William Gibson on The Age of The Remix 300
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.'"
God's Little Toys (Score:2)
Re:God's Little Toys (Score:5, Informative)
kind of fitting reference- remixing the video of your life, i guess.
Re:God's Little Toys (Score:2, Interesting)
And also about him saying the 'remix' this the thing...not the recording? How 'bass-akwards' can you get? If you don't have quality original idea, say records....where the hell are the so called 'talented artists' that rely on them for materials to remix going to get their fodder?
I guess I'm just getting too old to get it. Sure, music does come from parts 'lifted' from older songs and tunes...in the past, this meant a riff...maybe a few lyri
Re:God's Little Toys (Score:3, Interesting)
I just finished reading Pattern Recognition yesterday and probably now I see that article in a different light.
On the book: waaay different from anything before, it is more like a today's nover instead of close or distant future.
Much slower but I just could not put it down. The only book I could not read from him was The Difference Engine (just could not catch on the subject and gave it up on the 100th page)
Everything else I loved, including tha
Re:God's Little Toys (Score:2)
Buzzword alert (Score:2, Insightful)
Excuse me while I gag...
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:2, Interesting)
Gibson's last few novels have not done very w
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:5, Insightful)
"Who owns the words?" asked a disembodied but very persistent voice throughout much of Burroughs' work. Who does own them now? Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do. All of us."
Yes, and the links on his site are to places you can BUY his books, not download them for free.
billy - do as I say...not as I do
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:4, Interesting)
He does support illegal download to a pretty large extent.
This is pissing me off THERE ARE LOTS OF ARTISTS WHO DO UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF FREE INFORMATION!
So many people making terrible generalizations, yea all artists are hypocrites.
Also as far as Gibson is concerned it doesn't matter whether he types on a computer or a typewriter, Slashdot's perverse love of technology is an aberration not the norm, and not adhering to such a silly ideal probably offers him more perspective not less.
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:5, Interesting)
Having invented several of them, Gibson is arguably a master of buzzwords. His literary work is known for stylish writing, and his adoration for the inclusion of buzzwords is especially prevalent in Pattern Recognition.
Bingo! (Score:2)
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:3, Interesting)
P.S. The overuse of the cliche "throw up in my mouth" is getting ridiculously irritating - why people think this is catchy bewilders me to no end.
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:4, Interesting)
So, I've got this idea that a catchy name is important in the success or failure of concepts and hypotheses. Now, if only I could think of a catchy name for this idea, I could get credit for it!
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:2)
brandimeeming
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:2)
Excuse me while I gag...
That's not nausea you're feeling -
That's your mouth filling with the aching taste of blue.
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:2)
Re:Buzzword alert (Score:5, Interesting)
He uses "remix" literally, so that's out.
"The digital" is the domain that encompasses digitally-stored data.
Art and sociology theorists consider true "digital" storage to be random-access, which is a caveat that purely technical people disagree with, but it's as pointless now as the hacker/"cracker" debate, because it's been entrenched for many years.
What he's saying is that as soon as you have random-access, perfectly-reproducible, easily-accessible storage, people are going to use it to make collages (of which "remixes" are the most popular subset today).
Furthermore, those collages represent a kind of "collective consciousness" because all of us in Western society grew up exposed to some or all of the components of that collage, and since our memories are based on associations, collage is a powerful tool for an artist to use.
This is basic modern art theory that was covered in a first-year course required for all students at the university I went to. Of course, >= 95% of the class ignored it or didn't care to remember, but whatever.
Gibson is a really, really smart guy. He's seen a lot of large-scale things in his life, and he has a good grasp on human nature and culture. It's easy to dismiss him as flakey because he writes and talks like an artist instead of a scientist, but that would be a mistake.
Re:Future shock! (Score:3, Insightful)
Techo-utopianism? Have you actually READ any of Gibson's work?
Re:Future shock! (Score:2, Insightful)
Now there's an argument I can't stand. Being good at criticism and being good at the object of criticism are two seperate skills. Although knowledge is generally necessary, and adeptitude may help criticism, it's not outside the realm of possibility to be a good critic of something you can't do.
Re:Future shock! (Score:2)
Great, until... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Great, until... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Great, until... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Great, until... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great, until... (Score:2)
Actually, I kind of liked JM, the movie was pretty decent until Dolph Lundgren showed up.
Re:Great, until... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now that would rock.
Re:Great, until... (Score:2)
sometimes ripoff, sometimes not (Score:5, Interesting)
First, reading the article, paragraph, how many people know what the heck coruscating means? (definition here [tfd.com])
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.
Re:sometimes ripoff, sometimes not (Score:2)
Which of course leads us to look up the definition of Coruscant [tfd.com], for anyone who cares. Pronounced differentaly than the Star Wars location, though...
Not really important, but interesting.
The problem is one of attribution, (Score:2)
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.
Re:sometimes ripoff, sometimes not (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm still trying to think of what Weezer's "Beverly Hills" song reminds me of. I've heard that riff in a Metallica song, and it also sounds a LOT like "I Love Rock and Roll" by Joan Jett.
What's funny is that now, even remixes require too much work. Mash-ups are becoming increasingly popular, and all you do is just literally play two records at once, at the very easy end.
Re:sometimes ripoff, sometimes not (Score:2)
I think by record, he means a collection of songs by a single artist grouped together and put out on a medium, whether it be a vinyl record, cassette tape, or CD.
I disagree with him as well on that point.
Re:sometimes ripoff, sometimes not (Score:3, Informative)
The Crystal Method - Magic Carpet Ride (Remix)
Don't know what album it's off of, though.
Re:sometimes ripoff, sometimes not (Score:2, Informative)
Theft is the act of depriving someone else of their property. Copyright infringement is speech that intrudes on the monopoly granted by the federal government on certain expressions.
No matter how many times this distinction is made, the *AA crowd seems to be able to sucker people into believing they're the same thing. Amazing.
If you're intent on analogizing copyright infringement to a property crime (although copyright is only a
Re:sometimes ripoff, sometimes not (Score:4, Insightful)
And sure, artists today build upon, are inspired by, steal from, improve upon, and desecrate previous works- how in the hell is this new? The Book of Genesis borrows the flood myth from _Gilgamesh_; William Shakespeare borrowed the story for _Hamlet_, the tune of the "Star Spangled Banner" is an old drinking song, and the English language is a "mash" of a Germanic tongue (Old English), French(the language of the Norman conquerors), Latin(the language of the scholars and scientists), and other tongues. Sure, we have new toys that make this easier than ever, but this is just the nature of art and culture.
Article Remix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Article Remix (Score:2)
Secondly, the passive audience is much more prevalent now than a few hundred years ago. Before iPods and TVs and hand-crank Victrolas, people actually learned to play instruments themselves and read aloud to one another.
Re:Article Remix (Score:3, Funny)
they participatin' an havin a ball (uh huh yeah)
da audience be as old as yo momma's record playa
an as passive as a chronic smokin' Sith Darth Vader (yeah, yeah)
So don't be lookin' at me all clueless and quizzical (what?!?!)
like I am wit yo momma, remixing is all too physical. (yeah!!!)
A record's an anomaly like Neo in the rain.
This post is a hit with props to islandrain! (a wikiwiki wild wild rain)
Re:Article Remix (Score:2, Funny)
Courtesy of DJ Slashdot Editor
Historical Record (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Historical Record (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Historical Record (Score:2)
Re:Historical Record (Score:2)
Re:Historical Record (Score:2)
Re:Historical Record (Score:2)
We're really talking about the stored description of an event. The
Re:Historical Record (Score:2)
The core failing of remixing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The core failing of remixing... (Score:2)
Re:The core failing of remixing... (Score:4, Interesting)
But then someone will take a bit from here, a bit from there, and inspire himself to write something completely new.
If you think human creativity will disappear with remixes, you're quite mistaken. Take for example 'Into the Corridor of Shadows' by Nigel Simmons ( http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01212/ [ocremix.org] ). And you'll see how much creativity can be put in a "remix".
Re:The core failing of remixing... (Score:3, Insightful)
This remixing has been going on for a long time; something new appears, everyone jumps on the wagon, they ride the wagon for all its worth until it gets stale, then some person or group who is bored with the status quo does something original, and the whole thing starts over, but pointing in a different direction.
If you step back, you can see
Re:The core failing of remixing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Dear grumpy old fart,
Please tell us about when you programmed with punch cards! Or about telnetting to the SMTP port! Or how much happier you were using only a command line!
Human beings innovate. Full stop. End of story. Thanks to constant innovation, we have Linux, new viruses, GUIs, and a myriad other things good and bad. Including cyberpunk. I'll let you decide where it falls in {good,bad}.
There will always be people wanting to say it in their voice. Some will make their voice using the voices of othe
Re:The core failing of remixing... (Score:2)
Have you listen to many remixes? Many so called 'remixes' are very different than the original -- often times dance club remixes have a totally different rhythm and melody track, while using only a small vocal or instrumental track in key places. I think this is at least as create as making music by remixing the 88 paino keys.
Legality of remixes (Score:5, Interesting)
Also from the folks at downhillbattle.org comes http://bannedmusic.org/ [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.
Re:Legality of remixes (Score:2)
try getting hold of "A Night At The Hip Hopera"...
Re:Legality of remixes (Score:2)
8 Mile is a good movie that shows some of this scene.
Re:Legality of remixes (Score:2)
late (Score:2)
"Age of the remix?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds a lot more like "open source" to me.
Mitch Hedburg said it best (Score:5, Funny)
Fluffy Article (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Listen to the man! (Score:4, Funny)
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...
Sensationalism? (Score:2)
Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
I think seat belts may have had something to do with that phenomenon.
There will ALWAYS be an audience (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Remixers Have No Talent (Score:2)
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!!
Re:There will ALWAYS be an audience (Score:2)
One of the highlights of modern culture is that this number seems to be decreasing. People naturally want to create. If they "aren't interested" it's because they were never encouraged (and often actively discouraged) to be.
Remixing is a marginal case...
OOD OOA (Score:2, Insightful)
It's all fun and games until the RIAA/MPAA crash your little party and remind you who owns what.
Kubrick figures (Score:2)
apprently they are a brand of doll [google.ca]. oh well.
Predicted the Matrix in 1984, we can trust him (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Predicted the Matrix in 1984, we can trust him (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Predicted the Matrix in 1984, we can trust him (Score:2)
Re:Predicted the Matrix in 1984, we can trust him (Score:2)
A broken clock is right twice a day.
My trust in someone's opinions is inversely proportional to their opinion of themselves.
Re:Predicted the Matrix in 1984, we can trust him (Score:5, Insightful)
By who? Gibson freely admits that he didn't really use computers until well after he write Neuromancer, and that the technical details of Neuromancer are dodgy at best. "Cyberspace" and "the Matrix", as presented in Gibson's novels, bear little or no resemblance to the internet and the web as they exist today. Nor was Gibson the first writer to envision global computer networks.
I think we can trust his predictions. So far they have been quite accurate.
Really? I don't think so. It's easy to cherrypick many SF authors' novels and find instances in which they were "accurate" - especially if your definition of "accurate" is as loose as the comparison you draw between "the Matrix" and the real internet.
I like Gibson's novels. He's a great writer with some interesting ideas. But he is not some kind of prescient thinker when it comes to the future.
Re:Predicted the Matrix in 1984, we can trust him (Score:2)
The dude is brilliant, but not for accurate predictions of the future. His books are brilliant assessments of the present day. The insight in Neuromancer is about 1984 as much as the insight in Pattern Recognition is about 2002. If you see what I mean.
nothing new (Score:2)
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 stori
Re:nothing new (Score:2)
The only constratints we have are in our habits and ways of thinking, and, ironically, in the egalitarian nature of the technology that makes remixes possible. For example, let's say someone has access to audio software and wants to remix his favorite song. The software makes it just as easy, from a technical perspective, for him to record a cover version with a new arrangement or some other unique and interesting twist. But he probably won't do that.
Why not?
1. It's not in tune wit
Re:nothing new (Score:2)
>Artificial constraints?
yes, as in copyright law: an inverse-right, in that you temprarily deprive others of the right to express certain things, from song lyrics to dvdrips.
>The only constratints we have are
>in our habits and ways of thinking
i wasn't really commenting on the frequency of originality. without data, i would unfoundedly suspect that originality is not the norm in just about any circumstance.
>there are few barriers to
>entry keeping the unskilled folks out.
the same could be
Audience obsolete? (Score:2)
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.
Methinks he doth protest ... incomprehensibly (Score:2)
- Attributed to Shakespeare, so don't sue me.
Is he always like this? (Score:2)
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
Reminds me of a lyric... (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Intertextuality (Score:3, Informative)
"This story is not a song, but a record." -- Lee "Scratch" Perry
The degredation of society.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Is Gibson always high when he writes? (Score:2)
The new piano (Score:2)
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 "re
Um nuh! (Score:2)
'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.
This isn't anything new! (Score:2)
Barf me (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Where it the mother of invention? (Score:2, Interesting)
You should know him (Score:2)
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 t
Race, what a nice concept (Score:2, Flamebait)
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?
Re:Race, what a nice concept (Score:2)
2) all people are black in the pitch dark...
3) we all bleed red blood when cut...
Re:Records... (Score:2)
Re:what? (Score:2)
Re:Gibson didn't invent the remix.... (Score:2)
Also the man graduated from college. He runs a music business. Thats as far away from a thug as one can get.
Re:Gibson didn't invent the remix.... (Score:2)
Also the man graduated from college. He runs a music business. Thats as far away from a thug as one can get."
I said the thug claims he invented the remix.
Source? Try here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/sim-explorer / explore-items/-/B000065CT3/0/101/1/none/purchase/r ef%3Dpd_sxp_r0/102-9077773-6790560 [amazon.com]
You can find more by doing a Google Search on the title/lyric "we invented the remix."
As for the business savvy of Combs, just remember th
Re:Gibson didn't invent the remix.... (Score:2)
Re:exactly! (Score:2)
Heh! Ironically, some of that remixed HTML saved my butt working on a Windows app last night! I guess remixes do have their uses!