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“RACE FILMS”: THE BLACK FILM INDUSTRY THAT TOLD BLACK STORIES IN CINEMA’S EARLIEST DAYS

PAUL D. MILLER, AKA DJ SPOOKY, IS A COMPOSER, MULTIMEDIA ARTIST, AND WRITER WHOSE WORK IMMERSES AUDIENCES IN A BLEND OF GENRES, GLOBAL CULTURE, AND ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES.

PAUL D. MILLER, A.K.A. DJ SPOOKY, UNSPOOLS THE COMPLICATED HISTORY OF AN ALTERNATIVE HOLLYWOOD DEDICATED TO TELLING AFRICAN AMERICAN STORIES. PLUS: READ WHAT CRITICS SAID ABOUT THE FILMS AT THE TIME.

For Black History Month, DJ Spooky was commissioned to make a list of foundational films that he felt spoke to the history of African American cinema in film.

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February 2, 2021
ARTICLESHOMEMEDIANEWS

New Sounds #4156: Four Millers And A Stone

There’s music by Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, and music by drummer, composer, and bandleader, Allison Miller. Also, hear sound art by Minnesota-based Scott L. Miller, and Paganini arranged by Liszt, recomposed by New York-based Scott D. Miller. Plus, a work by computer music composer Carl Stone.

DJ Spooky’s music with Kronos Quartet was featured on Jon Schaefer’s legendary show New Sounds, along with Bang on A Can, Laurie Anderson, and others.

LISTEN AT NEW SOUNDS
November 19, 2020
ARTICLES

The New Memory Palace

By Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky

“Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.”

– Alan Turing’s biopic, The Imitation Game, 2014

A lot of things have changed in the last 20 years. A lot of things haven’t. We’ve moved from the tyranny of physical media to the seemingly unlimited possibilities of total digital immersion. We’ve moved from a top down, mega corporate dominated media, to a hyper-fragmented multiverse where any kind of information is accessible within reason (and sometimes without!). The fundamental issue that “memory” and how it responds to the digital etherealization of all aspects of the information economy we inhabit conditions everything we do in this 21st-century culture of post-, post-, post-everything contemporary America. Whether it’s the legions of people who walk the streets with Bluetooth enabled earbuds that allow them to ignore the physical reality of the world around them, or the Pokémon Go hordes playing the world’s largest video game as it’s overlaid on stuff that happens “IRL” (In Real Life) that layer digital role playing over the world: diagnosis is pending. But the fundamental fact is clear: digital archives are more important than ever and how we engage and access the archival material of the past, shapes and molds the way we experience the present and future. Playing with the Archive is a kind of digital analytics of the subconscious impulse to collage. It’s also really fun.

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October 25, 2016
ARTICLESWRITING

Millepiano Magazine featuring DJ Spooky

DATA AESTHETICS DALLA CRISI ECOLOGICA ALLA CREAZIONE ARTISTICA
by Paul D. Miller

Alessio Kolioulis: Nato come DJ, sei oggi professore di musica, artista e scrit- tore. Quali sono i pensatori e le idee che ti hanno maggiormente influenzato nel corso del tempo?

Paul D. Miller: Per me non c’è differenza tra l’idea e una sua manifestazione. Alcuni dei miei pensatori preferiti sono persone che hanno applicato le loro idee ad alcuni campi specifici, come Pitagora, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Duke Ellington, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Bertoldt Brecht, Charles Babbage, Samuel De- lany, Nam Jun Paik, John Cage, Angela Davis, Iannis Xenakis, Cornell West, Char- les e Ray Eames, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Charles Darwin, ma questa è una lista dav- vero parziale. Tuttavia, ciò che li accomuna è un’inclinazione elementare a spin- gersi fin tanto che le idee non si manifestano. Quando lavoro, mi batto nel cerca- re artisti e creativi che siano sempre alla ricerca, e che non accettino mai di confor- marsi a ciò che va di moda. Sono molto attirato da quelle persone che non si la- sciano facilmente contenere. A proposito, non sono nato – così mi hai chiesto – “come DJ”! Ho iniziato principalmente facendo arte e scrivendo.

DOWNLOAD PDF [italian]

June 7, 2015
ARTICLESNEWS

DJ Spooky is the cover star of ART VOICES

DJ Spooky: All of the Above | October/November 2012 Issue | Article by Shane McAdams.

Excerpt:
Spooky is the rare artist that toggles between nerdy, technical indulgence, and sentient inventorying of the human condition. I’ve heard Spooky comment on several occasions, in regard to this eclecticism and reach, that it’s “all just one big record.” Which is funny, because it’s an omnivorous approach to art-making that sends me back to the Renaissance and Leonard’s flying machines, as much as it anticipates the next century, where the digital technology Spooky embraces will reign. So, one wonders: is Spooky a throwback, a contemporary, or an oracle?

// READ INTERVIEW web | pdf

June 6, 2014
ARTICLES

Plexus Nexus: Samuel R. Delany’s Pataphysics

By Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky
NY 2013

”Lift up your hearts, you good dancers, high! higher! And do not forget the good laughter!”
— Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra

This exhibition isn’t about Afrofuturism. If it was, my artwork would be in it. Instead, what it presents is an essay on objects that dip in and out of the conceptual realm that the obliquely referential term “future” is all about – with an askance towards the perpetual possibility of what Afrofuturism could be. So it’s a bit of a contradiction, but that’s kind of the point. When the curators asked me to interview Samuel R. Delany aka Chip, I said “sure!” and called him up. He was in. No problem. And that’s where this dialog and the exhibition overlap. In our era of 140 character tweets and infinite updates on Facebook, Youtube, Vine, Instagram, and Google+, getting a chance to catch up with Chip is to be treasured and absorbed slowly.

June 7, 2013
ARTICLES

JOHN CAGE: APP+ART=RHYTHM MACHINE

By Paul D. Miller

”When we separate music from life, we get art.”
— John Cage

2012 marked the Centennial of John Cage, undoubtedly one of the most important composers of the 20th century.

I caught up with the John Cage Trust to do an article about the new App they commissioned to commemorate the situation.

DOWNLOAD THE ARTICLE
May 7, 2013