Who knew the rock legend was also an internet visionary?
Fifteen years ago, David Bowie explained that the “alien life form” we call the internet would soon become a giant, capable of bringing artists and audiences together and changing the landscape of media altogether.
In an interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight, the music and fashion icon, who lost his battle with cancer just a few days ago, believed then that the internet had a lot more to offer in terms of content and context and that we were at “the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying”.
“We haven’t even seen the tip of the ice berg,” he said. “I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable.” In his eyes, the internet has taken the role of being “subversive, possibly rebellious, chaotic and nihilistic”.
While Paxman didn’t seem too convinced, David explained that the internet ‘demystified’ the process between the artist and the audience. Before, it was about single artists and separate entities, but with the advent of the internet it was more about the genre — playing a communal part between audiences and musicians and allowing the former to become a part of the latter, possibly playing just an important part as the artist.
“Because the point of having somebody who led the forces has disappeared, the vocab of rock is only a conveyor of information, not information, the internet has taken on that,” he added.
From absolutism, to fragmentation, the singer broke down how the internet has changed the construct of society. “The singularity [and duality in the way of life in the 70s] disappeared and that has produced such a medium as the internet which established that we live in total fragmentation.”
“It’s just a tool though, isn’t it?” questioned a confused Paxman.
“No, it’s not… no. It’s an alien life form,” replied David. “The actual context and the state of content is going to be so different than what we can envision at the moment, where the interplay between the user and the provider will be so in simpatico it’s going to crush our ideas what the mediums are all about,” he said.
