DJ Spooky spoke with Minnesota Public Radio's Mary Lucia. He told her about the book "Rhythm Science” and its companion CD which features rare recordings of such writers as James Joyce and Gertrude Stein.
The art of the DJ has changed a great deal in recent years. With the advent of digital sampling the DJ has gone from spinning disks to creating sonic mosaics that constitute whole new works of art. The MIT press has just published a book about D-J-ing called "Rhythm Science." It's written by Paul D. Miller, better known to dance fans as DJ Spooky. He's in the Twin Cities tonight to talk at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art at the University of Minnesota.
Transcripts
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DJ SPOOKY: Well, a lot of my recent projects have been about this idea of thinking about DJing as media literacy for the 21st century. And what I'm fascinated with is, here we are in your studio, and there's all these computers around. The listeners out there, this is a pretty heavyweight, high-tech scene here.
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER 2: It is?
DJ SPOOKY: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's a great thing to just think of contemporary radio, DJing, you name it, as an art form in its own right because you're selecting, and picking, and choosing all these bits and pieces, and giving it structure.
SPEAKER 3: Dictionary of a language in which each word would be translated into French order by several words, when necessary, by a whole sentence.
SPEAKER 2: The thing about, I think, the people think or consider when they think of DJs' primary goal is to get people to move. And you might also share that. But also, I think you want a little bit more from people to hear your stuff. What do you want people to get from it?
DJ SPOOKY: Well, I have a phrase, thinking is dancing too.
SPEAKER 3: Or others and sentences makes this dictionary by means of cards.
DJ SPOOKY: How should I put it? I love this idea of sampling as creating your own language, your own sentences, your own story. So with the book, each mix was kind of an example. And so there's the website rhythm, science.com, which has how to think about remixing, and sampling, and taking bits and pieces of beats and records, and how do you make tracks. But also, it's got a lot of essays about art and sampling as an art form.
[ELECTRONIC MUSIC]
SPEAKER 4: If I told him a completed portrait of Picasso? If I told him, would he like it? Would he like it if I told him?
DJ SPOOKY: This is Gertrude Stein mixed with a kind of Wu-Tang Clan beat of a friend of mine, DJ Wally. And this is the audio companion to my book, Rhythm Science. Gertrude Stein's reading about drawing a portrait of Picasso. And with Gertrude Stein, you have to-- she had all this repetition in her voice and the way she would speak. But the funny thing is it's, to me, the literary precedent for hip hop.
SPEAKER 4: Would he like it if I told him? Now, not now, and now. Now, exactly as as kings, feeling full for it, exactitude as things. So to beseech you as full as for it.
SPEAKER 2: That's very interesting because that was Gertrude Stein, "If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso," with DJ Wally, Zeta Reticuli. And DJ Spooky is with us. And we were just saying, just as that track was playing, it's interesting because you don't really often know what a writer's, literally what their voice sounds like. And you just interpret that, their voice, by their writing. And you found that-- you said that you got this rare James Joyce recording.
DJ SPOOKY: Yeah, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp. The record ends with Patti Smith. What I did was find really what I felt like good visual. The writers would tell their own story, but you were able to either visualize it in a way that made sense, that you could mix it with beats or rhythms. Or, it would tell a story that I thought would highlight the idea of reading instead of not just-- instead of reading a book, you're reading a record.
SPEAKER 5: Well, you know or don't you, kennet? Or haven't I told you? Every telling has a taling, and that's the he and the she of it. Look, look, the dust is growing. My branches lofty are taking root. And my cold cher's gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at? It saon is late. 'Tis endless now senne eye.
DJ SPOOKY: What I did with the book was try and think of 21st century art. What's going happening, with multimedia, digital culture, all these kind of issues popping up. And so what I'm going to be doing tonight is kind of unpacking some of the elements of the book as a live remix lecture.
[ELECTRONIC MUSIC]