akirako wrote:I wonder what kind of machinery was sampled for the beat. It kinda sounds like an old printer to me but I guess it could be anything. Maybe Inferno could have a theme of brainwashing/religion/propaganda/socially accepted common sense as a way of artificially creating a specific kind of life, or maybe some link between technology and the aforementioned, and I wonder whether that ties into AI anxiety. The more I listen to Inferno, the more I think it feels very "biomechanical" in that Akira/Beyond the Black Rainbow kind of way, and bringing the kind of social discourse that needs some sort of mind control into it sounds like an interesting premise to me. But I could be way off!
Interesting re: Akira and Beyond the Black Rainbow. I loved that movie and its score was a big part of it. And I'll go with you on the bio-, neuro-, psycho-engineering ideas, which I also think are present in this track, starting with the title.
There's the obvious Biblical reference and its place in the overall themes and narrative of the album, but it's the technological sounds that give John 1:14 a new dimension for me here. I feel that previously, wherever M&M have mixed in or referenced religion or religious samples/material, the music has been more "organic" sounding; grainier, blurrier. But this is different; everything about it feels "high tech" to me, mechanical, hyperefficient, and endless. Then you've got the printer sounds and robotic TTS stuff. And then the mixing and production and mastering are in on it: it feels big and pumping and overwhelming.
For me, "Words" here are exactly that: words. Books, laws, prompts, lines of code. But then these ideas become "flesh": our world, the reality we share and negotiate. As an example, we can say that "race is a social construct," that is, it doesn't
really exist, but it absolutely plays a role in everyday social and private life, so it kinda
does exist. "Doing the work" to undo these types of discriminations in our society is obviously proving difficult for something that "doesn't really but kinda does" exist.
Imagine how difficult it will be once those discriminations can be written into our genetic code. This article on the Guardian came out the day after the album did. Creepy stuff, in my opinion, and creepier still for the inevitability presented by the "biotech" entrepreneur Cathy Tie, highlighted in the article.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... ify-babies
Now, or soon, we can edit the DNA of germline cells and create generational changes in humans. I don't think I'm being too creative when I suggest that if/when this technology, science, and logic enters our culture, it will be used to reinforce abstract concepts and reify them as actual, scientific discriminations.
"Designer babies, super-smart or super good-looking, are inevitable." - He Jiankui, lovingly referred to as "China's Dr. Frankenstein" in the article mentioned above.
Will these babies simply be "designer" products, luxuries for the rich and bored, or will they be used to reinforce abstract concepts (words) into reality (flesh)?
Taking a look at John 1:14 again, the first sentence suggests God taking some form in Jesus (I'll leave the Christians among us to articulate the finer points of that), but it's the second sentence that really intrigues me:
"We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
We are engaged in a project that will eventually leave us as the inferior at the end of it. We create and will marvel at what we've created even as it renders us superfluous.
Baudrillard: "The current revolution is different than previous historical revolutions—it is a truly anthropological revolution: a revolution in the automatic perfection of technical devices and in the definitive disqualification of human beings, of whom they are not even aware."
Leaving only the robotic voice at the end of the track.
