[iDC] Remix Reader
john sobol
john at johnsobol.com
Mon Apr 17 20:36:40 EDT 2006
Hi.
listserv discussions are always somewhat non-liner and certainly we
each try to push them along paths that interest us, but personally I
find that this discussion has taken an odd turn in the past few posts.
It seems to me that after crying 'eurocentric' in our crowded
auditorium, Paul, that you have name-checked a seriously eurocentric
canon in your subsequent posts. I have a problem with that, especially
since I think some of the people on your list (Adorno and Mailer, to
name but two) are abysmal sources for intelligent critiques of
African-American cultural practices.
It also seems to me that the essay/discussion on Jamaican dub has done
little to advance the discussion about contemporary remix culture.
Isn't it more important for our purposes to ask if – and how – the
remix culture that has been so pervasive in Jamaica is being
transformed, enriched or beat down by digital media, rather than to
point out that toasting and vinyl versioning is as popular today as it
was 40 years ago? Yes you are right that "You can think of the whole
culture as a shareware update" but does this mean that Jamaica is a
hotbed of FLOSS? And if not, does it matter? Does today's global
mediascape mean things are different for Sizzla, who releases about 150
tracks a year, than they were decades ago for King Tubby when he was
doing the same? And if so how and why? And if not why not? In either
case what does that say about the status and future of Afrocentric
remixology in networked culture?
I think the discussion about music is hugely important and I welcome
it, but only up to a point, especially since it is evident from several
postings that many of us are already very knowledgeable about 20th
century music history. What is of far more interest to me is the
extension of our discussion about Afrocentric remixology into the
sphere of new media. Nobody has responded to my request for suggestions
of innovative non-eurocentric new media artists whom I could usefully
check out. Is this because the answers are so obvious that nobody can
be bothered to help me out of my pathetic ignorance? Or is it because
people are worried about getting into a racially charged debate? Or is
it because nobody has any names to contribute?
My guess is that the list of innovative artists doing Afrocentric new
media work outside of the strictly musical sphere is fairly small. Off
the top of my head people like George Lewis, Chuck D, Keith and Mendi
Obadike and DaveyD come to mind, (as well as yourself, Paul) but not a
lot of others. If someone can extend this list to 20 or 50 or 500 that
would be totally great. Please do so so we can all be less ignorant,
especially me. But if collectively we can't, then shouldn't that be a
crucial element of our discussion about remix culture, rather than a
mild citing of the amazing but familiar historical reality that is
Jamaican music?
I just visited the Afrofuturist site, which I know hasn't been updated
in a while. But doesn't it matter that the link headed Black Pioneers
of the Internet is dead? Where should it link to?
John Sobol
--
2 Million Years of Technology
A one-man show by John Sobol
@ The Bowery Poetry Club, nyc
April 29, noon, pwyc
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 3248 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20060417/41b1e101/attachment-0002.bin
More information about the iDC
mailing list