Channel: Mind Your Language

Headphones

‘Headphones,’ a short video work, borrows a promotional film  for "New Dimensions in Sound," a soundtrack by Berlin electronic artist Static, and image processing software that came with Static's music CD. The video animates a text by music theorist and economist Jacques Attali, whose 1977 book, “Noise: The Political Economy of Music,” is a major inspiration for my ongoing research. The Attali quotation from 2001 discusses (among many points) the social value of music as a means of channeling violence, before and after its economic profitability. Attali also argues that music “piracy”is a logical result of the marketing of music reproduction technologies, not a crime or aberration.