Re: <eyebeam><blast> Shelving Adorno for Sampling

[mccoy@earthlink.net (Jennifer & Kevin McCoy)]

Here's a followup to the discusion on sampling, especially Sjoukje's
comments.

I think Barthes's writings are an interesting place to look to when
talking about sampling, but not so much for his theories, as for his
habits. In reading the quotes Sjoukje uses, as well as thinking about
passages in The Third Text and The Rhetoric of the Press Photo (i
apologize if these aren't the exact essay titles, I don't have the books
in front of me), the thing that strikes me in his writing is his
sensitivity to materials, and an awareness of the possibilities
contained within the materials: a close look at film stills, news paper
photos, familty snapshots, etc.  It is this awareness that is crucial
for the sampler -- to zero in on what could be good.

But, Sjoukje, I think that you conflate two different ideas in your
essay: sampling and mixing. Sampling does not have its origins in music,
but in science and mathematics. Earlier in this century a sample was
synonymous with a specimen -- an example the illustrated the larger
body, the *sample case* that held all the dead butterflies, etc.
Sampling is the mathmatical terms that describes the process of
digitizing: a continually variable electromagnetic wave is sampled, or
digitized, at a fixed periodic interval. This is the process of
translating from analog to digital and has its origin in calculus.
Sampling in and of itself is kind of dead and morbid. Hoarding and
stockpiling.

Sampling is just archiving, making a database. its what you do with it
that counts. its the mix that separates the good DJ from the bad. Geert
Lovink has an essay from a while ago *the theory of mixing* that talks
about that. Sampling is an important first step - a preparation, but to
move into Barthes' Third Text requires a good mix -- to zero in on and
pull out what could be good.

It's strange to try to apply theoretical texts to the discussion of
sampling and mixing -- dj Spooky hit on this. It doesn't really fit.
It's REALLY fun to do the mixes, more fun that theorizing it. I guess
it's like Hegel said about Philosophy: the owl of Minerva takes flight
at night; philosophy only starts after the fact, once the activities of
the day are done.

But what if the mix never stops?

Kevin McCoy
brooklyn, nyc
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