Better Living Through Circuitry:

I watched an excellent film last night which prompted me to write up a review for your reading pleasure...

Better Living Through Circuitry: A Digital Odyssey into the Electronic Dance Underground

This is a 1999 documentary about the electronic dance community. It features artists such as The Crystal Method, Moby, DJ Spooky and many more. Through interviews between the artists and those that attend raves the viewer is given a detailed understanding of the ethos and perspective of those within the subculture.

(Much to the horror of copyright law) this culture is produced from a combination of sampling and composition. The use of pre-existing material, whether that be visual or auditory, is evident in every aspect of the form. This includes the production of graphics parodying known brand names and designs, kids toys, the videos that accompany the music as well as, of course, the music itself.

DJ Spooky is an artist (and college graduate - philosophy and French literature) who discusses the way artists communicate with their audience:

DJ/audience relationship is a symbiosis; it’s a biological structure... You are sending out information and pulses that the crowd, in a way, then sends back to you. You are ...a focal point of the energy of these gathered people...

I love the idea of continuous sampling..., remixing everything as you go. So writing is just like that. Just like you’re probably going to do edits and cut in twice when you edit this tape. You do that with language, even when you speak you are always picking and choosing what words you are using... [how] you are going to describe something. So everything is a mix. I’m mainly a writer. To me every DJ is a writer. You’re using the urban landscape as your text so everything is writing.

Sampling is like ancestor worship in a way. You’re reconfiguring again the records that somehow stuck in your memory and ...you want to take those records and do your own take on your own memory.

He then briefly considers his relationship with music and philosophy:

Philosophy is about ideas, music is about ideas too; it’s a way of trying to bring the two together. To me the DJ, when you’re spinning, is like a stream of consciousness.

Another of the artists interviewed is Electric Sky Cloud who perform purely instrumental music. In discussing their art they state:

Our language-less philosophy is so that music is not defined by barriers. Language can create barriers. It creates what you are supposed to think about during this song: (eg.) ‘Ohhh baby, baby, I love you sooo’.

Scanner discusses the rise of the do-it-yourself compositional ethos of the subculture and how this has been enabled by technology:

When digital technology became cheaper and accessible, it enabled all of us to be able to go out and for... not many pounds or dollars, to be able to buy a tiny little studio, set up and start recording yourself. And techno music in a sense, when it really kicked off maybe seven or eight years ago, really empowered people again. It empowered a lot of young kids to be able to put their own records out and ignore the major labels and think, ‘we can press 2000 white labels and sell them in a week’.

Heather Heart suggests that the major record labels can’t grasp the art form because it is in a constant state of change.

Another point made in this film is the way that technology frees music from the limits of human ability. Scanner notes that it would not be physically possible to play many of the drum beats and rolls used in techno songs. Similarly, Joe Natoli of Atomic Babies refers to his training as a jazz guitarists and states that traditional forms of composition do not inspire him because of the limitations presented by only having 12 chords to work with. He suggests that the limitless possibilities of techno offer greater opportunities for expression.

Scanner, an artist who uses samples from the airwaves around him in live performances (mobile phones etc), also reflects on the relationship between his art and the notions of private and public spaces, and surveillance. Other artists also discuss how samplers have opened up music to limitless forms.

Another contributor to the film is Genesis P-orridge who’s comments are scattered throughout the film. This artist suggests that digital technologies have created the enthusiasm for taking back the means of production and techno offers a way to take back the means of perception. The artist also talks about how digital technology has emancipated sound making it more malleable.

BT is another artist who is interviewed and he discusses the relationship between techno and indigenous music. He refers to the use of continual stimuli in small frequencies and how this effects brain states. He refers to this as photic and auditory driving. He states that techno is the means by which youth culture in the west have adopted the archaic and ancient methods for achieving states of altered consciousness and celebrating community. The music, dance and environment of raves changes perceptions in time, enables people to transcend the physical and connect on a higher level.

Chris Decker (an Australian) of the Medicine Drum also talks about Earth Dance: The Global Dance Party for Planetary Peace which began in 1996. Twenty one locations around the world conducted simultaneous dance parties which included the playing of one song at the exact same time. The track contained a prayer evoking peace for the plant, for Tibet and for people. The Tibetan organisations in every country were involved in the event with the organisers being granted an audience with the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama commented on the open mindedness and courage of youth to seek and produce change.

This event has continued since then and in 2008 will be held in 60 countries. Last year it was held in three locations in Australia with funds raised going to support international and local charities, illustrating again, the connection between music, politics and social justice.

There were many other worthy aspects to this film such as discussions relating to the use of drugs, police persecution, the emergence of a new spirituality, the desire to express hope rather than despair, the subculture as a lifestyle rather than an occasional event, the equal/dignified treatment of women and others.

The relationship between this form of music and copyright law provides the clearest illustration of the discrepancies between social norms and law. Whilst not covered in this film (see Good Copy Bad Copy) it is evident in every second of the footage. When researching the adoption of Creative Commons licenses for music a year or so ago, one of the things that struck me was, what seemed to me at the time to be an over representation of this form of music (it was just what appeared to be occurring, I do not have specific statistical information). This film highlights why that might be the case. It shows, in context rather than in isolated songs, why sampling is such an important aspect of the sub culture. The natural extrapolation then, for someone like me, is how the law impedes the speech of these artists.

I really enjoyed this film and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the art form.