Historical "Ghosts"

The chapter on Robin Rimbaud, aka "Scanner", was mildly interesting. His statement: "My work has always explored the relationship between sound and architectural space and the spaces in between information, places, history, relationships, where one has to fill in the missing parts to complete the picture." seems to sum up the ideas behind his work for me. I looked up some more information about the Scanner and his career and he entered into his later status as dance music innovator through other "avante garde" music styles and experimental film soundtracks. I was first exposed to the Scanner in a documentary I watched about electronic music about 8 years ago but I wanted to find some examples of his work to refresh myself. I couldn't find the "Esprits de Paris" he writes about in the chapter but he has some good work that I did find. His work is more cohesive as "traditional" dance music than many of the experimental musicians we have read about in Sound Unboand, and really quite good...





I also looked up "the cut up method", and William S. Burroughs, who popularized the technique. The cut up technique is achieved literally by taking works and cutting them up, reassembling in new ways. I am posting a 7ish minute clip from a movie of Allan Ginsberg interviewing Burroughs, which demonstrates the cut up method and has some interesting visual "mashup" techniques also. This is a literary technique that I had not heard of previously and it certainly ties into the music technique of sampling other people's work and recombining to make something new and different. The passage that Burrough's reads over the clip is quite intersting, though gritty, and is a "portal" into the historical flavor of "beatnickery" and the mindset that accompanied this brand of artist. The somewhat morbid, angst-ridden, junkie-punk lifestyle seems to lend itself well to the literary style of the cut up...

My opinion on Plunderphonics

John Oswald’s “Plunderphonics” is an essay that discusses sampling and the fine line between borrowing and stealing copyrighted material. The author continuously raises questions to the reader about what is considered legal and illegal in terms of borrowing and creating original work. He uses several examples of artist who, accidentally, created songs that resemble others and had to face legal actions for it. To me, this is a very delicate subject. At what point does an artist know where he is overstepping his boundaries on something that belongs to someone else? As an artist, I would like to consider it impossible to know every single pattern of notes and melody that has ever been created. Of course, I am talking about someone who is legitimately unaware of what he is copying. At least there is the Canada Copyright Act Oswald refers to throughout his essay. I am sure this gives authors a bit of peace of mind on their work and possibly a different means of getting some extra money :)