Rhythm Science (Mediaworks Pamphlets) [Paperback]

Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 026263287X | ISBN-13: 978-0262632874 | Publication Date: March 19, 2004 | Edition: 1st

"Once you get into the flow of things, you're always haunted by the way that things could have turned out. This outcome, that conclusion. You get my drift. The uncertainty is what holds the story together, and that's what I'm going to talk about."--Rhythm ScienceThe conceptual artist Paul Miller, also known as Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid, delivers a manifesto for rhythm science -- the creation of art from the flow of patterns in sound and culture, "the changing same." Taking the Dj's mix as template, he describes how the artist, navigating the innumerable ways to arrange the mix of cultural ideas and objects that bombard us, uses technology and art to create something new and expressive and endlessly variable. Technology provides the method and model; information on the web, like the elements of a mix, doesn't stay in one place. And technology is the medium, bridging the artist's consciousness and the outside world.Miller constructed his Dj Spooky persona ("spooky" from the eerie sounds of hip-hop, techno, ambient, and the other music that he plays) as a conceptual art project, but then came to see it as the opportunity for "coding a generative syntax for new languages of creativity." For example: "Start with the inspiration of George Herriman's Krazy Kat comic strip. Make a track invoking his absurd landscapes... What do tons and tons of air pressure moving in the atmosphere sound like? Make music that acts a metaphor for that kind of immersion or density." Or, for an online "remix" of two works by Marcel Duchamp: "I took a lot of his material written on music and flipped it into a DJ mix of his visual material -- with him rhyming!"Tracing the genealogy of rhythm science, Miller cites sources and influences as varied as Ralph Waldo Emerson ("all minds quote"), Grandmaster Flash, W. E. B Dubois, James Joyce, and Eminem. "The story unfolds while the fragments coalesce," he writes.Miller's textual provocations are designed for maximum visual and tactile seduction by the international studio COMA (Cornelia Blatter and Marcel Hermans). They sustain the book's motifs of recontextualizing and relayering, texts and images bleed through from page to page, creating what amount to 2.5 dimensional vectors. From its remarkable velvet flesh cover, to the die cut hole through the center of the book, which reveals the colored nub holding in place the included audio CD, Rhythm Science: Excerpts and Allegories from the Sub Rosa Archives, this pamphlet truly lives up to Editorial Director Peter Lunenfeld's claim that the Mediawork Pamphlets are "theoretical fetish objects... 'zines for grown-ups."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

DJ/conceptual artist/author Paul Miller's pseudonym is at once an arcane reference to William S. Burroughs's Nova Express and a childlike recognition of the sometimes eerie, disembodied sounds he gathers—an immediate indicator of the gleeful enthusiasm with which both his "mixes" and his first book juxtapose cultures high and low, new and old, avant-garde and "street." Son of Howard University's dean of law (who died when Miller was three) and a mother who ran an international fabric shop off Dupont Circle, Miller spent much of his childhood in Washington, D.C.'s nurturing bohemia before studying philosophy and literature at Bowdoin. That his thesis was on Richard Wagner—whose theory of gestamtkunstwerk (the total art work) presages much of today's "new media" revolution—is no surprise. The emerging aesthetic he describes is one in which the proliferating technologies of sampling and studio manipulation have eroded the distinction between music's producers and consumers. From "dub" in Jamaica to the turntablism of the South Bronx, how music was manipulated by listeners after the fact has become as important as how it was "originally" made. The range of reference Miller brings to his description of these phenomena reaches back to Vico and Emerson and forward to Eminem, giving "DJ culture" the broad contextualization its innovations have long warranted. Though much of what Miller describes is hardly new either to listeners or practitioners, his insights as a practicing and successful DJ are fresh and unpretentious. The enclosed CD, an expert full-length mix that moves from Artaud to Morton Feldman, then Patti Smith without blinking, paradoxically points out that Miller is still a better DJ than writer; its effortless juxtapositions cohere in a way his text (including 45 minimalist illustrations) rarely manages. But even such writer/musicians as John Fahey and Glenn Gould rarely accomplished that, and Miller has certainly earned a place in their company.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"It wouldn't much surprise me if DJ Spooky invigorates the intellectual world someday as Professor Spooky or even Chancellor Spooky." Bruce Sterling, author of The Hacker Crackdown and Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years

"A densely allusive manifesto that is itself an objet d'art with a die-cut cover and a Dj Spooky sampler CD." Josh Glenn Boston Sunday Globe

"... [A] huge leap for the culture of the now. It's software for your head. Upgrade your grey matter." Roy Christopher Slap

"In Rhythm Science Miller remixes sounds and ideas with equal dexterity. A new vibe for a new world." John Akomfrah , film director

"Miller gets his points across in novel and affecting ways....a singular voice." Larry Blumenfeld Jazziz

"Miller raises compelling questions about the philosophy behind the DJ mix and the role the DJ plays in society." Doree Shafrir Philadelphia Weekly

"Miller's insights as a practicing and successful DJ are fresh and unpretentious." Publisher's Weekly

"...Rhythm Science is a compelling book written by a formidable intellect...a pivotally important manifesto for DJs." Christian Carey Splendid

"The writing drifts easily, while cool design from COMA and a CD round out the package...." Anne York Res Magazine

"We've ended the century of broadcast culture—when manufacturers produced the culture we consume. In this brilliant and beautiful book, Paul Miller gives us the rhythm of sampled culture—culture created by those who can remix, and by technologies that enable anyone to remix. Rhythm Science is science; it is art; it is the story of how freedom would build better science and art. Dark, with bright flashes, in tempo, with syncopation, it is a companion to the next stage, if we're allowed that next stage despite law that would keep us locked in the past." Lawrence Lessig , Stanford Law School, author of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World

"In *Rhythm Science* Miller remixes sounds and ideas with equal dexterity. A new vibe for a new world."--John Akomfrah, film director

"Paul Miller has got the brilliant negro thang down cold. This is a meditation on music and self in which Paul plays with words much the way DJ Spooky plays with sound."-- Touré, author of *The Portable Promised Land*

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1st edition (March 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 026263287X
• ISBN-13: 978-0262632874
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Recording & Sound

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Wave Scholarship, April 29, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Rhythm Science (Mediaworks Pamphlets) (Paperback)

This is a pathbreaking work; surely a future classic. Using the DJ as a model for new patterns of creativity in our culture, DJ Spooky suggests that "the selection of sound becomes narrative." Creativity is in the mix of old and exisiting texts (written, aural, visual) rather than in the invention of new ones. Paradoxically, in the mix something new IS created.

This book shows that theory can be written almost poetically. A rare thing: theory that is as artistic as the art it describes. The accompanying CD of 33 songs is terrific: standout moments include James Joyce reading from Finnegans Wake mixed with Oval vs Yoshihiro Hanno and William S. Burroughs reading from The Five Steps mixed with Scanner Fuse. Patti Smith ain't bad, either.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 stars +, June 19, 2005

By 

Bitform 5000 (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rhythm Science (Mediaworks Pamphlets) (Paperback)

Look people: Rhythm Science is about mixing art and sound. The book
is totally readable and accessible, and either people have a reading
level of a 2nd grade student or something, or they just don't get
theory stuff, or maybe they're just stupid. The reason the book is
great is that it draws together writing and music like a dj would and
should: with rhythm. Spooky mixes words and texts in the book like a
mix CD, and the CD that goes with the book is a kind of audio
companion. They are both pretty amazing, and they compliment each
other nicely. It's annoying to see people always come off
conservative and dumb when this is obviously an "avant garde" kind of
book. Come on people: it's not Martha Stewart telling you how to dj -
but you'd think that alot of the reviews are. People always want
something simple, and Spooky never does that. That's why this is an
amazing book. Think of the early Dada manifestoes (even Kurt
Schwitters is on the mix CD!), think of the early Surrealist
manifestoes of Andre Breton or Jean Cocteau, and then fast forward to
now. Digital media and cut culture blur all of these things together
- art, music, and writing, and Paul D. Miller a.k.a. Dj Spooky gets
that. The problem is it seems like he's ahead of alot of people who
don't. The book shows why.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lyricism in the age of the mix, June 10, 2005

By 

J. Mark Inman (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rhythm Science (Mediaworks Pamphlets) (Paperback)

This book is not just a book, it is poetry, music and artwork all rolled into a unique look at copy culture and the mix. DJ Spooky transends the traditional notions of mix by including artists like Boulez and Debussy as well as other DJs typically associated with the genre. Using the words and voices of authors and poets like Gertrude Stein and James Joyce on the CD, Spooky reveals his theory of rhythm science explaned in the book and decodes, deconstructs and creates new through found objects.