Message 61/84
Date: 21-Jul-00 @ 01:35 AM -
RE: Vocal samples?
Alright, I guess its time for me to jump in here. As much as I feel art and music as an individual creative endeavour is worthwhile, I think theres one problem with art for the sake of public consumption that can be seen over the course of the 20'th century.
Fist of all, I want to emphasize that commercialization CREATED the act of plagiarism in art and music. Before the commercialization, it was common practice to work off of other peoples music, art etc, in order to learn and of course recontexturalize others ideas.
The problem with todays "plagiarism", however, is that it has taken the learning process out of the loop, it is now all about recontexturalizing that which is considered "profitable" you can see this very clearly in Warhol's art, (but because he was doing it intellectually, I see the intent behind his work as the thing that defines it as art).
You see, most DJ's are not playing records in order to learn from the great masters of techno. They aren't even doing it while intellectualising about the fact that they are the true representatives of this culture, yet they are not producers, they are consumers. They are doing it to profit from their use of other peoples work.
The same as boy bands who recycle each others same popular chord progressions over and over again so they can quadruple the record companies returns, most DJ's are choosing the music that they feel will get them a gig at that club downtown.
IMHO "art", at this point in time is no longer a creative venture. Art has really been an intellectual and political thing that started with the Dadaists in the visual domain and the Serialists in the musical domain at the turn of the century. Since that point, art and music moved further and further from the audience, and deeper into the recesses of the mind. The most recent being the minimalist movement. To be honest, I sometimes wonder whether western music and art has died with the minimalists, and thus techno is the last dying breath of the western minimalist musical movement. The next logical step, therefore, is to dive back into visual and sonic chaos, and pull out some new languages. DJ's are not artists, they are far from it, they are just consumers like any old lady buying a sinatra record and puttin it on her old victrola.
Peaceout,
Peter