The Future Has Dissapeared

Today, the UK government announced a proposal to change copyright law - for the benefit of AI companies - that would cause harm to artists, musicians and other creators. (article in The Guardian)

It reminded me of this lecture by Mark Fisher 10 years ago on the Slow Cancellation of the Future. He says:

Cultural production has become a commodity priced at zero, while what cultural producers rely on has been hyper commodified: housing, food, gas, electricity, education, ... When only rich kids can afford art school, we return to a kitsch high-culture that cannot imagine the new.

Everything is boring and nobody is bored.

Mark Fisher in 2014: if you'd send today's music back 20 years in time, 1994 would never believe that music came from 2014. If non-place is the indistinguishable space of circulation of late capitalism (airport, retail park) we live in cultural non-time.

Early 21st century is just late 20th century thrown at us at higher internet speeds. The internet loads us with a an oppressive weight of the past, making it harder for the new to emerge. In music, key technological shifts had to do with the consumption and distribution rather than the production of music. 'Futuristic' now belongs to history: it sounds like Kraftwerk.

We live a slow cancellation of the future.