It always amazes me how much action there is in Vancouver, every time I visit the city I find myself leafing through the Georgia Straight circling a dozen or more events I'd like to check out. I don't know why I always come here thinking I'm going to get work done on projects. In my opinion only Montreal rivals Vancity for accessibility and diversity of culture. This morning I noticed that DJ Spooky, a.k.a Paul D. Miller, is in town for a few days performing two of his multimedia works. Yesterday he screened Rebirth of a Nation "a daring remix" of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, which Miller calls "the DNA of American cinema". Today I caught his talk at SFU's Woodward's School of Contemporary Arts - Sound Unbound : DJ Spooky & the Digital Arts. The title of his 2008 book, Sound Unbound explores the concept of sampling and digital music in the culture of today.
In addition to discussing the history of sampling and the current technological developments influencing mixed media culture (including some very nifty DJ Spooky iphone/ipad aps), Miller described in detail his work Terra Nova : Sinfonia Antarctica. He travelled to Antarctica with a portable studio to film and 'sample' the ice, which he remixes live (with piano and string trio) in this large scale multimedia work. Miller considers Terra Nova propaganda designed to increase climate change literacy and instill a sense in the perceiver that another world is possible. For him, sampling is an art form, and the environment is an archive. "When I went to Antarctica I wanted to hit the reset button on my imagination". This 'refreshing' of the imagination is what a remix accomplishes, by triggering memory (familiar samples) and creating an acoustic portrait of reality. Both truth and fiction can be condensed into a media experience that is either believed or disregarded by the spectator, and this experience is the essence of today's "rip mix burn aesthetic". Although I was familiar with a few DJ Spooky remixes, Miller's writing and multimedia work is new to me, and after listening to his words, seeing his images, and hearing his sounds, I instantly became a huge fan. Terra Nova shows tomorrow (Saturday April 9th) at the Chan Center for the Performing Arts on the UBC campus.
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