Title- Archive as Alphabet: Digital Appropriation and New Structures in Writing

Questions
How has appropriation changed since the invention of the internet?
What is stealing in the 21st century?
What is appropriate copyright protection?
How has digital technology and the internet changed the structure of “traditional” (non-electronic) wring?

In the late 1960s the composer Steve Reich was experimenting with tape loops of people speaking. On one occasion he was playing two identical loops exactly in sync yet do to technical imperfections one loop gradually got ahead of the other. Reich listened while the loops got increasing out of sync and then began to come back together. He was fascinated by this phenomenon he called phasing yet believed the tapes where only a gimmick so he began to compose phase music to be performed by live musicians. Reich developed a radical new musical structure with the aid of new technology yet the final works were performed with instruments centuries old.

Books
Rhythm Science (The MIT Press, 2004)
Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008)
Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music (Continuum, 2004)

-Simon