Baseless and sweeping generalities (like the one I'm writing), even if dressed up by prepending "the" to common words, will always be popular since the vagueness can never be proven to be right or wrong.
But let's prove his theory, and borrow all of his newly released novels instead of buying them. As he says in the article, it belongs to us anyway.
Already years ago, Gibson was writing books that could be read/listened to in a randomized chapter sequence. I guess he really knows the subject of mixing and remixing...
...this is the same generation that thinks that what's 'cool' is what was already done 30 years ago. come on, everyone seems to think they have 'mad skillz' in everything, whereas in fact they can't even buy clothes that stay on their asses.
sigs suck
Only a portion of art created re-uses existing material. And probably a fraction of a percentage of consumers recreate it. This makes it sound like the act of passively consuming is dead. It's far from dead, and clear channel will make it stay that way.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
I guess getting sued for infringement is in style too: no free samples
This should be the role of governments. Rules after the fact allow inovation to advance at its own pace. This has lead to people who are alive today that predate automobiles.
The upcoming problem for society as a whole appears to be governments passing laws to attempt to control inovation prior to its development.
All the concerns over software patent law, genode patents, stem cell research limit the advance (whether good or bad) of inovation. More importantly they distort the natural cycle of inovation by artificually limiting some research and advancement based on todays societies values.
There was the recent SlashDot on Newton being faced with these same issues in his life. Galileo and so may others faced the same issues.
However in the end governments come and go, science, research and innovation is what endures.
Was that just a circuitous way of saying "Information wants to be free, yo"?
Our culture no longer bothers to use words like appropriation or borrowing to describe those very activities. Today's audience isn't listening at all - it's participating. Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical. The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital.'"
Baloney. There will ALWAYS be an audience, because not everyone is as adept at making things (even remixes require some talent - not much, but some) and not everyone WANTS to make things or finds making things interesting. There are a huge number of people, and I would submit that such a number constitutes a majority of people in general, who aren't really interested in being cultural producers of any variety. They LIKE to be entertained, they LIKE having people do that for them, and they LIKE having people do it for them in a COMPETENT manner.
Remixing is a marginal case, and while it will grow in popularity, it is just the flavour of the month until people tire of hearing Led Zeppelin being mixed over a brain dead hip hop beat with some spacey and/or glitchy atmospherics tossed in for the sake of "creativity". People will want to hear Real Music Made By Skilled Professional Musicians and remixing will go the same route of professionalisation and renewal like the rest of it.
Appealing to William Gibson as an authority is not a wise idea in this case. I have an idea - I'll OCR Mona Lisa Overdrive and remix it. Oooops! Can't really do that, can I? I have to KNOW HOW TO WRITE SCI-FI to do that. Same goes for music.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Oh, I get it, Music, Video, art and literature are all objects, I can take these objects and "remix" them into a new program.... Wonder if I can use Rational Rose and Visio for my next music "sample".
It's all fun and games until the RIAA/MPAA crash your little party and remind you who owns what.
apprently they are a brand of doll. oh well.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
For those of you who don't know, Gibson is largely accepted as the creator of the term we are familiar with nowadays - Cyberspace and a completely new sub-genre in Science Fiction.
It is funny how in his book Neuromancer (Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Philip K. Dick Award) he presented the idea of a global information network and called it "the Matrix" in 1984.
I think we can trust his predictions. So far they have been quite accurate.
Too bad for the record industry if what he says comes true in the near future: "Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do. All of us.
Though not all of us know it - yet."
For the curious - Gibson is regarded as one of the experts in the field of technology and its effects on human life. Most of his books are quite dark and I think he has quite a pessimistic opinion on the future of men and technology.
In an interview, to the question of what is cyberspace, Gibson replied: "Cyberspace is a metaphor that allows us to grasp this place where since about the time of the Second World War we've increasingly done so many things that we think of as civilization. Cyberspace is where we do our banking, it's actually where the bank keeps your money these days because it's all direct electronic transfer. It's where the stock market actually takes place, it doesn't occur so much any more on the floor of the exchange but in the electronic communication between the worlds stock-exchanges.
So I think that since so much of what we do is happening digitally and electrically, it's useful to have an expression that allows that all to be part of the territory. I think it makes it easier to visualize what we're doing with this stuff.
Gibson was also asked the question:
"Some Americans claim that the Europeans are more afraid of the kind of society that you describe in your books..."
To which he answered:
"I think that the sort of societies I am describing would be more disturbing to someone who lived in a cohesive, functioning social democracy than it would be to someone who lives in the United States"
Interviewed for "Raport", Sweden's largest TV-news program. Interview done by Dan Josefsson, November 23, 1994.
A hungry bear does not dance!
for the last 20 years, we've mixed in exact samples or wrote new words for old songs with ph33r of copyright. (grey album, hammertime, rappers delight, numerous others this century)
100 years ago, we would rarely play a song exactly the same twice.. there were standard tunes like 'oh susanna', but everybody put their own touch on it, and used their own instruments.
1000 years ago, we were finally writing down some songs, where they became static standards for the first time.
10000 years ago, songs and stories were held only in memory, would change during each and every recitation, and were likely the only form of detailed history available.
so, we're continually getting more precise in our ability to recite, but artificial constraints are growing at pace as well. to where does this trend continue..?
Even remixes are still done by individuals with talent, who create a record and are distinct from the audience.
In fact, technology just leads to new kinds of instances of ``audience versus individual'' pattern and more of them.
Am I the only one who had no idea what that the summary means... at all?
"In mine learned opinion, as another whose name be William, methinks yon Master Gibson needeth to learn how to sling words into proper sentences in order that those who readeth his words may learn to understand what he intendeth to say, yea verily! Either that, or he needeth to change the brand of crack he smoketh."
- Attributed to Shakespeare, so don't sue me.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
As in a record of an event
The event of people
Playing music in a room
Now everything is cross-marketing
It's about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns or drugs
You choose
Ani DiFranco -- Fuel
"This story is not a song, but a record." -- Lee "Scratch" Perry
OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ
(this is just here to avoid the lameness filter. stupid caps.)
the article could be seen as a summary of the last 100 years of American culture. (or 1000 years of Western culture).
Art is the only true form of originality that exists in the world. It takes a creative mind to 'create' something from nothing.
- an image of beauty from a plain piece of canvass
- a new tool that saves a person the work of 3
- a way of thinking about ones place in the world that is of harmony with nature.
Modern society is more about consuming then it is about co-existing. The 'American' trend of sit-back and be entertained has led us to this cut&paste culture where things are just re-hashed for later use.
I believe that we are approaching the decedant state that Rome was in just before the fall.
The new renaissance should be quite entertaining.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
It's interesting that he failed to mention the undeniable influence of the birth of hip-hop culture on everything artistic. Early Hip Hop DJ's from the Bronx first started bringing together elements of pre-recorded music from already established genre's and were fusing them together to create something completely new. The discovery that two turntables and a mixer could create something entirely new, has left its imprint on popular culture forever. Remixing is now considered a legit way to make music, and the public in general has embraced this concept. The reason that I'm pointing this out, is that is seems like such a obvious influence. You can actually hear the sparse electronic beats being played on top of samples from original Phillips Classics albums.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -Hunter S. Thompson
It's almost sad how a man once hailed as the bleeding-edge of science fiction can feel so dated with his latest forays into public essay. The remix, the "record", the DIY nature of "electronic music" and it's culture...this was all old hat 10 years ago. More or less he's speaking of the Empowering Nature of Personal Computers! These things are beyond commonplace to the point where the majority of artists are using them on a daily basis. I dare call them mundane.
I still respect you, Gibson, but I think you're too slow for your own time.
Are you and "science" really that stupid? Are you incapable of seeing the differences in races?
IT'S AS OBVIOUS AS BLACK AND WHITE, RED AND YELLOW!!!!
The differences are so blatant that if they were observed in any other animal but humans, we would be calling them distinct species. They would be different species, not races!
The physical differences are massive and most of the differences are blatantly obvious to any sighted person.
ARE YOU STUPID???
What a load of crap. Sure, modern tools give you the
ability to reproduce complex sounds easily, but that
doesn't mean that things are substantially different
from the way they have been for the last 40K years.
It is like saying that since most violins sound similar, any waltz that uses the violin is just
a remix of the first waltz.
Well, at least that's what Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Sean John/Sean "Puffy" Combs or whatever the tool calls himself today claims.
Even worse, McDonald's is going to pay him money to redesign the McDonald's employee uniforms. If you too are dismayed at the "family friendly" McDonald's paying money to a thug wanna-be to make their clothing hip, please contact McDonald's Corporate and complain.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Can someone who has read more of his writings please advise?
I finished reading Neuromancer just a couple of weeks ago. I knew William Gibson was famous for coining the term "cyberspace" as well as a lot of the concepts behind The Matrix. So, when I saw the book in my local library, I decided to take it - it seemed like one of those books I should have read by now.
Now, maybe it was because I was reading the book mostly when I was tired, but I had immense difficulty in following the story. It was often confusing about where the characters were, why they'd gone there and what exactly it was that they hoped to achieve there. I hoped that by the time I got to the end of the story, all the pieces would fall into place and it'd all make sense. Unfortunately, I was left unsure as to exactly what they'd done and even less clear on why they'd decided it needed doing in the first place.
I think I must have missed something critical... fallen asleep and accidently flipped a chapter, maybe. Did anyone else find this book to be hard work, or should I hand in my geek pass on my way out the door?
the new enlightened people have found a way to create a new and greater society than the ersatz past... now... the dated... boring works such as Fotuna may be reborn in the new dynamic badgerbadgerbadger Fortuna.
to replace the musical medium with one of prose...
it's crap... all crap... in the OLD days... there was a selection process... it had to be good to expend resources on something... cuneiform prose such as "In the desert by the tall grass"... amazing... then paper... more drivel... pulp? pulp is pulp, I think we can all agree on that... now we can mass market drivel that has no review whatsoever... look at the prose of the standard LiveUrinal webpage?
I admit it, I listen to more synthetic music than orchestral pieces... and it sucks in that I know my brain is that much deadened from imbibing so much crap.
it's crap. it's iTunes drivel that reeks of arts posterior.
remix my anal vapors Mr. Gibson. You are so fond of your wintermute pulp fiction that you are trying to validate it as a movement.
It's a little ironic that he makes this comment about remixing when he was the literary voice of the industrial subculture- a movement whose music took sampling to great lengths. The severed heads and skinny puppy stopped using heavy amounts of borrowed source material because it wasn't legally pragmatic. Maybe labeling it as "remixed" is all that is required to clear the legal hurdles that make audio collage so impractical, but it seems to me that the further you move into the purely creative with this form, the more likely you are to find lawyers at your doorstep. I think composition with borrowed source material will continue to be only financially viable for underground music- which is probably a lot of the reason it still seems "edgy" when sampling has been around for so long.
The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. -Yeats, The Second Coming
Post-Nirvana, why don't we call all alternative songs a remix? Post-swing era, why don't we call all Ska a remix? Post-Dizzy Gillespe, why isn't all trumpety jazz a remix?
/.ers should appreciate remixing all the more since it represents the marriage between computers and culture - humanity and machinery.
Sampling used to be a gimmick but now it's the status quo. It is certainly not something to bemoan - it's simply the new norm. This is the digital age and there is a dichotomy between artists and audiences. Artists want to protect their creations, but the audience wants to share and participate.
Anyone who is tired of all the "remixing" in the world is in for a long, arduous ride. Sampling is the new piano. It is an instrument like any other.
Rant - Artists who oppose to their work being remixed (musicians, artists, cartoonists, authors, etc.) should be ashamed of themselves. When you release your work into the world, it belongs to the world. Is there any more sincere flattery than the remix\interpretation\fanfiction? We emulate because we love!
Plug - My S3M remix of Send Me An Angel. Don't send me to jail, Real Life.
Skip quote to avoid eyes glazing over:
'Our culture no longer bothers to use words like appropriation or borrowing to describe those very activities. Today's audience isn't listening at all - it's participating. Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical. The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital.'
Worst case of chronic verbal masturbation I've seen lately.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Most classical music? "Remixed" from folk tunes. Johnny Horton's The Battle of New Orleans? Remixed from a fiddle tune called 1814 with same subject. Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender? Remixed from a folk classic called Aura Lee. This list goes on and on. Basically, musicians, storytellers, and other artists have been ripping off other musicians, storytellers, and other artists for as long as there have been musicians, storytellers, and artists. What IS new is the concept of copyright; that has only been around for a few hundred years! And yes, somebody will eventually rip off themes from William Gibson's books to create new works of fiction. Ain't nothin' new.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
As I watching Pink Floyd on stage the other night at Live 8, I was struck by how much more musically and lyrically rich they were compared to the other acts that we had seen. That's what music is intended to be. Not a bunch of musical wannabes who have to leech the creativity of others.
Bah.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
If you think about it, we've been surreptitiously (I surreptitiously copied the word "surreptitiously" from Wired to impress you all) "remixing" technology thought recorded history. I'd hardly call it the nature of digital. Digital techniques have made it easier but the mother of invention still exists in digital media. We also shouldn't confuse inspiration with imitation; there is still a lot of innovation to enjoy. Actually, the only place lack of originality falls apart for me is in automotive distribution and mass production. I'm getting frustrated seeing the concept cars roll on to high-end auto shows only to end up with me sitting in a four-wheeled, archaic, internal combustion propelled vehicle. I want to drive the GM-Hywire. I completely understand that production costs and consumer demand dictate what manufacturers produce. But it still irritates me. kirk out.
- nightcrawler "Reality is an illusion, albeit a ver persistent one..." -A.Einstein
Many comments here really show that people might have seen Johnny Mnemonic or New Rose Hotel on tv, but never read a book from Gibson.
... (pricey on amazon ($25) , but you can get it used cheap)
.....
:(
In my prev. post I mentioned Pattern Recognition and how that has the REMIX idea and puts a different light into his article, but haven't mentioned
"No maps for these territories" - a really interesting interview with him
Just do not watch it on a projector, it is minidv recorded, and has really crappy quality on the big screen
hmm or the encoding is crap, my $400 minidv looks better on a 2m screen
At least musical talent. Burrows is right about one thing... any moron can buy Logic or DP and load in a few files and become Mix Master Flash... and basically that is what has crippled the music industry today.
The endless mind-numbing drum loops... the ripped off bass lines droning on and on... and of course the obligatory MS20 squeek.
Christ... enough is enough!!
It's a pretty quick read, so you won't hate me too much if you don't like it.
At least technical talent. Burrows is right about one thing... any moron can download a compiler and load in a few files and become Mix Master Torvalds... and basically that is what has crippled the computer industry today.
The endless mind-numbing for loops... the ripped off switch statements droning on and on... and of course the obligatory function squeek.
Christ... enough is enough!!
This post remixed by PaxTech.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
He and Ray Kurweil should get along swimmingly; two cracked peas in a pod.
Yes, a lot of those guys were good authors, but come on, do we have to hang by every word they say like they were some divine prophet? The 80s Cyberpunk authors were not innovative because of the cyber, but because of the punk. They were innovative because they chose a moraly-ambiquous realistic style to sci-fi, in contrast to cliche melodramatic "Space Opera" sci-fi.
William Gibson didn't predict the internet, the internet existed before WG ever became an author. The technical details of 1980s cyberpunk literature is dodgy at best. The cyberpunk authors worldview is far less accurate than those of say Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" in the early 1970s.
If William Gibson were really in touch with things, he would know that "re-mixing" music in the modern technological sense began with hip-hop djs scratching and manipulating analog recordings stored on vinyl platters... and that the digital technology has just cought up in the last couple years.
"The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today.
Is there a certain point in success that you actually get paid for stating the glaringly obvious? "Wha-hah! Culture is evolving and some concepts are just going out of style, hoo-yah!" Seriously, I need to break in on this market.
1. State the Obvious.
2. Pretty it up with fancy prose.
3. ???
4. Profit!
But far be it from me to criticize the bedrock of cyber-fi.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...such as this Slashdot ID....
"Your proactive bipartisan synergy is indemnifying. Good work, carry on."
I think that in the future when music is released it will be made available in discrete, granular format. The basic tracks will be provided along with the means to play them back according to the 'standard' mix which is identical to what you get now. What's new, though, is that you are able to play the music back according to whatever mix you prefer. It's similar in effect to what you can do now with bass & treble, balance and equalizer buttons. Instead, though, you're manipulating the individual tracks and storing your preferences for each musical piece. You're the mixing engineer, the conductor and the conductor. Your mix is your business. All it takes is for the person(s) who record the music in the first place to provide you with the music in discrete track format, a software tool to allow you to mix your own, and a way for you to hear it the way they would have mixed it if you were getting the music mixed for you, like it's always been.
There's a fellow, Lance, from Fort Worth, who takes apart The Beatles music and remixes it to great effect, and delight. If only he didn't have to take the tracks apart in the first place because the music was provided in discrete track format.
You see, his goes like "dunh-dunh-dunh da-da dunh-dunh", and ours goes like "da-da-da dunh-dunh da-da". They're totally different!
Fear of playing with different musical combinations is like admitting your only in it for the money.
But seriously, I agree -- what a bunch of fluff. I expect this kind of stuff from Wired, but in the past Gibson's hit the nail on the head so much better than all this "in the future everybody will have TV watches and flying cars" feel-good New Internet Age B.S.
With all this talk about "participation," I can't help but think that the age we've really entered is one where nobody can be bothered to listen. Don't listen to a CD and appreciate the work of an artist -- it's nothing if you don't remix it yourself! Nobody's point is valid unless you can get your say in, too! It's an age of blabbermouths, like those kids on the bus who carry on conversations with the volume on their walkie-talkie phone cranked all the way up so everybody can hear what they're yelling to their friends about.
To all the people who think "participation" and "remixing" heralds the dawning of a new era, I say: Shut up for five minutes and pay attention to what's going on around you. You might learn something.
Or, to put it another way: Those who ignore history doom us all to hearing their remixes of it.
Breakfast served all day!
IMO as long as mashups are not being profited from, why should the copyright holders even care. i have been producing mashups for several years now and have yet to be approached by a copyright holder of any songs i sample. generally, most bootleggers like myself have posted warnings explaining that the producers of the mashup do not own the copyrights and will be willing to take down any songs in question by request of a representative of the copyright owner. that being said, i have only seen a couple cases in which other mashup artists have been asked by the original artists to take down their creations from their site. they were taken down without question, and that was that
Gibson admits himself his grip on things is a little shakey, I'm not sure he'd accept the futurist mantle you are placing on his shoulders. Example? You do realise that Neuromancer would have played out completely differently if people had had that most arcane and unforeseeable of technologies...the mobile cell phone.
We used to have these black round things called "records" that had recordings of songs on them, but no files.
Now they're "CDs" and not records, but the songs are now called "files" even though there are no "records."
I picked up the wired issue recently and the thing that struck me about all the related "remix" articles was their overwhelmingly positive tone. Nary a negative aspect was attached to this phenomenon.
When we have a culture that continually recombines itself without providing new grist for the mill I fear that the cultural soup will get thinner and thinner and more unpalatable.
Is the future destined to just be about remixing the remixes?
"The sky was the color of television tuned to a dead channel."
-WG, Neuromancer
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I think you guys are missing some of the point here. I don't think Gibson is trying to say he's the inventor of remixes or that they're some amazing new thing. I think he's just looking at the opportunities that are presented when you adopt the concept of remixing music.
It doesn't squash creativity, it just changes the form. Granted there are certainly a lot of "remixes" out there now that are just tossed together garbage to try to make a quick buck. But look where you could go with the concept - In the future some bands, or just simply individuals may decide to release a particularly interesting guitar riff, or a few interesting bars of piano music on the Internet. And with the current level of today's technology, it would be easy for any of us to grab it in mp3 format, run it through some sound production software, and compile it together into a new, original piece of work. All with nothing more than a PC. No more need for expensive studios and pieces of equipment.
Really, if you look at it in a base conceptual level, it becomes very similar to the open source process or things like the prolific Flash movies where people have used images from other sites / artists and created their own animations, for the amusement of a lot of us. There's plenty of creativity in those, so why should remixing be viewed any differently?
In short: availability of technology != art.
Published in Astounding Science Fiction
In 1946. Yeah, that's Forty-Six.
But, well, Gibson's talking about "the digital" though. (rolls eyes)
"Bob" save us from a world where all the artists are replaced with engineers.
Where do the mixers get their material? Without the newly created, the constantly remixed would blur into grey noise like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.....
Any claim that a new application of a technology makes the previous irrelevant in its original form is entirely too full of itself. Fortunately for those making such claims, nobody seems to care enough to call them back later for an "I told you so". Futurologists are never held responsible.
Perhaps Mr. Gibson will prove us wrong by producing some remixes of his material. Or at least explain to us why his creations are immune to irrelevancy. My guess the reason would be that it's because it's based on a technology so irrelevant that it's pre-digital.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
What I worry most about I recombinant art and culture is homogenization.
In culture, art, music -let's just call them 'memes' after Richard Dawkins- recombination does combine the traits of parents and selects for the "best" progeny. But let's extend the metaphor. If you take a population of individuals, close it and allow recombination, the population will eventually become genetically homogenous. In isolation, populations will evolve into their ecological niche and then over time homogenize. This is what causes speciation, the creation of species, and is why all finches look alike on a remote island in the Galapagos. In this way, isolation breeds diversity.
But now, due to the digital revolution, the boundaries are ripped down, recombination is vastly accelerated and art and music evolve on a planetary scale. The whole planet is one island. This is cool now, but if you extrapolate it somewhat it could get really boring. We could all become (meme wise) one boring brown finch. Music will stop evolving. It sometimes seems to me that now all bands sound derivative, if not exactly the same, as bands 10 years ago. Similarly for literature, art and ideas.
Question is: will recombination eventually end art by making it homogenous, or at best, a viral mimetically homogenous recapitulation of what has already been?
This is similar to people when they say that nothing new is ever created, because for everything you see the motifs or themes have been used before.
It really misses the point to go through a book and point out things that have been done before to show how they're supposedly 'unoriginal.' For example if you look at 19th century literature, like for example Moby Dick or something like Les Miserables, they created stories that are still used in allusions today, because, no matter how much you can dig through them and find used themes, the whole of the works by themselves were somewhat iconic. The way things are 'redone' is exactly what is new and what is original, and what makes something art. I could care less about all the previous stories that talked about revenge, or all the stories that talked about some absurdity in justice. Because these books actually express these things in some perfect form. The perfect way to see this is looking at what things are admired about Shakespeare; no person used the phrase "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", no matter how many ways people tried to express the same thing, and the phrase has become currency because of how it was expressed. (People have also used the words 'sound' 'fury' and 'nothing' before; I wonder if thats remixing)
And its something similar with re-mixing. It doesn't matter if something is quoted, or borrowed, or appropriated; its the final music or novel or whatever that matters; and whether the art as a whole can stand as an icon.
In most cases, though there isn't "appropriation" but influence and inspiration. In some cases, things are similar, but not because of direct influence, but because there are just so many ways to express the same sentiment, and there are so many occasions to use the same sentiment.
I've always hated the idea of being forced to use footnotes, because unless my specific intent is to quote something else, whether for evidence or allusion; anything I have to say, I'll say because it connects, not because I'm stealing ideas. In fact I arrived to many ideas myself that were said in some form already, but in a form that was completely flawed in some way, where the author didn't know what he was on to. There may be cases where I didn't read that author beforehand, and some cases where I did; but what I want to express the original author didn't really do, because he didn't quite grasp what he was on to. And, if I were to write something today on any subject, I might not even remember where the idea came from, supposing it came from one source and not from a variety of readings, anyway.
As someone said here, if nothing of original value were created, there would be nothing to remix that would be interesting. Original things of value are created by the way they are said, not because some hidden themes in them may have been used in some different fashion before; or some motifs have similarities to something that has been used before.
And I understand William Gibson is speaking somewhat poetically when he says "people aren't recieving anymore, they're participating"; meaning that the act of participation overshadows the act of recieving. But all that can mean, in another sense, is that more people are creating.
By the way, I see little difference between what Gibson is saying and what postmodern theorists were saying 30 years ago when talking about the aura of artworks disappearing because everything has become mechanized and copied; except that he's rephrasing that to suit the digital era, and replacing the concept of copying with remixing.
I have no doubt that more people are remixing than creating something 'original', though; I'm not sure how that matters--its only because more tools have been given to the average person to be able to create something. So it would be a bit irrelevant, except for computer specific things like programming or web design, which by nature is like remixing. But that would be somewhat meaningless to point out, wouldn't it.
Gibson himself has done things that are original, hasn't he? At any rate this comment of his isn't so much, its probably been said countless times by academics in liberal arts departments, trying to come up with theories for what the digital era means for art.
I admire Gibson, and I love most of his work. But this sounds as if he had been caught in a reality distortion field.
Remixing happens, in many art forms (especially music/digital audio, where powerful tools have arrived - this is the area I'm working in).
But I think the overwhelming majority of people today - and for the coming decades, unless we see a singularity - are and will be perfectly happy to be part of a passive audience.
Occasionally, I talk to friends and people I meet at parties about this concept of the permanent remix - actually a collage (sic) of my own ideas and things that artists (Todd Rundgren) and companies (Sseyo) have done and preached. Audio loops and snippets, sound libraries and algorithmic composition tools that can be used to re-assemble and fine-tune existing music without ever hearing the same song twice, because the classic 3.5 minute "song" is only a snapshot - where you could have a (3D, i.e. surround) movie.
Most of them get it.
But they are simply not interested.
"Why should I want to remix someone's music?" is the usual response. And these are intelligent, curious people.
Many people have access to more music than they will be able to listen to during the next ten years. They are not interested in, well, adding to the mix.
I think this is a pity, but probably 95% of the audience wants to sit back and enjoy. Remixing LOTR or Neuromancer is not trivial. Most people just want to enjoy it.
We have the means! I want this to happen
Hell, the distribution doesn't even need to involve copyright violation -- remixers could share their edit lists (FCP, whatever) and the recipients could apply them to their *ahem* personal DVD copies of the source material... (moral rights of the copyright holder put aside for the moment).
Is there a movie remix underground I've simply failed to break in on?
There are no buzzwords, just the big sweeping generalisation of the calibre of "New media in the blogosphere is the future".
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
Here is some information on the artist: http://www.greenartman.com/supervisors_steir.html
Nobody seems to have gotten this right yet. My guess is they are looking at the .mp3 they downloaded and it is attributed to Fatboy Slim or the Crystal Method.
That is the annoying side of downloading copyrighted tracks in my opinion. Sometimes you don't even know which artist you are stealing from, leaving them even more poor and impoverished (/sarcasm).
I agree that today's artificial constraints are not necessarily a good thing, but they do often stimulate creativity rather than having a retarding effect. Adding boundaries to a creative idea can often help push you in the direction of the best solution.
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
The remix in question is by Mighty Dub Katz, a collaboration between Norman Cook (you probably know him as Fatboy Slim) and a certain G Money (who I haven't personally heard of).
And while I'm pretty darn sure that Steppenwolf is well-credited all over the releases, the artist is listed as Mighty Dub Katz for their version, so it might be more accurate to call it a sample-heavy cover rather than a remix.
It would be nicer if people would quote sources instead of looking at the random files they grab off of KaZaA or Grokster (does anyone actually use Grokster?)
I design user interfaces for a free network management application,
I like the idea, but its not too real. Even if everybody can/is remixing music, the best will still rise to the top and most people will want to hear their versions. By definition, everybody can't be the best.
If you open your mind too wide, people will throw trash in it.
While not about remixing per se, this activity is just the sort of thing you would see in a culture that embraces remixing as a valid creative act. Why did Gibson change his mind about remixing? Was it because appropriation and borrowing became cool buzzwords like remix and mashup?
If these creative works truly "belong to everybody" Gibson should be all for people publishing their own versions of Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. Especially if he would be paid and attributed in the derivative works. This sounds like a case of jumping on the bandwagon or doing as I say, not as I do.
Here's a longer excerpt and link to the original interview:
GIbson Interview
Its not socialism, its humaniticism.
Its not communism, its idealism.
Idealism in human nature, and the desire for all of us stand on the shoulders of giants.
Possesion is 9/10ths ownership, if you have it, you own it...... In our case, and the case the author is making.. Humanity owns creative works..because humans made them.
They all all ours, and should be shared. It enriches us as sentient beings. It makes us wiser, and more appreciative of life.
And its is in human nature to improve upon things, even though the media would have you think all we do as a species is tear things down!
Gibson rejected the project on the grounds that it would be "a shitty thing to do to the readers... like selling people styrofoam potato chips." He dismissed it as cheating the readers and likened it to selling them inauthentic or fake goods.
Now he is saying that creative works belong to everybody and that we are in the age of the remix. But when he had the chance to let other people remix his stories and characters and get paid for it and get attributed in the process, he soundly rejected the project and even the whole idea behind it in the first place. Which set of beliefs is the truer one? Perhaps they aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe he's just pandering or playing catch-up now.
Here's a longer excerpt and link to the original interview:
GIbson Interview
TFA "Using astonishingly primitive predigital hardware"
Analog audio technology was peaking around the time of studio one. If anyone thinks a tape echo sounds like a digital echo they haven't been listening.
Gibson is a very good writer but his handle has always been flavor more than technology.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
For crying out loud, isn't anything written by Gibson, or published in Wired, too damn self-referential when posted on /.?
It's a bit like the early days, what with Gibson, Sterling, Barlow and Sirius, thrown into a pot with Mondo2k and Wired 1.x. How many iterations of the same chumbucket can we be expected to swallow?
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
Read the first part, about how one of his favourite authors lifted it to a literary style. He would be flattered if there were more mash-ups of his work, mixing and combining it with other authors.
I think he's secretly disappointed that there isn't more fanfics about what happened to the fusion of Wintermute/Neuromancer between Neuromancer and Count Zero, about Screaming Fist or any of the other events he only names but never explains.
I dont get whats so good about this - the author Jeff Noon has been talking, and using remix articats and fully exploring this for years now - Gibson isnt saying anything that Noon hasnt already explored completely and utterly. He has also written several books on this process,
I used to find Gibson very innovative, but it jsut seems he's behind the ball now.
Big deal, Bill.
If you read Mona Lisa Overdrive, and know who Survival Research Laboratories are, same thing.
If you've read Speed Tribes, you see the Virtual Light series is a remix of a heap of other ideas. Same for Idoru - if you know who U2 are, and know who Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read is, and have read Speed Tribes, you see the same thing.
For a long time Gibson would tell everyone who would listen that he didn't have e-mail, just fax, and his friends would fax him things he might think were interesting. Now to his credit, he does often explain these inspirations to the reader in the introductions.
If you read pattern recognition, you see Gibson re-mixing Gibson as a means of getting back to Present Time. A young woman in a strange environment who therefore has a reason to describe everything. Brand names. Unseen forces. Japan. Yakuza. Russia. Mafia. Reality and personal identity being manipulated by technology.&c.
And that book really sucked it, unfortunately.
A tip for the fans: I have heard Gibson read his books for an audience, and he reads s..l..o..w.. Trust me; grab Virtual Light and read the Prelude slowly, and you'll see the real reason we read him. He can write his pants off when he makes the effort.
"Digital" is an adjective. Using it as a noun makes it a buzzword. It perks interest in the ear or eye of the receiver because they have to actually think about it. They were expecting the word to describe something, but in the end the word was the thing.