[no subject]

Thus I offer the following as a tentative beginning, and as a surreal dream
of the droplift project .. & I should note that the beginning of this email
is not separate from the text: for this list is email, it is text flying
back and forth, and so this document establishes no difference between the
email and what follows..

---

//drop.lifting & dreams

Droplifting is the reversal of crime into the fantastic... it's what the
2003 LEM Festival is grabbing by the horns, in Spain (which, of interest,
Kim is playing), when the mandate says (translated from the Spanish):

"It is known that in arts some things can be done that in real life could
become dangerous. On the other hand, we have learned that if reality is mad=
e
up with dreams substance (apparently, Shakespeare or Calder=F3n de la Barca d=
o
not seem to disagree that much with The Matrix...), those dangerous things
in real life, even if proceeding from the mankind=B9s dream, are truly
dangerous. Given the historic situation in which the Festival=B9s seventh
edition is taking place, we are likely to make the same effort as artists
do: stay up and build the world we have always longed for by turning the ev=
e
in a full display of creativity. Thus, all nightmares originated by this
dreadful indigestion of the collective mind will hopefully turn into a worl=
d
-for it seems that we have assumed this one with no hesitation- of which we
can be proud."

Droplifting is dream descent: the sonic emerges in a package, sudden and
irrevant to the purchase, or the product-find, thus a gift, a surprise, a
hole of questions and a well of pleasures. For one is rarely unsatisfied
with what emerges as the sudden free. Witness the hordes of tourists
clamoring for that free coupon or free picture in front of the Monument ..
that extra Coke at the Theatre if we buy a larger Fries .. we will sell our
soul to win the lottery, enter a billion forms to be the prize-winner of a
new car.. Lo & behold--  art can step in here, intervene: droplifting is
that prize, but it requires no cash & pushes no advertising, it asks for no
name, phone number, nor address, not even your preference of one softdrink
or another, or, for that matter, whether you've tried it before. Dropliftin=
g
will likely only ever occur to you once. No purchase necessary.

As a dream, droplifting circumvents the system of capital completely. It's
art, not something "for sale," not something connected to "profits," and
thus has nothing to do with the record industry, or, for that matter,
condescension. Take it or leave it: and the choice costs you nothing.

Droplifting is a wonderful surprise, not a trick. It sets out to undo the
music industry, not participate in it. It's non-aggressive Poetic Terrorism=
,
but terrorism as the Europeans understand it: all acts of art are acts of
incredible daring that attempt to exceed sacrifice, the very economy of
capital--the exchange--testing the limit of the gift insofar as it remains
linked to the exchange, to the horse's mouth.

It is with an abundant glee born from working the slivers of microsound,
field recordings, numbers into sound and music that we announce that
droplifts cannot be exchanged. Take it or leave it.

Droplifting is not high art. The content of the CD is not irrelevant, for a
major label could use the technique to promote the next pop-act--in fact we
already see this in William Gibson's _Pattern Recognition_, where a
next-level advertising approach involves hipsters casually mentioning
products in bars and clubs -- all hired hands, pretending to be your friend=
,
showing off that new cellphone, PDA, or Prada shirt ...

The content is relevant, then: and this is the sound of our art. But it
stands not for aesthetic judgment but for independance. The form itself, th=
e
droplift itself, the digital dissemination and production, the actual act o=
f
droplifting, these are all part of the creative process, the production of
the wonderful & the descent of the dream. Soon it will erupt as a kernel
into another's ear's and mind. And you will never know who, where, or when.

Thus the content is intertwined with the form, the aesthetic categories of
old, of the critic and the review are exceeded in the moment in which the
act of droplifting merges medium to message and vice-versa. The droplift is
not a meme, we are not distributing an idea, a content, and watching it
replicate and duplicate, but a seme: the idea is the action, the droplift
itself, the method itself, the act of the network implicated in the shape o=
f
the project itself. We are not merely distributing music for free: we are
distributing an alternate energy of distribution itself.

Condescension & overdetermination & the RIAA & major labels & anal copyrigh=
t
& capital are bitter enemies of anything free (this century will be partly
marked by Linux and its success or failure), and their mandate, their
process, has nothing in common with the droplift--& this because they no
longer understand the Commons, be it creative or otherwise, the common
ground, between us, that includes and divides all of us, the ground itself,
and how the common often has nothing to do with the ground, with property,
with ownership, with saying: "mine," and fighting for that.

Condescension, then, is spending more on the advertising budget than the
music, creating an overinflated image, tying it into a product schema (cars=
,
women, whatever) and approaching sound as a reference commodity, a product;
and then suing individuals over their listening habits, over their attempts
to interject play and freedom into this system, defending "copyright" with
millions in profits gained from this over-inflated bullshit. Yet I'm not
making any aesthetic claims here against pop music, note: I'm making claims
against the economic structure which operates as & through condescension,
which approaches and appropriates art as another way to sell patriarchy,
sexism, oppression, etc., which uses these powers to solidify its own power=
,
a vicious cycle, and the name we give to this structure, yes it is
capitalism, but also, it is greed, and moreover, it is "reality," that
downer we usually find bashed on our heads, that ugly noose, after revellin=
g
in dreams deep into the night, 4:30am walking out of a Montr=E9al loft, ears
ringing, hearing someone say: "Of course it can't be like this all the
time..." and the sour taste of impending work in our mouths... to this we
say: today, no, I droplift. I steal the future back as a gift. For a
stranger, I steal the choice, I steal the free, I steal back work as a
pleasure, I give what I have stolen.

tobias c. van Veen

------------------------------