SONIC CULTURE
"How
does the relationship between Ethnogenic chemical, Music and Technology
contribute
towards
our conception of Cybernetic culture?"
Shem Booth-Spain BA(Hons) MA
| -2005
|
Abstract
Introduction
Chapter 1 From psychedelics to cybernetics Chapter 2 psychoactive ethnogenic chemical Sub
Cultural
groups and Domestic Cybernetic dimensions Chapter 3 TECHNOLOGY
Conclusion "Vernacular theory," Bibliography
Abstract There is a shadowy ambition behind the
concept of the
virtual world- to have everyone sagely confined to their homes, hooked
up to a
sensory feedback devices in an enclosing, interactive environment which
will be
a far more powerful tool of social control than the television. “In the providence of the mind. What is
believed to
be true is true or becomes true within certain limits to be learned by
experience and experiment”
 Marshal
Maculan
From the 60’s
onwards humanity has been changed globally both
technologically
and psychologically more than any over time in known history by the use
of
music and psychotropic drugs. This article will investigate how the
technology
of global communication and modern advances in technology and media
have
changed culture and social ordering and how Mind altering Chemicals
have affected
cooperatively through culture and music to expand the minds of the
people of
that time. In this essay we will be asking the question “How does the relationship between drugs,
music and technology contribute towards our conception of cybernetic
culture?”INTRODUCTION I will start by looking at the technology of different sound signatures and investigating the aesthetics’ that define and box them in genre, and examine how the point in a sound/drug experience by a group or individual changed social culture. By viewing acoustic propagation, in actual physical space to the experience in thinking, we can begin to understand the essence of how perception, drugs and music affect each over. This notion in itself is crystallised by psychedelics and fermented around the concept that man is essentially tribal and lived in a multi sensory world which was more accessible then and now we are returning to that through communication technology changing the deep visual bias within our Western culture. Defined as the point in which the exponential speeding growth of communication outweighs the social cultural growth of the time creating a conceptual void within cultural understanding and a much needed paradigm shift. I will investigate this topic around the conceptual framework built by other people such Kowdo Eshun, Marshall Mcluhan and other influential ideas put forward that relate to this subject matter. From this I will compare different views and take an objective stance on how these factors have built our conclusion based on the investigation as to how drugs and music combine and change the way we think, from a psycho-acoustically initiated view of the world, coupled with theories of mnemonics. Its important to note that this essay acts as a foundation to grasp the potentiality of cybernetic culture within future media-cultural systems and is not a simple historical summary of drugs, technology and music culture, This essay will introduce the reader to peripheral ideas concerning this subject matter and attempt to question the validity of what we believe has happened and produce a coherent critical analysis of how drugs and music, or should I say how sound have influenced and added to cybernetic culture. However this article is not confined in the orbit of social- science but attempts to form a holistic critique of the underlying components in our understanding of cybernetic culture.   Norbert wiener and Erik Davies “Cybernetics eroded many traditional distinctions between mind and machine, organic and mechanical, natural and artificial. In so doing, it anticipated(and help generate) many of the conundrums we face today, though the term cybernetics has now left the stage, in reality the science has simply mutated into a wide variety of disciplines: complexity theory, artificial life, network dynamics, cognitive sciences, robotics.” (Techgnosis Erik Davies pg 90) These fields of science that cybernetics have opened up, are the beginning of a new era in technology, Although originally conceived around the 40’s by Norbert Wiener, his starting theories present the beginning of emergent fields such as artificial intelligence and chaos. Erik Davis however speculates how cybernetics’ helped changed a way of thinking in regards to biological imitation and simulation as well as positive and negative feedback systems Cybernetic culture however is a whirlpool of different factors and social genres that can be sub grouped and influenced by the science of cybernetics, Dr Steve Goodman from the University of East London however states “it simply don’t just mean cyber punk or internet groups”, these factors are more cultural groups that have grown from the mental ideologies perpetuated by the notion of cybernetic culture within the information age and are the fruition of instant communication, global media and centralisation within society that only serve to mythically enhance our conception of an immersive underworld existing in cyberspace. The conceptual terrain surrounding cybernetic culture is a constant reflux of new ideas and reactions that mutate and focus on the notion of a digital aesthetic mirroring a constant growth action in relation to recycling of undercurrent ideas from the psychedelic imagination of the social-cultural Revolution of the 60’s, this itself highlighting that the technical aspects of cybernetics such as control systems, information are parallel to a cultural response to the theory’s and technology inherent within the science of cybernetics and the media systems it presents. Chapter 1  Timothy Leary From psychedelics to cybernetics "What the psychedelic experience really is, is opening the doorway into a lost continent of the human mind, a continent that we have almost lost all connection to, and the nature of this lost world of the human mind is that it is a Gaian entelechy.(Terence McKenna. http://deoxy.org/gaia/index.htm) Cybernetic culture has its roots deep within the psychedelic avante garde experimental scene; in the 60’s the vision of a dimensionality within social organisation was questioned, with writers Robert Anton Wilson and theorists such as Timothy Leary, artists like Warhol and Velvet Underground. These were part of a social cultural revolution in the 60’s. This change was based not on a naïve idealistic dream, but from a need globally to be who you wanted to be, The dream of the psychedelic aesthetic, “any reality, any where, any time” was in a sense a shift in possibility, changing in our world view around us. The urban legends of acid hippies in India, the mushroom eating festival travellers, hippies trained by old shamans (as anthropologist Carlos Castaneda was trained by - Don Juan Matus in the famous books) these are the Metaphoric symbols that crystallise the mythology surrounding the psychedelic reality experience, these mental paradigms transformed language through a synergy between early electronic culture and the psychedelic imagination. “The first generation of media mutants was born, baby boomers destined to grow up in the first modern suburbs, soak up the first commercial television broadcasts, and blow their minds and turn global culture inside out when they eventually got their gadget-happy hands on electric guitars, Marx and lsd” (Erik Davies Techgnosis pg 80) Thus the imagination of potentiality within human reality of the late 60’s was spanned open and unwrapped. From a post 2nd world war of rations and strict social norms, this was the first generation for a few thousand years on a mass scale, a younger generation that had access to the contraceptive pill, and was experimenting with psycho-shamanistic drugs for the first time. In terms of experience to a group or individual it wasn’t about a naive joint smoking ethos as sometimes put about by some academics, this was about new ideas, thinking about humanity’s future, our spiritualism, people in china wanted to walk down the street with their girlfriend hand in hand, Tiananmen square, Vietnam war, nuclear weapons, This was the social cultural revolution of the 60’s. But of the things that contributed to this change within thinking three factors that still echo their effect on that time are drugs, music and technology. However by highlighting the concept of the late 60’s social-cultural revolution, I’m trying to draw a reference as to how the psychedelic reality has mutated with the times, to become a cybernetic reality of today, I’m almost trying to create a conceptual map as real as the terrain that it mirrors, “It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality; a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the territory- precession of simulacra- it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map, it is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the empire, but our own, the desert of the real itself.” Page 167 jean Baudrillard selected writings Although Jean’s referring to mythical idea, this analogy provides a crystal clear incite into how in present day people try to make the real coincide with simulation models. As Robert Anton Wilson said in Prometheus rising “all maps are only maps they are not the terrain that which they seek to define” and plus any conceptual frame work will always require more input as it refines it representation. So the question remains how did the psychedelic culture collectively perpetuate and influence cybernetic culture? It did so in two ways around the time of the 60’s, the applications of cybernetics were still in development in terms of technology and implementation, the concepts of marshal Maculan and Norbert Wiener were in a sense ironing out the conceptual work needed to bring about the digital information age, the likes of Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson knew the applications of such a change in communication and were already thinking of the possibilities of such global linkage, Leary himself coined the term “from psychedelics to cybernetics” they understood through the collective imagination of the power that psychedelic imagination can offer as an ethos for vision and conceptual questioning. “Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of time and space and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men, it has reconstituted dialogue on a global scale” (pg 16 Marshall Mcluhan the medium is the massage) Marshall Mcluhan although at first may seem separate from psychedelic culture is already aware of the implication of the electric information age and realises that the very way we communicate is going to change for ever and morph from the hierarchy of vision to a more unified approach in sensory communication, the world has literally become a smaller place due to global telecommunications, fibre optic networks, broadband and higher density of linkage within the internet has created a huge global planetary network of information. Cybernetic culture could be the social response and extrapolation by people who are affected by these technologies not only on an individual but group aswell. CHAPTER 2 
 Lysergic Diethylamide-25 5-Methoxy-N,N-Dimethyltryptamine Psychoactive Ethnogenic Chemicals Lsd is one of the most potent mind altering chemicals available to man, its been used for war, for peace and just for fun, however LSD is a symbol of a line of chemicals that can open ports to parts of our brains uncorrupted by conditioning, having extensively experimented with this chemical to find out about its meta-reprogramming and imprinting capabilities, I’m sure the CIA enjoyed this discovery when they starting testing it on unaware people in there lucrative mind control project MK-ULTRA. However LSD as well as DMT presents to us a capability that for 2000 years western culture has been void from, to experience in a very direct way how we think and connect to our surroundings through the unconsciousness, and feel and see the parallel computational process and bio-technology in action of the human brain, that speaks not only in vision but a form of multi sensory language. “In the now extensive body of literature about virtual reality, there are two major but intertwined reference points: the immersive, interactive experiences provided by new forms of image simulation technology, and the metaphorical ‘places’ and spaces created by or within communication networks.” New media: a critical introduction page 35 Chemical technology provides the ability to directly experience the virtual actualisation of our mind in normal Euclidean space, folding time shifting space and travelling without moving, although these are may be not real they provide a virtual experience in real time, it could be considered virtual as current immersive simulation technologies involving VR seek to unlock and bring in to experience these exotic hyper realities. The only difference between someone experiencing a virtual immersive space by chemical induction or electrical is the method of application because the end result is still the same, it’s only the path in which to get there is negotiated. This is were the intersection between cybernetic culture and psychedelics meet, the end process however is still the same, the social cultural revolution of the 60’s simply mutated and evolved through the generational growth of a post industrial information age prodigy brought up on a diet of information and sound and light. Because virtual space or cybernetic space interaction hardware and software is still in its infancy in terms of technological interfaces with the human nervous system or sense’s, currently cybernetic technology is still running over the equipment and concepts for full immersive VR technology are only 20 years away. Chapter 3   Steve Goodman aka (Kode 9) & writer Kowdo Eshun. “The central dilemma facing the study of new technology – media or otherwise- is how to understand the part played by a technology’s sheer physical form and its influence on how a culture is lived and experienced.” New media: a critical introduction page 7. In the early 60s music technology was still in a state of infancy compared to technology of today, The signature sound’s of the 60’s, created by valve amps and analogue music equipment are defined by the sound of bands such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix. The electronic technology of the 60’s was never capable of creating the zones and spaces conceived by the psychotropic visions of the 60’s social-cultural revolution, LSD and the chemicals appointed were there technology or as Erik Davies would say “consciousness tools”, now though we have the ability and tools of today, we can create the sounds and the visual spaces that our imaginations have spanned upon before and now we can share them, through digital technology. They note some of the myriad ways in which posture, gaze and gesture are used to negotiate the boundaries between private and public, and consider the argument that mobile usages are part of a contemporary reconfiguration of time and space. Virtual society? Steve woolgar page 20 These factors have created a virtual Technology of acoustic-cerebral thinking within cybernetic culture, because culture’s are changing though the use of mass communication systems and reacting on an almost intuitive level to the incorporation of digital technology in there everyday life’s, sensory systems involving primordial circuitry within the brain are beginning to be stimulated once again. Chapter 4 Sonic software as neural mnemonic architecture  Robert Anton Wilson Many cultural groups take on different genres to identify there social identity and are a inherent by product of drug/ music and technology, this form of domesticated social dimensions highlights the Idea of mnemonics (social virology) from Dr Richard Dawkins and his book selfish gene, for example a cultural group lets say a gothic who dress’s in black listens to much nine inch nails and “feels the pain” as to say. This would be a classic example of someone who’s been affected by social virology, but there exists something else within this disposition and that’s the nature of the meme structure in the experience of the individual. “The new digital devices were destined to reawaken the cybernetic freak dream of reprogramming one’s state of consciousness. Etymologically speaking, after all, computers are literally psychedelic; that is, they manifest the mind” Techgnosis page 162 Erik Davis Any combination of psychotropic drugs, lets say cannabis or even lsd, can be merged with music to imprint a form of neural conditioning and actually restructure neural pathway’s and change dominate EEG pattern distribution in the brain. To be able to even compare the context in which we define specific neural architectures we must analysis the very nature of how audio mnemonics or sonic software intersects with technology and how this relates to cybernetic culture as a cultural by product. The technology of cyberspace also facilitates the same aspect of reprogramming the mind as psychedelic chemicals; this is the crux of cybernetic culture which allows manifesting the mind in digital immersive virtual space. New technologies such as mobile phones, personal computers almost always open a cultural gate for excepted new ideas and methods of technological growth which influence cultural spheres actually procreating an effect in a social cultural sense. Viewing the technology of culture and its sub-cultural defining elements such as social identity and genre we can understand its corresponding cultural scenes which arise from being in contact from new technology, these factors which have grown with them, begin to question how current electronic technology or more specifically, notions of reality are extrapolated by and changed by techno cultures. Practically, these cultures tend to expand and consume the ideas which there founded on creating strata’s of sedimentary belief systems that define the culture in question. Cybernetic culture acts in a very similar way, constantly eating all new technologies from internet- based communication, art and mainstream music culture and accepting these advancements of growth of a new reality initiated potentiality from technological thinking within cybernetic cultures individuals and groups. Chapter 5 "Vernacular theory but not" In this final part I will draw together the conclusion on the question as to how drugs, music and technology contribute to our conception of cybernetic culture, by looking at the views held by Erik Davies to others peoples views within cybernetic culture and Marshall Maculan. Cybernetic culture would not be what it is or even exist if not for the great minds that have burned the midnight oil for the sake of internet porn and ring tones (just kidding), anyhow Marshall’s foresight anticipated the effects of a global community and intersection between mass communication and electronic media, however he did not have the luxury as Erik Davies does of being able to critique the transition and cultural mutation that cybernetic culture underwent through mass electronic distribution on our planet, indeed trans-chemical induction showed humanity what it felt like to be in a cyberspace of imagination but now were going to go to cyberspace with our body’s. Cybernetic culture has been incredibly shaped and mutated through music and drugs, the very technology of hardware, software has gave people the ability to be able to produce music never heard by human ears before. Drugs have not only enabled people to reprogram there minds but also to experience things that only within these time have been seen. There does exist however, three distinct possibilities within future cybernetic culture and its developments culturally, first is the sensory aspect. With so much information flowing, the very nature of cybernetic reality is of a gestalt sensory aperture, if the idea of expanding the senses or unifying them through technology turns out to be a good method of virtual reality human computer integration, then only time will tell. Secondly is the fact that whatever technology come out to the mainstream, kids and most people just don’t seem to fear it, they tend to incorporate it and extrapolate it, in to there life’s. They think in it and live in it, this is one of the great aspects of cybernetic culture, it gets used and abused, and it can never be destroyed by some government stampede because it’s organic in its growth pattern and inherently a safe haven of incubated ideas and gathering of minds. Thirdly, the most important point within cybernetic culture is that it will give way to a new science which will in turn start a new culture that’s elevating and pushing its own idiosyncrasy that psychedelics gave to it. This factor is with all cultures, they mutate and develop. One problem with the notion of the digital age I feel, is its based on 1’s and 0’s and possibly in the future, some 30 years or so, it may based hardware wise, on light and a molecular scale, so I wonder what happens when quantum computers with base units of 3 or more arrive does this mean we'll be in a new faze? Fractal computation, with the possibility of calculating billions of equations in any factor up or down and I wonder about artificial intelligence that knows yes, no and maybe. Because one of the hurdles facing artificial intelligence at the moment is that computers only know yes and no (1&2) we need to increase there base units to 3 or more. And if artificial intelligence does become a reality, what will a trueintelligent computer think when it reads the whole internet in 5 nano seconds, what will it think of us then? We must be very careful on jumping on the cybernetic bandwagon, there is still lots of technology that needs to be invented to perpetuate the dreams born from 60’s social revolution, I think Robert Anton Wilson was right when he suggested in his book "Prometheus rising" that were using old ideas and concepts for new problems and questions, we need many great minds and people to free the elements to kick start the autualization and potentual of our species if we are to get off this planet. |
Bibliography
Terence McKenna.
http://deoxy.org/gaia/index.htm
Eric Davis
website http://www.techgnosis.com/
Norbert wiener http://www.angelfire.com/co/1x137/cyber.html
New
Media in late 20th century art, Michael rush, Thames and Hudson 1999
New media: a
critical introduction,
martin lister, Jon dovey, Seth Giddings,
Iain
grant, Kieran Kelly, 2003 Rutledge 11 new fetter lane London. Ec4p 4ee
The
medium is the message,
Marshall Mcluhan, Quentin fiore, 1967 gingko press
Jean
Baudrillard, selected writings, edited by mark poster Stanford University
press 1988
Techgnosis,
myth, magic, mysticism in the age of
information, Erik Davis
1998
serpents tail London n4 2bt
Virtual
society?
Technology, cyberbole, reality, Steve
Woolgar, Oxford university press