There’s a piece in the Guardian in which DJ and film-maker Don Letts dispenses a few observations about culture and society.
There’s one line in it that some friends of mine on Twitter (professional musicians and DJs, as it happens) have seized upon and retweeted as a bit of a ‘hell yeah!’ to the bumper sticker soundbite that Letts has come up with:
“The downside of affordable technology is mediocrity.”
I had seen part of this before – but Jake brought my attention to it this evening, and I’m really glad he did.
Watch it. It’s enjoyable and it’s important.
I'm the Director of MTF Labs, a Senior Researcher at the Industry Commons Foundation, advisor to ArtEO and founder of New Music Strategies.
I'm an author of books about technology, culture, music and radio. I'm also an award-winning broadcaster and filmmaker, a public speaker and lecturer, record producer and festival director. I am closely following developments in emerging technologies and the cultures and ethics surrounding them, and my projects typically focus on issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability.
Most of my work involves surrounding myself with incredibly smart and talented people who would have no other reason to ever be in the same room as each other. That's when amazing things happen.
I tend to talk a lot about music (often jazz-adjacent and particularly on vinyl, but also playlists and mixtapes). I'm enthusiastic about food and cooking, the intersection of art and science, new technologies, vintage technologies, education, social progress, silence, innovation, narrative, data commons, culture, sound art and the spoken word. This blog will continue to reflect those diverse and shifting enthusiasms. I may also digress.
I'm from Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand, I have Scottish ancestry, I've spent a decade in the south of Birmingham UK, and another in a forest in the north of Sweden.
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