The inadvertent future

[Mr. Tea]

We have a mass cultural trepidation about the future (hence the rise of reactionaries like corbyn, trump, garage, etc.) which is only beginning to be accommodated by way of the infantile, human, inadvertent future.

Best typo since the 'the evola virus'.

brb, listening to a classic UK Farage comp.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The 'soft, cuddly future' thing reminds me of nothing so much as the vision in WALL-E of a hyper-infantilized humanity with its every need and desire immediately provided for by the Buy'N'Large corporation. Luxury space communism.

 

[sadmanbarty]

the way that 808’s very swiftly went from representing the future in rap (bombattaa et al.) to being just a default part of the landscape speaks to this phenomena. the rise of the south

in terms of the future’s infantilisation, future swag is that in a nutshell. a “future” solely preoccupied with schoolboy humour and wish fulfilment

it’s worth noting that while jamaica has been sonically futurist, that has not presented itself that way thematically very often. in fact even when you have dub (some of the most forward looking music of all time) there is a preoccupation with looking back to biblical times rather than any science fiction.

trump’s presidency is dystopia made manifest. he comes across like a character from some on the nose, near future satire from the 80’s. a bright orange narcissist reality tv star who becomes an authoritarian leader.

usually i’d spend 5 pages solidly berating you for liking something made after 2006, but this thread has suddenly made me realise our differences. as somebody who’s alienated and persecuted by society at large, notions of the anti-humanism and anonymity are a kind of salvation. they’re not just aesthetic ideas, but they’re future’s in which i’d be able to be comfortable for the first time in my life.

this new future you’re talking about once again focusses on the individual. it is a future in which i will forever be anguished. what does this new future have to offer me barty?

this future you’re presenting is castrated and spineless. as such it speaks to liberalisms fundamental rejection of the real world. the momentum of history is sparked in the friction of societal conflict. war and conquest drove innovation. musical culture for the last 100 years has been about antagonistic ethnic and social groups defining themselves in opposition to one another. liberalisms condescending attempts to act as a kind of social lubricant and ease the friction between these groups only goes to nullify culture.

grime was the first instance of this inadvertent futurism in a uk context. it uses sonic language of the future, but firmly situated itself in the present.

i grew up with technology not only as socially-tilted, but to a large degree a surrogate socialisation. porn replaces sex. dissensus and twitter replaces friendship groups. i know the future more than i know the present.

.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Great comment from Leo there - Trump really is like a character from a Paul Verhoeven movie. An imaginary RoboCop 4 where the presidency itself is outsourced to Omni Consumer Products.

 

[sadmanbarty]

nice one leo.

 

[Leo]

Great comment from Leo there - Trump really is like a character from a Paul Verhoeven movie. An imaginary RoboCop 4 where the presidency itself is outsourced to Omni Consumer Products.

hmm...that must be a line I quoted from an article, doubt I'd have come up with something that profound.

 

[sadmanbarty]

in the 70's the future was 1983 a merman i'll be, now it's scrubbing one out to cardi b

.

 

[luka]

What's this thread about then? Jung?

 

[sadmanbarty]

if you swear at siri, it'll get offended. you can ask it to tell you jokes. it is amiable. compare that to the psychopathy of hal in 2001

.

 

[luka]

Is it futurism is overrated the remix?

 

[sadmanbarty]

Is it futurism is overrated the remix?

nah.

 

[thirdform]

Vim thinks he's jettisoned salvation entirely. actually he's just shifted the secular criticism of heaven to the criticism of purgatory. otherwise the need to see the id to come into its own, for a post-neoliberal palingenetic awakening remains. he's just as deluded and involved in psychoanalytic deflections as all of us. he needs to get off his high horse. Stop trying to be alpha.

 

[sadmanbarty]

oi third, if you must slag vim off, it's here.

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=13910&page=3

this thread is for me to use as ammunition when i get grumpy at some point in the future.

 

[luka]

nah.

What is it? What's the game? I'm just going into town for some coffee beans but I'll get involved soon

 

[thirdform]

As for future.

probably detroit techno sounds more future than 93 darkcore to a non-initiate. A lot of this does depend on previously held value sets.

Also corpsey for the love of God I keep telling you Deckard dies. he's an android himself. I don't think this is in the film. the Vangelis sound track is comically new age. it doesn't race like the book at all.

 

[thirdform]

oi third, if you must slag vim off, it's here.

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=13910&page=3

this thread is for me to use as ammunition when i get grumpy at some point in the future.

 

[sadmanbarty]

What is it? What's the game? I'm just going into town for some coffee beans but I'll get involved soon

culture presents us with notions of what the future might hold. there are lots of different ones (religious eschatology, the third reich, etc.), but my focus has so far mainly been on two; one that dominated the 90's and one that dominates the 2010's:


music: jungle vs m!g%s

sci fi: matrix and terminator vs wal e and her

and so on.


this is to try and understand what the new future is that's being presented to us. why is it being presented to us and what impact with that have?


so far i'm saying it's an inadvertent form of futurism. it's more social, more infantile and musically is happening in the mainstream rather than the underground.

 

[thirdform]

breakcore and techstep are closer to bladerunner than ltj bukem or ambient photek.

 

[sadmanbarty]

Pattycakes/incredible string band/pharaoh sanders unease with this is expressed by retreating back into the world of the noble savage. Its anti-future.

avatar is pastoral futurism. it's this disguised as futurism.

(i haven't actually seen it)

 

[thirdform]

close your eyes. imagine you've never seen the city before. does it sound glistening and shiney? does it fuck! it sounds more and more garbled. I'm not sure why an aural form of cognition has been reduced to the fantasies of pictorial artists. Like I said yesterday, internet 2.0 should have given us information overload in music, but apart from people like oneohtrix point never that sort of arty scene it hasn't been done. jungle and early grime did, of course. But rnb has been reduced to a narcotic torpor whilst migos is the age old trick of increasing the economic privilege of a small section of black people whilst still rendering them culturally and sociologically marginal to politically nonexistent. The story of white supremacy in black music even.

Hip hop may not like the cut of whitey's jib, but it sure loves its money.