‎future post ape

0pp0sable:

“…[The book] makes a statement about the nature, the appeal, of fascism. How lofty and spiritual it is, and how people come to agree with it, like they get hypnotized by the inhumanity of it, and the scope of it. Fascism does have the appeal of science fiction in some ways. […] They both supply a lot of crypto-religious loftiness of “What if it’s really like that?” and “What if we could really…” and then it jumps to “Italians, you have your empire!”

This awesomeness covers a lot of political shabbiness. When you study how fascism was actually carried out as a practice, there was this massive, ecstatic life with the huge rallies and the flowers and the sacrifice and the noble fall and the martial ardor and all that, but at the same time fascism was really a grimy little favor-driven society. It was not a prosperous society. You really had to depend on the party boss to get you all kinds of favors, and to get your children educated, to buy a house. You had to ingratiate yourself with this one-party state. There was this tremendous loftiness on one scale and on another there was this pathetic, grimy quality that robbed people of dignity. These two aspects feed off one another in a remarkable way. It took me a long time to figure it out.

– Bruce Sterling, 2016, from an interview about his novel Pirate Utopia

(the full interview is available only in the back of the book; I just extracted a section that seemed relevant)

Both of you talk about your work as being intertwined with nature. I feel like that’s kind of the opposite of how a lot of electronic musicians think about their material.
Ciani: One of the strongest connections that I have is to the ocean. The endless rhythm of the sea is kind of how a machine works. The wonderful thing about a machine is that it’s dependable, will go on and on, and doesn’t stop. I don’t think it’s that distant to look at nature as having the same motor rhythms and underlying forces.

Smith: You’re also kind of sculpting electricity, so you are sort of working with nature. And the Buchla makes such great ocean sounds.

Ciani: It’s a feminine energy as well. For me, when I discovered the machine, it gave me a great sense of security and peacefulness because it was so dependable. Then you find out that actually when you’re working in technology, it’s a real mixed bag. Sometimes it doesn’t work—you have that built in frustration. It’s always a dual reality.

Smith: I feel like it teaches you the life and death cycle, and how to not be attached. You’ll be making something really amazing, and then get up and get a glass of water, and it will be destroyed [laughs].

How a Chance Meeting in a Tiny California Town Yielded This Year’s Most Colossal-Sounding Synth Record https://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/suzanne-ciani-kaitlyn-aurelia-smith-interview-sunergy-free-radicals