Hello,
Again, it has been a while. I don't have a camera again so I may have to borrow one to put up what little new work I have. I have been working with music a lot lately, on my own and with a few colleagues. I have new song on my old myspace. the "Dylan Jones" one. It is still well in the works but can give you an idea of what is to come.
I don't know how many of you have been keeping up with Radiohead and their new album/project "inrainbows". Well, I downloaded the album and it isn't my favorite. I really like their less accessible/more dense music, "Amnesiac" being my favorite of theirs. But I did see their New Years Eve webcast, which is incredible. All of the music is from "inrainbows". What happens in the video is so much more captivating than the album itself. Well, that's just my opinion. Anywho, there are shots of the band playing (I think it may actually be footage of them recording the album). There is one where they are outside of the studio on some hill or something. And then there are staged shots and other video with read voice-over. There is a staged shot of the members of the band running with masks on in slow-motion. Attached to the top of the masks is a long string. As they run away from burning text (I'm not sure what it says) the masks are pulled away and reveal their faces. All of this is happening in slow slow slow motion. It's very epic. This scene develops in different parts throughout the webcast.
Well, hopefully this gets you interested enough to see it. I'm not going to try to write about what I think it means. If you would like to talk to me about or have an e-mail conversation, I would be delighted. I'm not a very good writer and no one wants to read 15 paragraphs of me rambling, being redundant.
One thing that it did do for me that will talk about right now is make me think about media. This is a huge idea behind the whole project. They have no record label so they release the album for whatever price you want. The music is available in mp3, vinyl, "webcast" and soon will be available on CD.
This really gives the "myspace" generation hope, doesn't it? We can use the internet for art? Free aret? And people will look at it? And people will learn and grow? This is in the same vein as video projects such as Guerrila TV, Ant Farm and even artists like Nam June Paik: people who saw the problems with television and also the promise that television had. Only Radiohead is bringing it to a larger audience. They are undoubtedly aware that the internet's space is inhabited mainly by porn and, as far as I can tell, social networks like myspace and facebook. The internet and other forms of big media, for the most part, are putting us to sleep. I am tired and I am entertained.
So, I am not extremely pleased with their new album, musically at least. Admitedlly I have not paid enough attention to the lyrics. But Radiohead's attention to media does more than enough for me. They are using the internet for what it should have been used for all along, THE EXCHANGING OF IDEAS/KNOWLEDGE/INFORMATION/ART. This is history, people.
Besides the addressing issues of how media is used in the webcast/the delivery of the album to the listener, all of this addresses how documentation can affect the experience of listening. I was so much more captivated watching the webcast than I was listening to the album. Sight. Sight! What a difference! Seeing people making, seeing the work, seeing the proccess, seeing their personalities vs. hearing the finished product. It seems like the difference would be an obvious one. Well, maybe it is, but nonetheless it shook me. And what a releif that was. Surprise? That feeling of surprise was wonderful. Especially opposed to the "I think that Radiohead has done better than this" reaction I had to the album. And what would have happened if it was on television once? Or if it was just them playing music without the video segments?
The implications all of this has for people, both as users of media and makers of media, are astounding.
Basically, what they are doing is very exciting. They are telling all of us to wake up without holding up signs that say "BAN TV" or "FOX NEWS: BOOOO" or what have you. You can look at it or see it or listen... or not.
Well, this is only the surface, I think. But I just happened to write this impulsively. And I am at work. Take care.

-Dylan Cale Jones