Sound Unbound Sampling Digital Music and Culture

by Miller, Paul D.

• ISBN13: 9780262633635
• ISBN10: 0262633639
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-03-14
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

The groundbreaking mix CD that accompanies this book features Nam Jun Paik, the Dada Movement, John Cage, Sonic Youth, and many other examples of avant-garde music. Most of the CD's content comes from the archives of Sub Rosa, a legendary record label that has been the benchmark for archival sounds since the beginnings of electronic music. (For a complete list of audio credits, see below.) If Rhythm Sciencewas about the flow of things, Sound Unboundis about the remix--how music, art, and literature have blurred the lines between what an artist can do and what a composer can create. In Sound Unbound, Rhythm Scienceauthor Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid asks artists to describe their work and compositional strategies in their own words. These are reports from the front lines on the role of sound and digital media in an information-based society. The topics are as diverse as the contributors: composer Steve Reich offers a memoir of his life with technology, from tape loops to video opera; Miller himself considers sampling and civilization; novelist Jonathan Lethem writes about appropriation and plagiarism; science fiction writer Bruce Sterling looks at dead media; Ron Eglash examines racial signifiers in electrical engineering; media activist Naeem Mohaiemen explores the influence of Islam on hip hop; rapper Chuck D contributes "Three Pieces"; musician Brian Eno explores the sound and history of bells; Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno interview composer-conductor Pierre Boulez; and much more. "Press 'play,'" Miller writes, "and this anthology says 'here goes.'" Contributors: David Allenby, Pierre Boulez, Catherine Corman, Chuck D, Erik Davis, Scott De Lahunta, Manuel DeLanda, Cory Doctorow, Eveline Domnitch, Frances Dyson, Ron Eglash, Brian Eno, Dmitry Gelfand, Dick Hebdige, Lee Hirsch, Vijay Iyer, Ken Jordan, Douglas Kahn, Daphne Keller, Beryl Korot, Jaron Lanier, Joseph Lanza, Jonathan Lethem, Carlo McCormick, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, Moby, Naeem Mohaiemen, Alondra Nelson, Keith and Mendi Obadike, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Pauline Oliveros, Philippe Parreno, Ibrahim Quraishi, Steve Reich, Simon Reynolds, Scanner aka Robin Rimbaud, Nadine Robinson, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Alex Steinweiss, Bruce Sterling, Lucy Walker, Saul Williams, Jeff E. Winner. On the CD: RadioMentale and Matthew Herbert, "Cool Noises" Martyn Bates/Allen Ginsberg, "Once Loved/A Footnote to 'Howl' (DJ Spooky Remix)" Jean Cocteau, "Le buste (DJ Spooky Remix)" Sun Ra, "Imagination" Mikhail/Gertrude Stein, "Untitled in CoF Minor/A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson (DJ Spooky Remix)" DJ Spooky vs. Rob Swift, "Scratch Battle" Marcel Duchamp/The Master Musicians of Joujouka/RadioMentale, "The Creative Act/Interview with George Heard Hamilton/Boujeloud (Solo Drums)/I Could Never Make That Music Again" Raymond Scott, "The Paperwork Explosion" Alter Echo/Pamela Z, "Perpetual Next/Pop Titles 'You'"* Liam Gillick/ RadioMentale and Aphex Twin, "Sarah (Los Angeles Soundtrack)/I Could Never Make That Music Again" James Joyce/Erik Satie, "Eolian Episode/Gnossiene (DJ Spooky Dub Version)" Steve Reich, "Reed Phase" Shukar/RadioMentale/Raoul Hausmann, "Cika-Laka/Cool Noises/Bbb" Augustos de Campos/Bill Laswell/To Rococo Rot, "Dias Dias Dias (Spoken by Caetano Veloso)/Above the Earth/Contacte" John Ca

Author Biography

Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a composer, multimedia artist, and writer. He is the author of Rhythm Science and Sound Unbound, both published by the MIT Press.

Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a composer, multimedia artist, and writer. He is the author of Rhythm Science and Sound Unbound, both published by the MIT Press.

Erik Davis is an American journalist, critic, podcaster, counter-public intellectual whose writings have run the gamut from rock criticism to cultural analysis to creative explorations of esoteric mysticism. He is the author of Techgnosis: Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age of Information, The Visionary State: A Journey through California's Spiritual Landscape, and Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica.

Hugo Award-winning science fiction author and futurist Bruce Sterling has been called by Time "perhaps the sharpest observer of our media-choked culture working today in any genre." Three of his novels have been New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and he has been a contributing writer for Wired since its conception. In 2005 he is "Visionary-in-Residence" at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. Bruce Sterling's blog Beyond the Beyond has been active since 2003.

Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a composer, multimedia artist, and writer. He is the author of Rhythm Science and Sound Unbound, both published by the MIT Press.

Daphne Koller is Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University.

Frances Dyson is Emeritus Professor of Cinema and Technocultural Studies at the University of California, Davis, and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the National Institute for Experimental Arts, University of New South Wales.

Douglas Kahn is Professor at the National Institute for Experimental Arts at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of Noise Water Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts (MIT Press) and Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts and coeditor of Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde (MIT Press).

B. Coleman is Assistant Professor of Writing and New Media in MIT's Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies and Comparative Media Studies. She is Faculty Director of the C3 Game Culture and Mobile Media initiative.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
An Introduction, or My (Ambiguous) Life with Technology	p. 1
In Through the Out Door	p. 5
Sampling and the Creative Act
aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid
The Future of Language	p. 21
The Ecstasy of Influence	p. 25
A Plagiarism Mosaic
"Roots and Wires" Remix	p. 53
Polyrhythmic Tricks and the Black Electronic
The Life and Death of Media	p. 73
Un-imagining Utopia	p. 83
Freaking the Machine	p. 91
A Discussion about Keith Obadike's Sexmachines
Freeze Frame	p. 97
Audio, Aesthetics, Sampling, and Contemporary Multimedia
aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid
A Theater of Ideas	p. 109
An Interview with Steve Reich and Beryl Korot on Three Tales
Quantum Improvisation	p. 119
The Cybernetic Presence
Pauline Oliveros
The Ghost Outside the Machine	p. 131
Scanner aka Robin Rimbaud
The Musician as Thief	p. 135
Digital Culture and Copyright Law
Integrated Systems	p. 151
Mobile Stealth Unit
An Interview with Moby	p. 155
Zing! Went the Strings	p. 161
Renegade Academia	p. 171
The World of Sound	p. 181
A Division of Raymond Scott Enterprises
From Hip-Hip to Flip-Flop	p. 203
Black Noise in the Master-Slave Circuit
South Africa's Rhythms of Resistance	p. 215
The Virtual Breeding of Sound	p. 219
Zoom	p. 227
Mining AccelerationLiminal Product
An Interview with Alex Steinweiss	p. 233
Stop. Hey. What's That Sound?	p. 245
Permuting Connections	p. 265
Software for Dancers
On Improvisation, Temporality, and Embodied Experience	p. 273
Spin the Painting	p. 293
An Interview with Nadine Robinson
Camera Lucida	p. 299
Three-dimensional Sonochemical Observatory
Fear of a Muslim Planet	p. 313
Hip-Hop's Hidden History
Three Pieces	p. 337
Bells and Their History	p. 343
What One Must Do	p. 353
Comments and Asides on Musical Philosophy
An Interview with Pierre Boulez	p. 361
Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno
Adh'an	p. 375
The Sounds of an Islamized Orthodoxy
Theater of the Spirits	p. 377
Joseph Cornell and Silence
Where Did the Music Go?	p. 385
Audio CD Credits	p. 391
Index	p. 395
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.