Perchance to Unplug

 

In the 1980s bands started putting out 'unplugged' albums, usually concert recordings with renditions of songs done on acoustic instruments. Doing music in this way lets the core of the music show through. Similarly, if we unplug our lives will the core of our lives show through? Can we eschew an electrified life for one lived in the absence of it? 

Like stone or metal sculpture, unplugged music endures the elements and can exist independently on its merits. But if it has no inherent merit (objective or subjective), simply plugging it in can give it the appearance of having importance. This is why electronic communication has the power to distract: we don't know for certain whether something is important to us so we keep checking it.

Paintings or other works of art display themselves in their entirety--they are fixed in time and space--there is nothing that we need to go back to see what may have changed.

Dropping out of popular culture has become ironically popular. Blasé is the new cool: Email--don't use it or couldn't care less, cell phone--I don't really have anything to say, Facebook and Twitter--who cares what I care about?

In a sense, people are trying to figure out what is important by unplugging it and seeing what remains. If you remove yourself from technology and there is life amid the Remains, then there is really no reason to ride the leading edge--or is there??

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[8/21/2024: As I’ve been experimenting with AI-generated music, sometimes I “unplug” it to see how it holds up as a real musical idea, such as playing a guitar or piano against it, or attempting to reduce it to chords and melody–and in the process finding the soul within it–what remains after you strip away the technology. Recordings are illusions of music that can’t always be reduced to traditional music. It’s interesting that this AI-generated piece created an ear worm for days, and I had to go to the piano to figure it out. I don’t think it could work outside the illusion of itself. To write a song at the piano or with a guitar is more form-before-function, whereas AI music is made purely from algorithmic function, and you have to unplug it to see if anything is there].