initial formula up for discussion : ARTIST --> ART<-- AUDIENCE
ABSTRACT: By sampling, collage, (i.e., recontextualizing sounds and images) one effectively flips audience into artist, and a continuum emerges. What was once a static role of passive reception becomes a dynamic active position of interpretation and creative application.
Interview with KNABLINZ about this subject:
Question: What is the influence of your art? What is the impact, how far reaching is the influence of the creative experience you bring?
KNABLINZ: " At first I was making music, we had all this equipment, when we all lived in portland together. Then that shit went down, and I was toting all the equipment with me everywhere I went. Then, we came back here and everyone went their own ways and I stopped playing music altogether for a while. Now I'm in a position where I can do it again, and I will, until I can't anymore. "
Question: " Do you really think that's going to happen -- you will stop making music? Like, it will all end someday?
Knab: " No. Not Really. "
Question: So, then, the inspiration really continues on, even in the scope of throughout several lifetimes, one can follow that possibility without difficulty drawing from the creative infinite...
Knab: " Yes "
Question: the influence of the art you make has what impact, what reaches, how broad is the scope of the influence your art makes?
Knab: " I jumped in...
I first started listening to artists anticon, buck 65, dose one, prefuse 73, early flying lotus, circa 2004. I learned a lot from madlib and really liked how he was able to orchestrate goofy scenarios and sound environments that portrayed grandiose characters and humor, soundscapes or skits that appealed to an aesthetic that strayed from the norm.
" When I got a sampler I took time to get used to it. Not like some people, I didn't give up because it wasn't the way I expected it to be at first. It was like having a cutting table to use as a workspace -- I was limited by the ability of the machine and nothing else. It wasn't like how some people want their music to sound, perfect the first time. I got used to the abilities the sampler provided to manipulate soundscapes myself, and had so much fun experimenting, I was paying attention to little else.
" At first there were a few alias' I was throwing around, but I landed and stayed on G.O.A.T.beetz. I discovered soundcloud's weekly beat battles as an innovative way to forge new artist relations and integrated the lessons from each of my contributions to their different beat battle parameters into my creative repertoire.
" Around this time, an acquaintance who felt audacious enough to attempt to profit from my original music without my consent, discovered bandcamp before me and one day, I discovered my music posted by him with a CD for sale, new artwork and title, but my music.
" This was a pivotal moment for me -- I was like, if HE can post music and make money, so can I. But, it picked up steadily from there.
" I was in contact with NEKUBI from before on soundcloud, and once I was on bandcamp I discovered BOOTLEG TAPES and DIRTY TAPES. Again I had the realization that if these folk were releasing music -- starting their own tape labels -- there was no reason why I couldn't do the same thing.
He contacted me and said he was going to start a label, and we traded tapes and thats how we met. I sent him one, and his made it to me really fast, but mine took like 3 months to get to him for some reason..they thought it was lost. And he was debating on the name of his label to be late by the lake, late late records, or 93 tapes, or something, I don't really remember, but then he ended up naming it NEKUBI TAPES.
" And NEKUBI helped me release tapes where he was, and I helped do what I could from where I was, and it built slowly up from there. Artists supporting eachother most of the time but bringing as much outside interest as one can hope for in the process. "
And growth is so clear - its an emerging community of artists working in the same direction. The strength I draw as a member of this community from the commitment to personal expression we all hold, --exemplify, --strive for is immense.
Final Thoughts By the Questioner:
When you found your music for sale on bandcamp under someone elses name, that was a crucial moment in the acknowlegement and recognition of your own potential being taken advantage of for someone else's profit than your own.
Significant, because by recognizing the art as an established audience member as originally authored by yourself, the formula which deems the audience to be passively receptive to the messages manufactured by the artist is at the moment the emperor is exposed as having no clothes. That is to say, when your art is sold to you, it becomes evident that selling art has no intrinsic deterioration affect on art itself, -in the relationship the artist has with the means of his production, and how he is compensated for his efforts- the clarification of the importance of mutual exchange and fair trading comes to the forefront as messages of import. By reading these messages clearly and initiating a tape label of your own, you were creating a self-sustaining act of resistance to the deterioration of value and time that the artificial middle man exacts in many disciplines of life.
So, when you surmised for yourself that the products of your labors were valuable enough to market them yourself -- the next step was re-appropriating the music stolen from you. Taking those songs back, and thus giving new terms and definitions to the sites of struggle in the artist --> art <--audience dynamic.
By taking his music back, having his own merchant account that profitted him, the producer, he was reestablishing expression he made as his own, after it was fragmented by misuse.
I am personally disheartened by the level art has been segregated. The artists over here, the audience down below, the art -- grotesque, absurd, saccrine, kitch, always just raucous enough to throw the bearings of the status quo right over the edge...
I believe truth is not compartmentalized. Art influences the audience, who ARE artists. This idea, of the spectator (audience) is a distraction, as a means of displacing the creative embodiment of productive creative sentient individuals, which all conscious beings are.
Furthermore, the element of recycling, musical influence, is the foundation of sustainable creation. A way of making new material that continues to dawn new insights for others. This is the essence of a continuum that is artist -->art-->artist, and returns a mutual respect for the value of contributions by all who participate: on any scale, on any scope.