Re: [microsound] the culture industry

[Stephen Hastings-King <roachboy@xxxxxxxxx>]

 q1: has the steady stream of swill coming from the 'culture industry'
given people the impression that music is disposable and hence not worth
paying for?

what exactly is "the culture industry" in 2006?
where does it stop and start?

as a metaphor in the middle 1940s, this category had some descriptive power
because it corresponded to the dominant characteristics of the fordist mode
of production.
one way of thinking about the dominant characteristics of the present mode
of production is networks of small to medium-scale subcontractors which are
linked to large-scale final assembly and distribution systems across supply
chain management software.
so you have a curious new type of combination of decentralization and
centralization.
the same kind of situation obtains--and has obtained since the 1870s--at the
finance end of capitalism as a simple function of stock.

anyway. computer technologies and telecommunications infrastructure play
fundamental roles in enabling the development of new patterns of production
and distribution characteristic of globalizing captialism..
we are communicating using computer technologies and telecommunications
infrastructure.
we produce sonic objects using computer technologies. in some cases, this
production involves telecommunications infrastructure as well.
we distribute these objects using computer technologies and
telecommunications infrastructure.
where does that put us?

i am not sure that the category "culture industry" at this point designates
much beyond "stuff you or i or we dont like."

on devaluation:

what explains the value attached to a sonic object?
the amount of labor/labor power expended?
whose?
or is it a function of the amount of money spent on advertising, which is
the dominant mode of demand creation?

sometimes i wonder if the theory of value in the cook the theif his wife and
her lover is not accurate.
you charge most for food that is black,
black reminds people of death, and everybody wants to eat their own death.


another way:
where does the intrinsic value of a sonic object reside?
if there is no intrinsic value, when what does devaluation mean?



q2: is filesharing a  _symptom_  of the devaluation of cultural
> artifacts or simply a problem in itself?


i dont think i really understand q. 1 and 2 is a correlate, so.