RE: Rhythm Science

To the remixologist, ideas and theories are latent in their creation and creations. They’re there if you want to look for them. A poem I write might have as much to do with my daily routine as it does the movie I watched last week, the vidya I played the evening prior, and Baudrillard. Paul Miller’s book Rhythm Science is a physical object that expresses this philosophy. In other words, Rhythm Science is both a manifesto on the state and ideology of modern remixologists and a naturally occurring phenomenon. Break it down: rhythm science is as much a manifesto as it is a necessary and inevitable byproduct of technology and postmodernism coming together in sort of harmonic, remixed synthesis. Take it further: the internet has become a giant repository of music, images, words, and miscellany that can be sampled and sprinkled into anyone’s art (or thoughts, or dreams, etc.).

Inherent in Miller’s manifesto/essay/autobiography is the idea that there is no originality. There is innovation and hybridization. Re-appropriation is as difficult as being original (or it would be, if there was anything that could be referred to as “pure” and “original”). This is as much a vindication of rhythm science as it is a byproduct of postmodernism. Already, the reader should be aware that Miller’s book is as a much a practice of rhythm science as his own description of rhythm science. Need proof? Ralph Waldo Emerson’s more than willing to vindicate this sentiment: old and new make the warp and woof of every moment.

Take this as an example: there is no originality, just endless (not random, but recombinant) hybridizations of ideas. These hybrid ideas are, for all intents and purposes, “new,” but are inextricably linked to their origin. In many ways, then, rhythm science/Rhythm Science is an extension of Vannevar Bush’s idea of the Memex; the rhythm scientist outlines, emphasizes, and distorts memories, semantic-links, old theoretical texts, “found sounds,” etc. Like Bush’s concept of the Memex, the technology (i.e. in this metaphor, texts from the past, memories, imagination, etc.—Thoughtware, Wetware) is there and it is up to the user to dictate how they will flow and combine; the user orchestrates the way information—be it emotional, visceral, intellectual, sonic—will be stored. The DJ does this each and ever time they craft a song, just as I am doing right now in making this piece simultaneously convoluted and clear. Rhythm science/Rhythm Science relies on this play (as Derrida would say) and is this play.

Most interesting in rhythm science/Rhythm Science is what you’re experiencing right now. A subject-in-synchronization state that occurs when a reader/listener/subject experiences a text/mix/work. Miller argues that the concept of subject-object relation (between a person and an object/idea/theme) is no longer relevant; it is an anachronism and it is false. Rather, our postmodern world has created (or perhaps it has always been latent) a style of experiencing art that is a synchronization with the art (or any stimulus, really) and not a subject position. In Miller’s non-verbatim words, the cross-cutting and culling of different samples, themes, and ideas allows the viewer/listener/person to experience the world through the viewfinder of the creator; they synchronize with the work. Extrapolate that further: in a subject-in-synchronization relationship, your own synchronization (personalized and individually influenced as it is) is its own mix. What you take from this is your own, but it’s influenced by these words. Is there a better way to demonstrate the pseudo-thesis of Rhythm Science than to make the text a meta-reflection of this? After all, does this blog tell you more about Rhythm Science or my own active-remixing of my experience with Rhythm Science?

P.S. All this and we’ve not even touched on the C-Side or the Internet. The ever-present outline of Side-C is cast on every forward-facing page of Rhythm Science. The C-Side is itself—like the book—both thesis and practice. It shows rhythm science at its best and it features MC slots from some of the most intelligent and experimental remixologists of the past century.