Seizing the means of Perception

I just finished watching a documentary about rave, and rave culture. Pretty much of it was mediocre, and served only to trigger my nostalgia about the early nineties, but there bits of it that were very interesting. Mostly those bits containing Genesis P-Orridge. The film is called Better Living Through Circuitry, and you should be able to dig it up somewhere, download and watch.

One of the things GPO said, was that while the punk movement had been about seizing the means of production, techno was about the means of perception as well. It was a really good way of drawing out the essence of, atleast part of, the techno movement as I had known. It also got me thinking of something Pascal from Resistance D said in an interview (atleast my mind remembers it this way, but I could be wrong). He claimed that techno was about taking all those sounds you hear around you every day, such as the hum of the refrigerator, the cars, street lights and what have you, taking control of them and using them to cope with reality. Sampling enables someone to appropriate a part of reality one is usually a passive recipient of, and turn it into creativity. A truly reality altering practise.

When I read this, so many years ago back in 1993, in fact just before christmas, it really got me thinking. I had discovered techno not long before, and I didn't understand just why the crude electronic sounds and thudding beats made me feel alive in a way current pop music (including the pre-digested grunge and metal) could. But this statement was as good an explanation as any. I clearly felt frustrated by the way school and society wanted me to be passive and live my life the way they expected, and I often said that techno makes me feel good, because society wants me to be a machine. But in fact techno was making me feel like the opposite of a machine.

And this is what GPO is talking about. Music as a magickal means of controling your reality and environment. He is ofcourse not just inspired by deconstructionist thinking on this subject, but also by Aleister Crowley himself. GPO and TOPY/TOPI is all about magick, as we know, and seeing reality as in a flux. By altering the way you see reality and respond to reality you gain power over it on some level. In the film he also states that taking over various corporate logos and placing them in a different context "emasculates their power over you", and this statement could be carried over to anything mostly, as I see it.

The music industry is out to control you. Not in the brain washing way, but in the "buy our records, listen to them passively, buy more records" (or files as it's starting to be). The record industry doesn't like it when you start making your own shit and giving it away for free, because it takes away their power over you. The goverment is out to control you too, and they're more than happy to share that control with the record companies. The key element is that you remain passive, go to work, generate economic growth and consume. If people stop doing that reality would collapse. Reality meaning our current mode of capitalist, statist, collectivist, hive society. By grabbing the means of perception for your own pleasure, and sharing in with your friends you create a new reality, and one that suits you more than the one you are being fed.

Unfortunately most people are not very conscious when they create music. They see instruments as instruments, and tracks as tracks, and records as a product. The fail to see music as magick. And all music is magick, whether you are aware of it or not. Music, not just techno, but all music, is an emotional highway of subconscious communication. What you put out in your music, you put into someone (most of all yourself).

As I was into techno, and the whole DIY spirit that came with it, many years ago, I am now also painfully aware of how the superficial trade marks of that movement has become fashion and mass culture (passive). More than anything this so called new rave fashion has highlighted this change. It's quite strange to me, cos I see the smiley t-shirts, and I think "yeah, fucking acid house man" and these kids just wear them cos everyone else is wearing them. Getting old is painful. :)

But there's hope. What techno was about back then is now bigger than ever. People have the means of production so firmly in their hands, and the next step is for them to realize that they hold reality between their fingers. Don't just recieve, transmit! And it's actually happening, with blogs, mp3, p2p, vsti, podcasts, webradio, webtv and so forth and so forth. It's not just for people who get an erection from TB-303 bleeps anymore (or the hippies, punks and beatniks before them).

Get conscious, get powerfull. I guess that's the bottom line.

copyright is theft

The troll you see on the picture is Anne B. Ragde, norwegian hack writer, and media personality. Why is she there, you say? I'll tell you why.

A new ad hoc movement of culture peddlers is festering in the norwegian public these days. A petition with 1600 signatures demands that norwegian politicians do more to stop illegal distribution of intellectual property. Ragde is one of them, and one of their most visible contributors as such. They were on the boobtube yesterday, and when I woke up today the troll was rearing its fuzzy head in the various newspapers too.

Their argument ofcourse is entirely economic. Understandably so. These people have long since stopped producing for the pure passion of it, and "are only in it for the money" as Zappa put it, ever so honestly. They have especially selected the norwegian liberal party as their opponent, as well as the Socialist Left and Red, while citing that only the conservative party has been clear in the defence of traditional copyright laws. It's quite ironic that these people, whom by norwegian standards can probably be considered intellectuals should wheigh their support in favor of their traditional oppononents. Norwegian intellectuals and culture workers are traditionally quite left leaning. But lately we have seen that the classic division between left and right is becoming blurred, especially with regards to this subject, and integration/immigration. (Amusing really. It is becoming increasingly evident that whether statism is left wing or right wing, doesn't really matter that much. The real issue at hand is fear of the individual's opportunities, and rights, to self expression. But that is a different blog waiting to happen.)

Anyway, copyright. My sympathy for these people, and their self rightous indignancy is next to none. I personally chose to give away all the music I make, and anything else I should happen to create. It enriches culture because it provides a low threshold access point to expressions, and contributes to a dynamic cultural development. If you like what I do, you can use and spread it, and even create your own works with basis in mine. But these statist/capitalist propertarians don't really care about that. It's jost a job to them. Their hours are capital, in the marxist sense, not a way of furthering human development, be it social or otherwise. I chose to work full time in order to maintain an income, and produce music in my spare time. These retards are unable to do that, or atleast unwilling. Of course I cannot demand, or expect, that all people should view all their actions in a larger ideological perspective, but I can certainly look down on them for their lack of long term perspectives and insights.

I can see their argument, in the sense that they want some sort of compensation for their efforts. But it falls short of any real logic, besides an exclusively materialistic one. Their compensation should be access to a rich and free culture. But I guess money is more important to them than any sort of cultural experience. But what can you really expect from hack writers and musicians whose highest aspirations are to be picked up by a Coca Cola comercial?

Property is theft, and that goes for intellectual property as well.

I'll finish this blog with a quote, taken from a truly GRATE band. ;)

She wants money.
What she wants?
She wants money.
What she wants?
She wants money.