Amelia Martin
Dr. Sandy Baldwin
English 693
Final Paper
May 8, 2009
Think Globally, Deejay Locally:
Dj Spooky and the Ecological Metaphor
Introduction
Does music have a spatial element? Paul D. Miller, aka Dj Spooky that subliminal kid, seems to think so since, to him, music has a connection to nature, and thus the environment. Throughout Rhythm Science and the article within Sound Unbound entitled “In Through the Out Door: Sampling and the Creative Act,” Dj Spooky uses a metaphor of environmental awareness and nature in order to relate to music, and, more specifically, his deejaying. This metaphor weaves throughout these works, especially the article, so much that it is quite difficult for a sustainability advocate and WVU Office of Sustainability intern, such as myself, to ignore. Briefly, sustainability means acting so that current needs are met without compromising those of future generations; the term links to the ecological metaphor so common throughout Dj Spooky’s work because of its inherent positive relationship with nature. In this paper, I will explore the significance of this ecological metaphor that helps to describe Dj Spooky’s take within his own work and other such musical endeavors.
The Metaphor
Toward the beginning of Rhythm Science, Dj Spooky states that “Music is always a metaphor” (20); now the question is “A metaphor for what?” For Dj Spooky, it’s a metaphor for the technological world that surrounds him and the ways in which he interprets that world. The key is that everyone sees the world differently, so no two interpretations can be identical, like how no two remixes can be identical if they are, indeed, remixes. Similarly, he says that “all of these images, sounds, other people…were extensions of myself, just as I was an extension of them” (Rhythm 21). Therefore, he means that the pieces that make up the whole are connected. This idea helps him to interpret the music so that he can deejay since the parts that make up a piece of music are all connected, as well.
Throughout Dj Spooky’s work “In Through the Out Door: Sampling and the Creative Act” and Rhythm Science, there is an underlying link to nature. He often discusses how humans try to separate themselves from nature (“In Through” 7). And he is correct—even with the act of recording sounds, we are trying to further separate ourselves from animals and other living organisms. We try to separate ourselves from animals by taking part in activities like living in houses and defying the sun and by creating other such odd objects. Making and recording music is just one more way in which humans try to separate themselves from those beings that are unable to make music or at least to record that purposeful sound; this is an extension of the well-known idea that humans are the only beings on Earth capable of logic. The ability to make and especially record music further sets humans apart from all other organisms on the planet, which leads to an even heftier superiority complex for humans.
It seems that one of Dj Spooky’s objectives with this book, or “pamphlet” as it is referred to within itself, is to show how connected everyone is to not only everyone but everything else. “People really don’t think about the absolute wonders that surround us and make this life livable and our way of thinking sustainable” (Rhythm 20). He’s trying to convey this interconnectedness of the world with all forms of sampling and possible other forms of music and media communication. Not only is everyone connected to each other, but everything as well. Of course we anthropocentric people would like to be able to separate ourselves from nature, but, as Spooky implies, it is a difficult task since we are all a part of nature regardless as to whether we try to separate ourselves from it or if we fully accept it. The aforementioned quote also plants the seed for Dj Spooky’s seeming disapproval of people’s general anthropocentrism.
When Spooky says “to look for anything to stay the same really is to be caught in a time warp of another era, another place when things stood still and didn’t change so much” (18), he means that things change and nothing can be done about it, much like what occurs in nature. Also, everything in nature is connected to everything else just like how deejaying and sampling is all related. He complicates the metaphor of nature intertwined with deejaying because he often implies that it’s negative that we try to separate ourselves from nature, and yet other times, he implies that it’s fun to play deejay and separate yourself/the deejay from nature and put yourself/the deejay in control of the music at that point in time; this control also allows for power over what could be interpreted as more natural and original. For instance, on page 61, he stated that “Identity is about creating an environment where you can make the world act as your own reflection” (Rhythm). However, even though he notes that we distance ourselves from nature, he distances deejays from nature and from other non-deejays. He’s telling readers that deejays can create their own microcosm, which goes against the idea that we are all one with nature if each deejay can become their own god, in control of all that is present in a space, even if that space is only inhabited by music.
The idea of sustainability within nature is complicated again since Dj Spooky says, “Act global, think local,” which is the opposite of the old sustainability slogan “Think globally, act locally” (Rhythm 113). How can one person act globally unless s/he is famous and has the accessibility to such wide audiences? Perhaps he is just doing his own sampling and remixing of the slogan by mixing up the original to suit his own deejay needs. By thinking locally, it seems that he encourages deejays and other readers to use their own local resources in order to make global statements with their work. And yet, the sustainability metaphor still stands with his next comment: “This is what Dj-ing tells us in the era of the sample…you renew the cloth by repurposing the fabric. That’s recycling” in regards to remixing and sampling and never playing the exact same set of sounds for audiences (Rhythm 113). Sustainability surfaces again within the music realm probably because Dj Spooky is just familiar with it; he makes the connection between recycling and deejaying because he encounters that through his own life.
Spooky continues to focus on the metaphor of the natural concerning music because it makes for a better, according to him, end product. To illustrate, he says that “Hearing a mono signal in this era is about the same as wearing a scarlet letter in another” (Rhythm 49). Again, Dj Spooky constantly references nature in order to draw connections between the natural and the perceived not-so-natural human world. He is saying that the natural way, the way of multiple sounds, is significantly better than the unnatural, the singular sound. On a side note, the natural way, though, is often considered the original way, which is interesting because deejays often sample from the so-called originals (even though everything builds off of everything else); in a roundabout approach, he is inferring that the original is better because nature, the original/where humans originated, is, oftentimes for him, on this pedestal. He asks readers to think about what’s around them and what hasn’t come from civilization and says that it’s very strange that so much of people’s surroundings come from civilization, and says that it’s even stranger how much “we’ve not only accepted this artificially imposed situation, but have actually turned the process into a ‘perceived’ good—is the way we’ve made a fetish and religion (and science, for that matter, and business) of attempting to define ourselves as separate from—even in opposition to—the rest of nature” (“In Through” 7). By using the word “rest” in the phrase “rest of nature”, he implies that we are, indeed, still a part of nature even if we’re trying to break away from it through various methods in our so-called normal lives. Herein lies part of the negative tone toward anthropocentrism. Dj Spooky continues on this path of anthropocentric pessimism:
“The ‘nature versus nurture’ argument has been thrown out the metaphorical window, and on a planet put in parentheses by human-made objects in the sky, the songs we hear are stories we tell ourselves. Civilization isolates all of us, ideologically and physically, from the source of all life—nature. We don’t believe that trees have anything to say to us: not stars, not wolves, not cats, not even our dreams. We’ve been convinced that the world is silent save for civilized human beings and the information we generate.” (“In Through” 7)
Here Spooky’s not saying that people can’t hear nature, but perhaps that they don’t pay attention to or actually listen to nature. He is saying that people put too much emphasis and importance on our own sounds and thoughts and words and not enough on what exists outside of us. Dj Spooky epitomizes his pessimistic views toward those people who don’t believe in the oneness that humans share or should share with nature that have been underlying in much of his writing within Rhythm Science and “In Through the Out Door.”
In the endtroduction of Rhythm Science, the Editorial Director for the Mediawork Pamphlet Series, Peter Lunenfeld, implies that Dj Spooky is an artist “who imagine[s] a better world (Rhythm 125). So, I am not alone in my assumptions that Dj Spooky is at least trying to bring awareness to the topic of sustainability and to the connections we still make with nature even though we often try to separate the two; this is, however, a biased argument since a “better world” doesn’t necessarily refer to oneness with nature and more sustainable practices for everyone.
The Meaning
As previously stated, this natural metaphor referring to sound embedded throughout Dj Spooky’s work implies that music is spatial like the environment in which we live. In this idea that humans do try to separate themselves from nature, Spooky makes the assumption that all humans try to do this. I find it difficult to argue against it since most people live in shelters that often try to block out nature (like the wind, bugs, and precipitation); after all, there are few humans who live like the other animals in the kingdom, one with nature. He also assumes that most people do not want to get closer to nature, which could be true, but that ignores the fact that many people would like to get closer to nature, as signified by the multitudes who enjoy the outdoors and the various outdoor sports like kayaking and hiking.
Throughout these works I have studied in this paper, Dj Spooky carries this pessimistic tone. While discussing the “plagiarist’s club” that Dj Spooky would like to be a part of, he states, “In a world where there are several thousand satellites in the sky constantly beaming down at us information, cell phone relays, GPS signals, and weather patterns, even the idea of light pollution takes on a more than metaphorical value” (“In Through” 5). He has this negative tone embedded within the article directed toward the so-called newness and new technology that he and others are creating from what already exists. This tone shows his slight aversion to newness, which is, again, odd since he, too, creates newness from what already exists. He goes on to mention the “…networks of exchange that pervade our lives from every angle—from the sky, from the fiber optic cables embedded in the earth beneath our feet…” (“In Through” 6). The key term here is “pervade” since it connotes an intrusive relationship between the technologies that we’ve created that help to separate us (humans) from them (nature). The environment is an obvious concern for this deejay.
Dj Spooky’s use of the ecological metaphor illustrates the codependence on life in general that is inherent within music and deejaying. Like he and many others before him have stated, the old can be added to or, in the case of deejaying, sampled from, and made new.
Conclusion
As we have seen, Dj Spooky touches on sustainability and delves into the importance of oneness with nature. Dj Spooky’s work seems to be include concerns of sustainability and bits of the natural environment because he encounters these issues in his daily life, so it is natural for them to permeate his work, whether intentional or unintentional. He is basically saying that we humans are one with nature no matter how much we try to separate ourselves from it and that there is no shame if the music (or whatever) we create reflects that.
Through the countless times Dj Spooky implies the importance of nature and sustainability within his work, he assumes that readers agree with him and that he is preaching to the choir and that they at least already understand what he says. Perhaps he leaves many of these environmental statements open ended on purpose, though, so people like myself, who are searching his work for something in particular, can find it. Oddly, there is no real solution to alleviate Spooky’s pessimism other than to accept that we are all part of nature; thus, he encourages readers to work nature into their own work, as he does.
Both of the articles cited thus far seem to apply to the Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica video located on Dj Spooky’s website. The five-minute-long video is an amalgamation of landscape shots of glacial Antarctica, the earth, shots of a small orchestra that appears to be playing throughout the video, Dj Spooky himself, and seemingly old video presumably out of Antarctica, with classical music forming most of the sound with bits of Dj Spooky speaking. He states during the video that the work is a “meditation about landscape” and that “music is information.” Perhaps most significant is his twice repeated statement that he “want[s] people to think outside of the box about what’s going on with the environment”. He seems to want people to see environmental issues in a different light and perhaps to see the connection between the self-separation of people from nature and the related detriment of the environment. The environmental metaphor serves a dual purpose: it makes the music or work more meaningful and perhaps more easily accessible and it at least attempts to gain conscious awareness for viewers of environmental concerns.
Works Cited
Miller, Paul D. “In Through the Out Door: Sampling and the Creative Act.” Sound
Unbound. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.
---. Rhythm Science. New York: COMA Amsterdam, 2004.
---. “Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica.” 2007. 21 Apr. 2009.
<http://www.djspooky.com/>.
