an alternative network of production and distribution (peace, love, and unity)

'one could argue that do-it-yourself practices – like most, if not all, avant-garde utopias – failed in their ambition to change the world.... fluxus certainly never developed an alternative network of production and distribution powerful enough to pose a threat to the art market, and the audience for most do-it-yourself art works often remained limited to small groups among the artists’ friends...'

- anna dezeuze,  blurring the boundaries between art and life (in the museum?), tate papers, 31/1/2012. 

in the evening of yesterday horsemouth watched ghost in the shell (the origin of the 'balkan' singing on makai's beneath the mask). it was most excellent. once horsemouth heard the track in a club in prague. it's nice to hear the song in the context it was originally intended for. 

prior to akira horsemouth's only real exposure to manga was the children's tv series marine boy. 

when horsemouth was keen on drum and bass one factor in its popularity with him was the dubplate system of musical production - the newest tunes were not available for sale to all but were made available on dubplate to various DJs and radio stations so that they could be played live as it were. 

the playing of records and the going to the club nights thus became the musical event (rather than a band playing live to promote a record). this was a profound change in the economics of the music scene made possible by the grafting of the new digital production technologies onto the earlier reggae system of pre-release music. this was a temporary and unstable marriage of convenience.

horsemouth viewed it (in perhaps a utopian fashion) as an escape from attali's economy of repetition and into his economy of composition (as outlined in his book noise: the political economy of music). these changes had to happen not just at the level of musical structure and performance but also at the level of the economy of music. broadly anything that increased the amount of improvisation in music did this.

this was all supposed to inaugurate an era of peace, love, and unity (to quote MC fats). well no, the connections between music, its economy and their social effects was more complicated than that. 

the music industry fought back, first with a tidal wave of shite indie (britpop) and then with a tidal wave of boy bands. the technology, the scene, the music, in any event, it all moved on. MP3 (remember that) and file sharing (napster) came along as well. the music industry fought back against that with streaming (spotify etc.) leaving us in our current sorry state. 

outside mist and sunshine. no zoom beers with howard last night. instead horsemouth watched ghost in the shell and read more hannah arendt. 

he read little rock from the portable hannah arendt as if it were from the origins of totalitarianism (which it could be). it could certainly be from on violence. here is a moment in hannah's thought that is distinctly out of tune with modern thought. 

but then the whole of the origins of totalitarianism  is in its detail harder to assimilate to modern conditions than its current reputation suggests.