“We’re on the cusp of somefactor exhilarating and terrifying.”
The yr is 1999 and David Bowie, in shaggy hair and groovy glasses, has seen the long run and it’s the Interweb.
On this quick however fascinating interview with BBC’s stalwart and withering interrogator cum interviewer Jeremy Paxman, Bowie gives a foreforged of the a long time to return, and will get most of it proper, if not all. Paxman dolefully performs satan’s advocate, though I suspect he did actually see the Web as a “instrument”– simply a repackaging of an existing medium.
“It’s an alien life type that simply landed,” Bowie counters.
Bowie, who had arrange his personal bowie.web as a private ISP the previous yr, begins by saying that if he had begined his profession in 1999, he wouldn’t have been a musician, however a “fan collecting information.”
It sounded provocative on the time, however Bowie makes some extent right here that has taken on extra credence in recent times–that the revolutionary status of rock within the ‘60s and ‘70s was tied to its rarity, that the inability to learnily hear music gave it power and currency. Rock is now “a profession opportunity,” he says, and the Interweb now has the attract that rock as soon as did.
What Bowie may not have seen is how fastly that attract would put on off. The Interweb now not has a mystery to it. It’s closer to a public utility, oddly some extent that Bowie makes later when discussing concerning the invention of the telecellphone.
Bowie additionally permitted of the demystification between the artist and audience that the Interweb was professionalviding. In his last decade, however, he would hunt down anonymity and privacy, dropping his last two albums suddenly without fanfare and refusing all interviews. He additionally didn’t foresee the form of trolling that sends celebrities and artists off of social media.
Paxman sees the fragmalestation of the Interweb as a problem; Bowie sees it as a plus.
“The potential of what the Interweb goes to do to society, each good and dangerous, is unimaginin a position.”
There’s much more to unpack on this segment, and let your differing viewfactors be recognized within the comments. It’s what Bowie would have needed.
Related Content:
David Bowie on Why It’s Loopy to Make Artwork–and We Do It Anymanner (1998)
How David Bowie Used William S. Burroughs’ Reduce-Up Technique to Write His Unforgetdesk Lyrics
Ted Mills is a freelance author on the humanities who curleasely hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podforged. It’s also possible to follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, learn his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his movies right here.