Interview with Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid

Multimedia artist, composer, writer,

and 2014 National Geographic Emerging Explorer 

 

By Ocean Pleasant

 

 

 

Ocean Pleasant: Can you name a way that you think technology is advancing our society, and a way that it’s creating a barrier of disconnect?

Paul D. Miller: There’s no question about it that Millennials, the people that have been growing up as “digital natives,” have all experienced a different approach to how they look at the way society functions. Information and social networks are the basis of their whole social flow. I’m 44, so I tend to think that I have good perspective on both. The technology now is quite intuitive and all about becoming faster, more robust, which is going to be more immersive, complex, and more of how Millennials think. That’s a beautiful thing because I think a lot of younger people are thinking of technology as a very flexible extension of their social process. All of which is cool. I’m not against or for technology. It’s just a tool.

 

OP: What wisdom could you share with Millennials who are exploring new methods of creative expression, while technology plays such an integral part in their social development?

PDM: I cannot affirm enough that technology is a tool; we shouldn’t over-prioritize it. You shouldn’t say it’s the end-all, be-all. Every generation loves to think that the metaphors they use and the styles of material around them are the most complex, the end of everything, the most intense. The ’60s felt that Vietnam was the metaphor for everything, the ’50s felt the Cold War was the metaphor for everything, the ’30s that the Depression was everything. In hindsight, each one is just a chapter in a book that’s still being written. We need to get some context and pull back a little bit. The problem is, society is moving so quickly, technology is changing so rapidly, it’s hard to get perspective.

 

I like to think of my music and my art as giving people a sense of a bubble where they can kind of pull out of the hecticness and dive
into this space that essentially gives them a little more of a dynamic engagement. Like, they can see that the stuff is happening, they can experience it, but the way the art functions is to give people the tools to take apart the situation and think more clearly and more robustly and hopefully with more of a sense of irreverence.