The Null Device
1999/12/22
Illuminating autobiographical essay by Malcolm McLaren:
...William Morris, Oscar Wilde, - art for art's sake. These people were ART LUDDITES and they formed a direct link to English rock 'n 'roll culture. From Charles Dickens to Jimmy Page and The Small Faces, from 19th Century music hall to Sergeant Pepper, from one group of artful dodgers to another, from one Fagin to a hundred managers and entrepreneurs.
We are living in a karaoke world, a world without a point of view. Karaoke is mouthing the words to other people's songs, singing someone else's lyrics. Karaoke is an amateur performance of other people's ideas. It is a virtual replay of something that has happened before: life by proxy - liberated by hindsight, unencumbered by the messy process of creativity and free from any real responsibility beyond the actual performance.
As the iron curtain of Howard/Alston's Internet censorship regime falls on Australia, the EFA moves its website offshore.