Jesse Stewart | Carleton University (original) (raw)
Papers by Jesse Stewart
Music and Medicine
In this paper, we discuss some uncommon settings and roles for music, demonstrating how music can... more In this paper, we discuss some uncommon settings and roles for music, demonstrating how music can aid in the design and implementation of socially responsible healthcare products that are encouraging, inclusive, and sensitive to critical contexts. We review three music-inspired design cases (CareTunes: Musical Alarms for Critical Care, Music and Senior Exercise, and We Are All Musicians and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument) in which the authors took part. The literature review and the analysis of the case studies provide us with the following insights: music enhances sensory experiences, facilitates physical engagement with the world, music can guide medical professionals in critical contexts, and music creates social cohesion. All of these projects demonstrate the importance of involving participants (users or performers) in the process to address their life experiences. Thus, the use of music in design applications is experienced as a positive influence that can facilitate wel...
The Poetics of Engagement: Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, Mar 13, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic turned the music industry upside-down overnight and impacted music-making a... more The COVID-19 pandemic turned the music industry upside-down overnight and impacted music-making at all levels. In these special issues, we invited musicians, performers, scholars, arts presenters, and other cultural workers to reflect on the extraordinary challenges posed by the pandemic and to begin envisaging a post-pandemic musical landscape. The struggles to maintain connection and the unquantifiable intimacies of exchange that characterize live music at its best are counterpoised against, but also enacted via, the new necrophonics––or sounds made within, and in spite of, moribund, dying spaces––the pandemic has exposed. Improvisation, in this context, becomes even more salient as a practice of adaptation and resistance to the newly emergent norms. This volume is a start at assembling diverse voices that move from first principles to direct action, and we emphasize the remarkable scope of pragmatic, grassroots solutions proposed by contributors across a significant range of voices and experiences. We argue for a fundamental first principle in which direct actions that support the allocation of resources to the creative commons be lateralized to avoid top-down forms that limit access to, and use of, precious public commons resources
Jesse Stewart : Time Pieces
Improvised Dissonance: Opening Statements
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2004
Miller-better known as DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid-has created a manifesto of sorts for the dig... more Miller-better known as DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid-has created a manifesto of sorts for the digital age. Titled "Rhythm Science," this book (his first) draws on a vast array of theoretical, historical, and autobiographical information in discussing the art of digital sampling and in broadly contextualizing Miller's multi-facetted career as a DJ, conceptual artist, and author. In my view, Miller's book can be rightfully included in the burgeoning body of literature on improvisation for at least two reasons. Throughout Rhythm Science, Miller positions DJ culture in relation to a variety of improvisatory musical traditions associated with the African diaspora -traditions that might (after George Lewis) be referred to as "Afrological." In a chapter entitled "The New Griots," for example, Miller likens DJ culture to the African griot tradition of storytelling through music. "The best Djs are griots," he asserts "and whether their stories are conscious or unconscious, narratives are implicit in the sampling idea. Every story leads to another story to another story to another story" (21). Elsewhere, he suggests that digital sampling returns us to the metaphor of the crossroads so prevalent in African American blues culture, "that space where everyone could play the same song but flipped it every which way until it became 'their own sound.' In jazz," he continues "it's the fluid process of 'call and response' between the players of an ensemble. These are the predecessors of the mixing board metaphor for how we live and think in this age of information" (24). Miller goes on to suggest that his recordings Optometry and Dubtometry represent a "strategic side-step into jazz," noting that Optometry " plays with the historical mystique of the jazzman, remixed through digital media. The vibe on this is 'sampling as a new form of jazz'" (53). He refers to sampled music as 'cybernetic jazz' several times throughout the book. "Who speaks through you" Miller asks repeatedly. A remarkable number of voices speak through Miller, as he samples the work of theorists ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Gilles Deleuze, from W.E.B. Du Bois to Paul Gilroy. "For the most part," Miller reminds us, "creativity rests in how you recontextualize the previous expression of others" (33). To his credit, Miller seems to root his theoretical recontextualizations in musical examples drawn from the African diaspora, matching everything else to their rhythms and systems of logic. Miller seems to recognize, implicitly at least, that Afrological improvisatory forms-whether the African griot tradition, the blues crossroads, or jazz call and response-represent not only trenchant musical precedents, but also incisive theoretical models for digital sampling and for his own
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2007
Improvising percussionist and visual artist Jesse Stewart converses with renowned artist, film ma... more Improvising percussionist and visual artist Jesse Stewart converses with renowned artist, film maker, and improviser Michael Snow. Snow's relationship to improvisation began with his early roots in swing, his presence in the New York loft scene of the 1960s, and his involvement with two influential improvisation ensembles in Toronto: the Artists' Jazz Band, and CCMC. Stewart asks Snow about the role of improvised music in his broader arts practice.
Articulating a Hip-Hop Sampling Aesthetic through Film
Sampling Media, 2014
Engaging Academic Activism, a Preface
Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 2007
... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/10714410701291095 Ben Authers, Eli... more ... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/10714410701291095 Ben Authers, Elizabeth Groeneveld, Elizabeth Jackson, Ingrid Mündel ... For example, Aruna Srivastava describes the ways in which racist and sexist ideologies function in academic contexts, shaping ...
Intermédialités: Histoire et théorie des arts, des lettres et des techniques, 2010
This essay examines cyclical rhythmic structures drawn from several musical traditions rooted in ... more This essay examines cyclical rhythmic structures drawn from several musical traditions rooted in the African diaspora, focusing on “diatonic rhythms” and on what saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman coined “nested looping structures.” Such rhythmic structures can be regarded not only as retentions of African musical and cultural heritage, but also as a model to understand threads of continuity that exist between many of the disparate musics and cultures that have shared African roots, but radically altered by the passage of time, cross-cultural contact and musical hybridity. Furthermore, the author argues that diatonic rhythms and nested looping structures can provide a means of actively articulating connections between different diasporic musical traditions as evidenced by some of Steve Coleman’s musical collaborations, including his pioneering work from the mid-1990s with Metrics.
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2021
Note to Volume Two Introduction This double issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études c... more Note to Volume Two Introduction This double issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation (CSI-ÉCI) on "Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic" is the second of two volumes comprising three special issues in total. Our second volume includes the introduction from the previous issue, slightly altered to reflect new developments in the weeks since we published the first volume, as well as new writing that provides an overview of the contents of this volume specifically. Readers who have read the introduction to volume one and would like to proceed directly to the volume two-specific introduction, "Viral Contagions and the Dream of Liveness," may do so by following this link. CSI-ÉCI is also pleased to present six general topics book reviews, which can be found immediately following the contents of the special issue.
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2014
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an influential strain of alternative hip hop known as "ja... more In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an influential strain of alternative hip hop known as "jazz-rap" emerged. As the term implies, jazz-rap frequently incorporates elements of jazz, either through recorded samples or through live instrumentation. In addition, jazz-rap is often characterized by politically-oriented, socially progressive lyrics. This essay examines the jazz-rap trend of the early 1990s, focusing in particular on early recordings by jazz-rap pioneers Stetsasonic, Gang Starr, and Guru, and on the 1994 compilation album Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool and the roughly contemporaneous film of the same name, both of which document a historic convergence of hip hop and jazz musicians in support of AIDS research.
Academic interest in musical improvisation has increased signifcantly in recent years. This is ev... more Academic interest in musical improvisation has increased signifcantly in recent years. This is evidenced not only by the increasing number of publications focused on improvisation, but also by the growing number of improvisers to have received academic appointments at major universities. In this essay, I examine the changing historical relationships between musical improvisation and the academy, as well as some of the implications of those relationships for both the academy and the feld of musical improvisation itself.
This article discusses two performances that used the movement-to-music technology known as the &... more This article discusses two performances that used the movement-to-music technology known as the "Adaptive Use Musical Instrument" or AUMI to allow differently-abled participants to collaborate with one another: (Un)Rolling the Boulder: Improvising New Communities, a multimedia, mixed-ability improvisation that was staged at the University of Kansas in October 2013 and Turning the Page, an interdisciplinary musical theatre piece premiered in Ottawa, Canada in April 2014. We theorize these performances as examples of "AUMI-Futurism”, combining insights gleaned from two different sources: the Afrofuturist philosophy of composer, improviser, and bandleader Sun Ra, and the work of disability studies scholar Alison Kafer. This essay examines the collaborative, improvisatory processes that surrounded (Un)Rolling the Boulder and Turning the Page, focusing in particular on the role that the AUMI software played in imagining and performing new communities. Keywords Adaptive Use...
Improvisation Among the Discourses
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2014
In this essay, originally delivered as the opening keynote address at the 2012 edition of the Gue... more In this essay, originally delivered as the opening keynote address at the 2012 edition of the Guelph Jazz Festival, improvising percussionist and improviser Jesse Stewart reflects on his own experiences as both a student and teacher of improvised music, using those experiences as a way of opening discussion about the ways in which improvisation pedagogy might intersect with the ideas of social justice and social responsibility.
Musicultures, Feb 5, 2013
In this essay, the author examines Keepintime: Talking Drums and Whispering Vinyl, a thirteen-min... more In this essay, the author examines Keepintime: Talking Drums and Whispering Vinyl, a thirteen-minute award-winning film that documents a musical encounter between three hip hop turntablists and three session drummers that took place in Los Angeles in the year 2000. Through a close reading and analysis of the film, the essay explores the musical, cultural, and discursive terrain that connects the musical traditions represented therein, critically examining issues surrounding the African diaspora, identity formation, cultural memory, as well as trans-and inter-cultural exchange. H ip hop documentary filmmaking has a lengthy history that dates back to Style Wars, a 1983 film about graffiti writing and early hip hop culture. With the widespread availability and relative affordability of digital video cameras since the late 1990s, increasing numbers of hip hop artists and enthusiasts are documenting different facets of hip hop culture themselves in films such as The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy (2002), Breath Control: The History of the Human Beat Box (2002), and Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (2003) which document the history of B-boying/B-girling, beatboxing, and improvised MC-ing or freestyling, respectively. 1 Such films have played an important role in historicizing, representing, and constructing hip hop culture and hip hop identities, often providing a much needed corrective to mainstream representations of hip hop which tend to focus on the more sensational and antagonistic aspects of the culture. This paper examines one hip hop documentary, in particular a film titled Keepintime: Talking Drums and Whispering Vinyl that documents an encounter between three hip hop turntablists and three drumming elders. The sense of musical, cultural, and generational dialogue that animates the film provides a resonant point of entry into issues and debates surrounding African diasporic musical practices and filmic representations. Keepintime raises a number of
Gordon Monahan : Music From Everywhere
Jesse Stewart : Wheels of Time
‘Intervections’
Contemporary Music Review, 2010
Several interrelated developments have radically affected the musical and cultural landscape over... more Several interrelated developments have radically affected the musical and cultural landscape over the past century, shaping conceptions of ‘new’ music in profound ways. These include: the development and proliferation of sound recording technologies and electronic methods of sound production/reproduction; increased contact between musical traditions and systems of musical logic from previously disparate cultural and social locations; the re-emergence of real-time modes of music-making in Western music after an almost complete absence of nearly 150 years; a great expansion in the range of sonic resources available to creative practitioners; the breakdown of old cultural hierarchies including such artificial constructs as ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultures. Drawing on my experiences as a composer, improviser, and sound artist, I examine the social, musical, and ideological implications of these musical/cultural vectors, as well as the ways in which they intersect with one another in the field of contemporary music.
DJ Spooky and the Politics of Afro-Postmodernism
Black Music Research Journal, 2010
... Performing Identity in an Era of "Multiplex Consciousness". ... However, Mi... more ... Performing Identity in an Era of "Multiplex Consciousness". ... However, Miller is careful to root his theoretical remix, and his own "multiplex consciousness" as DJ Spooky, in musical and conceptual frameworks drawn from the African diaspora, matching everything else to their ...
Music and Medicine
In this paper, we discuss some uncommon settings and roles for music, demonstrating how music can... more In this paper, we discuss some uncommon settings and roles for music, demonstrating how music can aid in the design and implementation of socially responsible healthcare products that are encouraging, inclusive, and sensitive to critical contexts. We review three music-inspired design cases (CareTunes: Musical Alarms for Critical Care, Music and Senior Exercise, and We Are All Musicians and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument) in which the authors took part. The literature review and the analysis of the case studies provide us with the following insights: music enhances sensory experiences, facilitates physical engagement with the world, music can guide medical professionals in critical contexts, and music creates social cohesion. All of these projects demonstrate the importance of involving participants (users or performers) in the process to address their life experiences. Thus, the use of music in design applications is experienced as a positive influence that can facilitate wel...
The Poetics of Engagement: Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, Mar 13, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic turned the music industry upside-down overnight and impacted music-making a... more The COVID-19 pandemic turned the music industry upside-down overnight and impacted music-making at all levels. In these special issues, we invited musicians, performers, scholars, arts presenters, and other cultural workers to reflect on the extraordinary challenges posed by the pandemic and to begin envisaging a post-pandemic musical landscape. The struggles to maintain connection and the unquantifiable intimacies of exchange that characterize live music at its best are counterpoised against, but also enacted via, the new necrophonics––or sounds made within, and in spite of, moribund, dying spaces––the pandemic has exposed. Improvisation, in this context, becomes even more salient as a practice of adaptation and resistance to the newly emergent norms. This volume is a start at assembling diverse voices that move from first principles to direct action, and we emphasize the remarkable scope of pragmatic, grassroots solutions proposed by contributors across a significant range of voices and experiences. We argue for a fundamental first principle in which direct actions that support the allocation of resources to the creative commons be lateralized to avoid top-down forms that limit access to, and use of, precious public commons resources
Jesse Stewart : Time Pieces
Improvised Dissonance: Opening Statements
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2004
Miller-better known as DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid-has created a manifesto of sorts for the dig... more Miller-better known as DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid-has created a manifesto of sorts for the digital age. Titled "Rhythm Science," this book (his first) draws on a vast array of theoretical, historical, and autobiographical information in discussing the art of digital sampling and in broadly contextualizing Miller's multi-facetted career as a DJ, conceptual artist, and author. In my view, Miller's book can be rightfully included in the burgeoning body of literature on improvisation for at least two reasons. Throughout Rhythm Science, Miller positions DJ culture in relation to a variety of improvisatory musical traditions associated with the African diaspora -traditions that might (after George Lewis) be referred to as "Afrological." In a chapter entitled "The New Griots," for example, Miller likens DJ culture to the African griot tradition of storytelling through music. "The best Djs are griots," he asserts "and whether their stories are conscious or unconscious, narratives are implicit in the sampling idea. Every story leads to another story to another story to another story" (21). Elsewhere, he suggests that digital sampling returns us to the metaphor of the crossroads so prevalent in African American blues culture, "that space where everyone could play the same song but flipped it every which way until it became 'their own sound.' In jazz," he continues "it's the fluid process of 'call and response' between the players of an ensemble. These are the predecessors of the mixing board metaphor for how we live and think in this age of information" (24). Miller goes on to suggest that his recordings Optometry and Dubtometry represent a "strategic side-step into jazz," noting that Optometry " plays with the historical mystique of the jazzman, remixed through digital media. The vibe on this is 'sampling as a new form of jazz'" (53). He refers to sampled music as 'cybernetic jazz' several times throughout the book. "Who speaks through you" Miller asks repeatedly. A remarkable number of voices speak through Miller, as he samples the work of theorists ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Gilles Deleuze, from W.E.B. Du Bois to Paul Gilroy. "For the most part," Miller reminds us, "creativity rests in how you recontextualize the previous expression of others" (33). To his credit, Miller seems to root his theoretical recontextualizations in musical examples drawn from the African diaspora, matching everything else to their rhythms and systems of logic. Miller seems to recognize, implicitly at least, that Afrological improvisatory forms-whether the African griot tradition, the blues crossroads, or jazz call and response-represent not only trenchant musical precedents, but also incisive theoretical models for digital sampling and for his own
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2007
Improvising percussionist and visual artist Jesse Stewart converses with renowned artist, film ma... more Improvising percussionist and visual artist Jesse Stewart converses with renowned artist, film maker, and improviser Michael Snow. Snow's relationship to improvisation began with his early roots in swing, his presence in the New York loft scene of the 1960s, and his involvement with two influential improvisation ensembles in Toronto: the Artists' Jazz Band, and CCMC. Stewart asks Snow about the role of improvised music in his broader arts practice.
Articulating a Hip-Hop Sampling Aesthetic through Film
Sampling Media, 2014
Engaging Academic Activism, a Preface
Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 2007
... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/10714410701291095 Ben Authers, Eli... more ... View full textDownload full text Full access. DOI: 10.1080/10714410701291095 Ben Authers, Elizabeth Groeneveld, Elizabeth Jackson, Ingrid Mündel ... For example, Aruna Srivastava describes the ways in which racist and sexist ideologies function in academic contexts, shaping ...
Intermédialités: Histoire et théorie des arts, des lettres et des techniques, 2010
This essay examines cyclical rhythmic structures drawn from several musical traditions rooted in ... more This essay examines cyclical rhythmic structures drawn from several musical traditions rooted in the African diaspora, focusing on “diatonic rhythms” and on what saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman coined “nested looping structures.” Such rhythmic structures can be regarded not only as retentions of African musical and cultural heritage, but also as a model to understand threads of continuity that exist between many of the disparate musics and cultures that have shared African roots, but radically altered by the passage of time, cross-cultural contact and musical hybridity. Furthermore, the author argues that diatonic rhythms and nested looping structures can provide a means of actively articulating connections between different diasporic musical traditions as evidenced by some of Steve Coleman’s musical collaborations, including his pioneering work from the mid-1990s with Metrics.
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2021
Note to Volume Two Introduction This double issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études c... more Note to Volume Two Introduction This double issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation (CSI-ÉCI) on "Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic" is the second of two volumes comprising three special issues in total. Our second volume includes the introduction from the previous issue, slightly altered to reflect new developments in the weeks since we published the first volume, as well as new writing that provides an overview of the contents of this volume specifically. Readers who have read the introduction to volume one and would like to proceed directly to the volume two-specific introduction, "Viral Contagions and the Dream of Liveness," may do so by following this link. CSI-ÉCI is also pleased to present six general topics book reviews, which can be found immediately following the contents of the special issue.
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2014
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an influential strain of alternative hip hop known as "ja... more In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an influential strain of alternative hip hop known as "jazz-rap" emerged. As the term implies, jazz-rap frequently incorporates elements of jazz, either through recorded samples or through live instrumentation. In addition, jazz-rap is often characterized by politically-oriented, socially progressive lyrics. This essay examines the jazz-rap trend of the early 1990s, focusing in particular on early recordings by jazz-rap pioneers Stetsasonic, Gang Starr, and Guru, and on the 1994 compilation album Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool and the roughly contemporaneous film of the same name, both of which document a historic convergence of hip hop and jazz musicians in support of AIDS research.
Academic interest in musical improvisation has increased signifcantly in recent years. This is ev... more Academic interest in musical improvisation has increased signifcantly in recent years. This is evidenced not only by the increasing number of publications focused on improvisation, but also by the growing number of improvisers to have received academic appointments at major universities. In this essay, I examine the changing historical relationships between musical improvisation and the academy, as well as some of the implications of those relationships for both the academy and the feld of musical improvisation itself.
This article discusses two performances that used the movement-to-music technology known as the &... more This article discusses two performances that used the movement-to-music technology known as the "Adaptive Use Musical Instrument" or AUMI to allow differently-abled participants to collaborate with one another: (Un)Rolling the Boulder: Improvising New Communities, a multimedia, mixed-ability improvisation that was staged at the University of Kansas in October 2013 and Turning the Page, an interdisciplinary musical theatre piece premiered in Ottawa, Canada in April 2014. We theorize these performances as examples of "AUMI-Futurism”, combining insights gleaned from two different sources: the Afrofuturist philosophy of composer, improviser, and bandleader Sun Ra, and the work of disability studies scholar Alison Kafer. This essay examines the collaborative, improvisatory processes that surrounded (Un)Rolling the Boulder and Turning the Page, focusing in particular on the role that the AUMI software played in imagining and performing new communities. Keywords Adaptive Use...
Improvisation Among the Discourses
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2014
In this essay, originally delivered as the opening keynote address at the 2012 edition of the Gue... more In this essay, originally delivered as the opening keynote address at the 2012 edition of the Guelph Jazz Festival, improvising percussionist and improviser Jesse Stewart reflects on his own experiences as both a student and teacher of improvised music, using those experiences as a way of opening discussion about the ways in which improvisation pedagogy might intersect with the ideas of social justice and social responsibility.
Musicultures, Feb 5, 2013
In this essay, the author examines Keepintime: Talking Drums and Whispering Vinyl, a thirteen-min... more In this essay, the author examines Keepintime: Talking Drums and Whispering Vinyl, a thirteen-minute award-winning film that documents a musical encounter between three hip hop turntablists and three session drummers that took place in Los Angeles in the year 2000. Through a close reading and analysis of the film, the essay explores the musical, cultural, and discursive terrain that connects the musical traditions represented therein, critically examining issues surrounding the African diaspora, identity formation, cultural memory, as well as trans-and inter-cultural exchange. H ip hop documentary filmmaking has a lengthy history that dates back to Style Wars, a 1983 film about graffiti writing and early hip hop culture. With the widespread availability and relative affordability of digital video cameras since the late 1990s, increasing numbers of hip hop artists and enthusiasts are documenting different facets of hip hop culture themselves in films such as The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy (2002), Breath Control: The History of the Human Beat Box (2002), and Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (2003) which document the history of B-boying/B-girling, beatboxing, and improvised MC-ing or freestyling, respectively. 1 Such films have played an important role in historicizing, representing, and constructing hip hop culture and hip hop identities, often providing a much needed corrective to mainstream representations of hip hop which tend to focus on the more sensational and antagonistic aspects of the culture. This paper examines one hip hop documentary, in particular a film titled Keepintime: Talking Drums and Whispering Vinyl that documents an encounter between three hip hop turntablists and three drumming elders. The sense of musical, cultural, and generational dialogue that animates the film provides a resonant point of entry into issues and debates surrounding African diasporic musical practices and filmic representations. Keepintime raises a number of
Gordon Monahan : Music From Everywhere
Jesse Stewart : Wheels of Time
‘Intervections’
Contemporary Music Review, 2010
Several interrelated developments have radically affected the musical and cultural landscape over... more Several interrelated developments have radically affected the musical and cultural landscape over the past century, shaping conceptions of ‘new’ music in profound ways. These include: the development and proliferation of sound recording technologies and electronic methods of sound production/reproduction; increased contact between musical traditions and systems of musical logic from previously disparate cultural and social locations; the re-emergence of real-time modes of music-making in Western music after an almost complete absence of nearly 150 years; a great expansion in the range of sonic resources available to creative practitioners; the breakdown of old cultural hierarchies including such artificial constructs as ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultures. Drawing on my experiences as a composer, improviser, and sound artist, I examine the social, musical, and ideological implications of these musical/cultural vectors, as well as the ways in which they intersect with one another in the field of contemporary music.
DJ Spooky and the Politics of Afro-Postmodernism
Black Music Research Journal, 2010
... Performing Identity in an Era of "Multiplex Consciousness". ... However, Mi... more ... Performing Identity in an Era of "Multiplex Consciousness". ... However, Miller is careful to root his theoretical remix, and his own "multiplex consciousness" as DJ Spooky, in musical and conceptual frameworks drawn from the African diaspora, matching everything else to their ...