David Bowie Predicts the Good & Unhealthy of the Web in 1999: “We’re on the Cusp of One thing Exhilarating and Terrifying”
“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 Interinternet.
On this quick however fascinating interview with BBC’s stalwart and withering interrogator cum interviewer Jeremy Paxman, Bowie provides a foresolid 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 Internet as a “instrument”– simply a repackaging of an existing medium.
“It’s an alien life kind that simply landed,” Bowie counters.
Bowie, who had arrange his personal bowie.internet 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 Interinternet now has the attract that rock as soon as did.
What Bowie won’t have seen is how fastly that attract would put on off. The Interinternet not has a mystery to it. It’s closer to a public utility, oddly some extent that Bowie makes later when discussing in regards to the invention of the telecellphone.
Bowie additionally accepted of the demystification between the artist and audience that the Interinternet was professionalviding. In his ultimate decade, however, he would hunt down anonymity and privacy, dropping his ultimate two albums suddenly without fanfare and refusing all interviews. He additionally didn’t foresee the type of trolling that sends celebrities and artists off of social media.
Paxman sees the fragmalestation of the Interinternet as a problem; Bowie sees it as a plus.
“The potential of what the Interinternet 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.
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How David Bowie Used William S. Burroughs’ Reduce-Up Methodology to Write His Unforgetdesk Lyrics
Ted Mills is a freelance author on the humanities who curhirely hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podsolid. You may also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, learn his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his movies right here.
