Showing posts with label DJs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DJs. Show all posts

17 November 2010

DJ Adio at Beachwood Place with Phillip Bimstein's Door music reveal some of the Vibrational Ways of Doors in Augmenting [Limited Forked Theory] Configurable Spaces, including idea spaces, and a fondling of ripples of creation —riding some of those wavy portals



While at Beachwood Place Mall, looking, as usual, for evidence of interaction (such as shadows and reflections), I came upon DJ Adio in a shop window, positioned where both he and his reflection could be seen on two glass planes on which reflections from passersby also temporarily converged, diverged, then converged again on the second plane. A sampling, if you will, of space, of occupancy; a sharing of moment as he spun red discs of music I could not hear.

The sharing of space as reflections converged seemed to be a visual aspect of what the DJ was mixing; persons he did not know, could not see were becoming part of him, walking through his image, enlarging what his image could contain, just as he was enlarging sonic space and sonic meanings.

DJ Adio was functioning as a door, as a bifurcation point, as an entrance and exit point, an access point —and his gestures seemed to be shuffling what was converging, configuring the sonic and visual geometries of the connections. A fantastic door system that I wanted to highlight and explore further with Philip Bimstein's Door music and added vocal tracks expressing and exploring some gist of my observations that were part of the convergence, part of the collaboration.

DJ Adio Door Ways Ghost Relay: an adventure in vibration studies was a poam outcome of an unplanned investigation of a convergence of DJ, reflection, observation, meaning as transit system, the mixing of elements by a DJ in the configuration of a moment.

In this investigation, the movements and gestures took on more context as ripples of experience, shockwaves fanning out from a central event: the DJ's role as an assembler of realities within realities; DJ Adio was acting as a hub into which realities fed, a hub of convergence where he reassembled what converged and transmitted alternate versions, more of the other possibilities for the information that converged in his hub. DJ Adio as relay station, as transformer.

21 September 2010

Poam from DJs

POAM = Product of Acts of Making

I would argue that the great DJs are poets of a different page. You would probably argue back at me, right? But I learned everything I believe about form and rhythm (and love and joy) from DJs. So I'm a true believer. As an apostle of House, I was excited to find this interview with Marshall Jefferson, the DJ who developed Chicago's House music genre in the 1980s.

In this discussion, with the Guardian's Paul Morley and Orlando of Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Jefferson addresses the question of whether the artist who spins in clubs is the oldey timey idea of disc jockey. Musician? Performer? Composer? Artist? The label may not matter to the men and women who are out there innovating. But I think that asking this question opens a window into our perception of the cultural value of artists who create their work outside the academy and without the credentials that come from some kind of accredited institution.

About the interview:
"Marshall Jefferson, who, what with one thing and another, made some records in Chicago in the 80s that, pretty much, helped work out a new form of electronically conceived post-techno anti-disco dance music that ended up being given the name house. He got fed up within a matter of months with the way that electrifying house was being turned into an easily cribbed formula, and helped turn out a zonked, fractured, pretty twisted version of house that got tagged as acid house, which soon flew into cities such as Manchester, where it was accepted and adapted with instant, addicted relish."


Marshall Jefferson, The House Music Anthem


Rachid Baba Ahmed, an Algerian club music innovator, took his art seriously enough to sacrifice himself for its creation. Rachid was killed by religious zealots for making music that they believed was offensive to God (Popular artists allegedly being murdered in Algeria, Sinclair, Abiola. New York Amsterdam News. New York, N.Y.: Oct 26, 1996. Vol. 87, Iss. 43; pg. 5). He was warned. He left Algeria and he kept creating music until he was caught and killed.

Rachid,
thorny beats
draw blood.
Raï, rave and leave.