
A pioneering experiment in music journalism. Articles about the music of David Bowie, written by a selection of AI bots, including the Autofill function on a phone, with editorial comments and factual corrections by a token human, and original illustrations drawn by hand by the very human Kev F Sutherland. The illustrations by Kev F appear elsewhere on Bowie's internet as part of a colouring book. David Bowie was more than just a pop and rock music pioneer, you know. He was more than just an artist. He was more than just an actor. David Bowie was a visionary. Who can forget, way back in 1999 in a BBC interview with Jeremy Paxman, what Bowie had to say about the internet? "The potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable," he said. "It's an alien life form. Is there life on Mars? Yes, it's just landed here. "The actual context and state of content is going to be so different to anything we envisage at the moment. Where the interplay between the user and the provider will be so in simpatico it's going to crush our ideas of what mediums are all about. It's happening in every form. That grey space in the middle is what the 21st century is going to be about." On the subject of music, back in the earliest days of downloading and streaming in 2002, Bowie told the New York Times ""Music is going to become like running water or electricity," "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years," he said, "because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. In so many ways, not just by his literal predictions, but through his musical innovations and his explorations in fashion, Bowie described the future in many uncanny ways. <p
Page Count:
108
Publication Date:
2023-01-17
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