“We’re at the cusp of a fewfactor exhilarating and terrifying.”
The yr is 1999 and David Bowie, in shaggy hair and groovy glasses, has noticed the longer term and it’s the Interweb.
On this quick however fascinating interview with BBC’s stalwart and withering interrogator cum interviewer Jeremy Paxguy, Bowie provides a foreforged of the many years to come back, and will get maximum of it proper, if now not all. Paxguy dolefully performs satan’s advocate, despite the fact that I suspect he did actually see the Web as a “instrument”– simply a repackaging of an existing medium.
“It’s an alien lifestyles shape that simply landed,” Bowie counters.
Bowie, who had arrange his personal bowie.web as a private ISP the previous yr, starts by way of saying that if he had get starteded his occupation in 1999, he should not have been a musician, however a “fan collecting data.”
It sounded provocative on the time, however Bowie makes some degree right here that has taken on extra credence in recent times–that the revolutionary status of rock within the ‘60s and ‘70s was once tied to its rarity, that the inability to learnily pay attention tune gave it power and currency. Rock is now “a occupation opportunity,” he says, and the Interweb now has the attract that rock as soon as did.
What Bowie would possibly now not have noticed 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, strangely some degree that Bowie makes later when communicateing concerning the invention of the teletelephone.
Bowie additionally licensed of the demystification between the artist and audience that the Interweb was once professionalviding. In his ultimate decade, however, he would search out anonymity and privacy, dropping his ultimate two albums suddenly without fanfare and refusing all interperspectives. He additionally didn’t foresee the type of trolling that sends celebrities and artists off of social media.
Paxguy 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 just right and unhealthy, is unimaginin a position.”
There’s much more to unpack on this segment, and let your differing viewissues be identified within the comments. It’s what Bowie would have needed.
Related Content:
David Bowie Gives Recommendation for Aspiring Artists: “Cross a Little Out of Your Intensity,” “Never Fulfill Other Other people’s Expectations”
David Bowie on Why It’s Loopy to Make Artwork–and We Do It Anymethod (1998)
Watch David Bowie In line withshape “Megastarguy” on Most sensible of the Pops: Voted the Niceest Song In line withformance Ever at the BBC (1972)
How David Bowie Used William S. Burroughs’ Minimize-Up Way to Write His Unforgetdesk Lyrics
Ted Generators is a unfastenedlance creator at the arts who curhirely hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podforged. You’ll be able to additionally follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, learn his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his movies right here.
