Aim: To analyse whether or not the internet can be said to form a functional rhizomatic system and from this analysis to discuss what this implies for the future management or control of the structures that exist therein. Sources: Deleuze and Guattari – A Thousand Plateaus and Anti-Oedipus, Manuel Castells – The Internet Galaxy
Tag: rhizome
Introduction. The Rhizome and the arborescent model. The powerful tree trunk, here representing a hierarchy of opinion against the horizontal, discontinuous and free flight of the rhizome. The trunk is filiation. The rhizome on the other hand represents multiplicities. It has no beginning or end, just a middle (a milieu). It is a subterranean shoot, it spreads horizontally, and at certain junctures plateaus arise. A rhizome is about connectivity. It does not run opposed to the arborescent (or state) but it is a line of escape/flight, a different way. No one language in a rhizome, multiplicity. Arborescent might seek a universal language. Nomad thought verses state space. The overall aim is to investigate the music press and the changes that have occurred due to advances in communication and technology and to look at the potential future of the music press plus industry and the implication for the consumer, artist and the record labels. Plateaus. What are the new plateaus that have arisen due to advances in technology and communication? New web sites, the advent of file sharing. The consumer ideally jumps from one to another (metacritic.com) and makes informed decisions on what to listen to or buy. The eventuality of the rhizome might be becoming ‘a self facilitating media node,’ (Nathan Barley, Channel 4). What about those who can’t reach these plateaus? Is the arborescent structure still in existence? The event. ‘The best of all worlds is not the one that reproduces the eternal, but the one in which new creations are produced, the one endowed with a capacity for innovation or creativity: a teleological conversion of philosophy,’ (p79, The Fold, Deleuze). Deleuze’s theory of the event and the growing sense that music is becoming more about the event. The live sphere is the only one that doesn’t represent an absence. Can the press ever influence us more than the first hand experience? Examples, Polyphonic Spree, Arctic Monkeys. War Machines. The war machine is a kind of movement which is separate to the state, and it causes concern to, or somehow disturbs the sedentary cultures within the state. For the purpose of this discussion the arborescent root within the music industry could be equated with the state. Independent labels and bands as war machines. They try to mix the state apparatus up. Runs away from as well as struggle against the state. Eventually become recoded by capital, example Creation records. Reterritorialization and deterritorialization, capitalism and the attempt by the state to limit desires. Do the new plateaus mean a creation of desires. Hell is For Heroes and Captains of industry case studies Interview with an independent label and band. The band have been signed to a major, and independent, and a have released an album on their own label. Captains of Industry is run as a collective, skills which can be used are used. There is no management structure and yet they have been relatively successful. How much can a small label and a rock band do? The culmination of war machines to strangle the arborescent root. Bands that have been directly affected by the changes in technology- Arctic Monkeys, Wilco etc. Are there pitfalls to file sharing? Conclusion. Is the music mainstream music press losing its influence? How much did it have in the first place? Is there a cycle going on- the arborescent, the struggle to topple it then the creation of another? If we are bored of trees, why do we keep planting them?