All That Is Solid 04: Pandora Pt II Future Dystopias

All That Is Solid is an attempt to examine the relationships between popular music and global capitalism. Click here to access the archive.

I work in an office full of cyborgs. I mean this in the literal sense; I'm not talking about character at all: at the moment someone dons a Bluetooth earpiece, he/she becomes "an organism that contains both artificial and natural systems," according to Manfred Clynes' formulation of the term. In addition to telecommunications devices, the marvels of modern medicine permit an even wider array of cybernetic possibilities (iron lungs, plastic hips, and artificial hearts, oh my!). The pertinent issue this arouses for me is the interpretation of our imagined future. Many of our future-dystopian scenarios, furnished by science fiction novels and Hollywood blockbusters, present the major conflict of the next epoch as Man vs. Robots, centering around the anxiety that the machines we manufacture will ultimately become more powerful than their makers.

But an altogether more intriguing vision is one where all of our organic systems are subject to technological manipulation, and it seems more realistic to me to the extent that we already embrace and pursue this kind of intervention in the contemporary epoch. It is much more likely that the conflicts of the 22nd century will not be Robots vs. Humans, but what Slavoj Zizek refers to as the conversion of the human personality "from Hardware to Software" as we welcome the coming advances in genetic engineering, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications. This is predicted in part by our widespread use of drugs (between medical and recreational users, who among us aren't "on" something?), our growing fondness for elective surgery, and our eagerness to use the human genome to isolate (and counteract) the physiological basis for a host of physical and mental imperfections.

Computers themselves are moving towards incorporeality and used increasingly as access points to some other hub rather than as a data storage device. The hard drives and discs of today will soon face obselesence as data and applications increasingly move to networked storage (even now, since I am composing this using GoogleDocs, I save my work to a remote server rather than to my laptop's C:/drive). In 2008, inexpensively configured, low-hardware-capability "netbooks" were the fastest growing segment of the computer market and may command the lion's share within five years. The way we listen to music may not be far behind, and I think Pandora and subscription services like Rhapsody or eMusic are models for what the next generation's musical experiences are likely to be.

This incorporeal quality is an issue that has followed recorded music since its inception, but until now the "hardware" we have used to listen to music has inspired countless object-fetishes specific to their era. Members of my parents' generation (and many readers of this site, no doubt) will insist on the superiority of vinyl over CDs, partly because of the supposed aural fidelity of vinyl (which I am inclined to concede) but also because of certain tactile and extra-musical reasons that are essentially fetishistic. We have the meditative ritual of removing a precious object from a sleeve, placing it on a turnstyle/altar, and laying the needle down gingerly on the rotating disc; the inimitable smell of vinyl; the ability to literally feel the grooves that send acoustic information to the speaker; the large cover surface for album art and lyrics. Perhaps even more dear to this site specifically (and certainly to me) are the ritual characteristics that accompany ownership of cassette tapes: the warps found in tapes that have been played too often, the added capabilities of fast-forwarding and rewinding (so much more obtuse and rewarding than skip/repeat!), the introduction of portability, and of course the ability to record, compile, and mix.

With the introduction of the MP3, we have broken off somewhat from the object-fetishism of music appreciation, but we still have the various rituals of the Collector (the constant search for new acquisitions, the curatorial arrangement and rearrangement of the collection, the navigation of a music library, the compilation and/or exhibition of portions of the collection to form a personal narrative). What I anticipate (fear/embrace?) from the future of Pandora is the loss of this final aspect of object-fetishism, as our music-listening will revolve around access to some remote server that stores our favorite music and plays it back on demand -- no acquisition or collection required. Furthermore, the bazaar-style economy in which we come to learn about music may also fade into obsolescence as the data we feed our servers becomes increasingly adept at predicting our future interests.

So, if we lose the "collection" and we eliminate the middle men (music press), we would also lose the cultural capital involved in music appreciation. That could spell an end to music snobbery -- ladies and gentlemen, we are the last of a dying breed! -- but it also could erode our agency as engaged listeners. Part of the reason we purchase the music we do is that we want to support this or that artist (and by extension the ideology that accompanies them) over other ones; we want specifically for certain forms of music to succeed and proliferate. If we stop purchasing individual titles but instead subscribe to a service that gives us simultaneous access to the whole world of music, we in essence lose our right to "vote" for the music we feel deserves support and recognition. The loss of hardware alienates us from music's supply chain, and the essential feature of listenership mutates from Ownership to Access as collections change into databases. And if our collections are really databases in the making, is it unrealistic to imagine a future in which our tastes become fully programmable and interchangeable?

Imagine chip implants that contain all of your aesthetic preferences -- and then imagine that these can be manipulated, exchanged, or reconfigured to suit pseudo-eugenic needs. For example, research already indicates the benefits of playing Mozart for kids; imagine what would happen if we learned that students who listened to Belle and Sebastian performed better on their SATs and that adults who enjoy Bonnie Raitt also enjoy a greater degree of professional success. I realize this is all idle speculation, but is it really much of a stretch to think competitive pressures would drive people to adjust their tastes if it meant they could be smarter, thinner, healthier, and sexier? As much as I value empiricism and quantitative analysis in general, I would loathe to learn definitively that an appreciation for Fennesz predicts an inability to manage money or that distaste for Nickelback makes one less likely to go bald. But if that happens, I promise not to stop liking The Magnetic Fields, even if that turns out to be a risk factor for psoriasis.

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