My Personal Media Revolution – Act Two

October 15, 2010 //
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In 1984, I traveled to Peru to study with a native shaman. Later that year I moved to Northern California and began work on a master’s degree thesis about symbols and consciousness. I drove miles to go to libraries and would check out 10 -20 books at a time. To create graphics I would shoot photo stats of images and cut and paste using a razor blade and rubber cement. How archaic!  Two years later I was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was introduced to the concept of desktop publishing. I bought a Mac and a Laser Writer and was able to create my own graphics and integrate text, enabling me to publish my own works. I could now cut and paste without having to peel rubber cement off of my fingers.

By the 1990s, modern civilization was changed forever with the introduction to the World Wide Web.  No longer would a person need to haul 20 books home for research. Beyond access to infinite information at the touch of a finger, the average person could now name their domain and buy a piece of cyber real estate. With the dot-com boom and the spread of all media in a digital format– the media and entertainment industry hunkered down trying to control the illegal distribution of their digital content. But the tsunami of technology transformed everything in what felt like overnight. By the early days of the new millennium scores of record stores closed their doors as people marched around with their entire record collection compressed into something the size of a pack of gum. And, after the dot com bust, it was clear the Internet was not developed solely to become one vast electronic shopping mall.

Keep The Internet Free!

By the start of the 21st century the buzz was all about Web 2.0, social media and the focus on sharing, collaborating and connecting. By 2003, Linked In and My Space were launched and social networking was off and running. That year, I created and co-founded The Dream Exchange – a social network with 5,000 members in 46 countries. In addition I created an internet-radio show and began to broadcast to the world. The monthly operational cost was equivalent to paying a monthly membership fee at a fitness club. With the advent of the iTunes stores and the creation of the pod cast, I now had distribution for content. I even had a recording studio loaded for free onto my new Mac laptop – called Garageband. It made me think about my garage band back in 1969 and the reel-to-reel recorder.

Then, with the introduction of YouTube a 12 year old could have his or her own TV channel. Access to all the media, make your own movie, TV, radio, and publish your own print-on -demand books – the new millennium has spawned a Personal Media Revolution that could fulfill Andy Warhol’s vision that in the future everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes.  Has my fifteen minutes run out yet?

My Personal Media Revolution – Act One

October 1, 2010 //
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The year is 1969—I am 13 years old standing in front of the mirror playing air drums lip-syncing Jefferson Airplane…“start a revolution!” Later that year I started my own band called It and Company. I am not sure who “It” was. We had our first concert in a split-level suburban garage. We taped “It” on a one-track reel-to-reel recorder and dreamt of making a record someday.  By the time I was 14 we had disbanded…but the dream was still alive as was the dream of being a Bohemian artist dude hanging out at the edge of culture. I imagined myself like Andy Warhol with my own magazine, movies, and music scene.

Ten years later I am living in Soho, New York City showing my work in the lofts of lower Manhattan and playing avant-garde electronic music in my band The Quantum Slicing Machine. We recorded on a TEAC multi-track recorder and were able to overlay more tracks than the Beatles did on their Sgt. Pepper album. Additionally, we were able to burn cassettes and distribute them—something that was not possible in 1969.

With the advent of the Color Xerox machine I created art books and sold them at a local gallery.  I was so obsessed with Color Xerox that it became my medium of choice…I even plastered a gallery wall and video taped it with the legendary artist Keith Haring as my cameraman. Andy Warhol loved it…said it “would make great wallpaper!”

As I saw how I was able to create my reality, my dreams became more grandiose! My grandest vision was to create a TV channel that played avant-garde music with corresponding video art. Two years later when MTV came on the air heralding the birth of “rock video” I knew I had a gift of seeing the future. Something big was brewing!

Flash-forward to 1984 – Reagan is running for his second term and I wonder if he is the character George Orwell prophesized in his classic book. But 1984 was actually a turning point and defining year for the Personal Media Revolution. During the Super Bowl the world was introduced to Apple Computer’s new baby – the Macintosh.  The apocalyptic Ridley Scott TV commercial announced: “on January 24, 1984 – Apple will introduce the Macintosh and you will see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” This was a truly visionary ad.

The revolution has taken place, we are all enabled to create media and distribute it. Instead of one Big Brother channel force-feeding the masses, we are accelerating through the television/internet convergence at a speed that will give us access to literally tens of thousands of choices of what is on the “tube’.