The Electronic Revolution
Encyclopedia
The Electronic Revolution is an essay
collection by William S. Burroughs
that was first published in 1970 by Expanded Media Editions in West Germany
. A second edition, published in 1971 in Cambridge, England, contained additional French
translation by Jean Chopin.
The book is available in its entirety in later editions of The Job, a book of interviews conducted by Daniel Odier that elaborate on the topics contained therein.
Part one, entitled "The Feedback from Watergate to the Garden of Eden" invokes Alfred Korzybski
’s views characterising man as "the time binding machine" due to his ability to write. Burroughs sees the significance of a written word as a distinguishing feature of human beings which enables them to transform and convey information to future generations. He proposes the theory of "the unrecognised virus" present in the language, suggesting that, "the word has not been recognised as a virus because it has achieved a state of stable symbiosis with the host."
Part two, "Electronic Revolution" concerns the power of alphabetic non-pictorial languages to control people. It draws attention to the subversive influence of the word virus on humans and dangerous possibilities of using human voice as a weapon. Recording words on tape recorders and employing the Cut-up technique
(a form of writing Burroughs frequently employed) can easily lead to the false news broadcasts or garbled political speeches causing confusion and psychic control over individuals.
band Cabaret Voltaire
. Richard H. Kirk
, a member of a group who excelled in electronic music
, employed many ideas and methods from the book in the creation of his music. He described it as "a handbook of how to use tape recorders in a crowd … to promote a sense of unease or unrest by playback of riot noises cut in with random recordings of the crowd itself."
Present Time
A revolution like the industrial revolution no one wants to define out of fear because it is actually taking place and affecting us all.
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
collection by William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
that was first published in 1970 by Expanded Media Editions in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
. A second edition, published in 1971 in Cambridge, England, contained additional French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
translation by Jean Chopin.
The book is available in its entirety in later editions of The Job, a book of interviews conducted by Daniel Odier that elaborate on the topics contained therein.
The book
The book is divided into two parts.Part one, entitled "The Feedback from Watergate to the Garden of Eden" invokes Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics...
’s views characterising man as "the time binding machine" due to his ability to write. Burroughs sees the significance of a written word as a distinguishing feature of human beings which enables them to transform and convey information to future generations. He proposes the theory of "the unrecognised virus" present in the language, suggesting that, "the word has not been recognised as a virus because it has achieved a state of stable symbiosis with the host."
Part two, "Electronic Revolution" concerns the power of alphabetic non-pictorial languages to control people. It draws attention to the subversive influence of the word virus on humans and dangerous possibilities of using human voice as a weapon. Recording words on tape recorders and employing the Cut-up technique
Cut-up technique
The cut-up technique is an aleatory literary technique in which a text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. Most commonly, cut-ups are used to offer a non-linear alternative to traditional reading and writing....
(a form of writing Burroughs frequently employed) can easily lead to the false news broadcasts or garbled political speeches causing confusion and psychic control over individuals.
Influence
The Electronic Revolution influenced various musicians in the 1970s such as the industrialIndustrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
band Cabaret Voltaire
Cabaret Voltaire (band)
Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...
. Richard H. Kirk
Richard H. Kirk
Richard H. Kirk is an English musician specialising in electronic music since the 1970s.-Background:Richard H. Kirk first came to prominence in the 1970s as a member of the seminal industrial band Cabaret Voltaire...
, a member of a group who excelled in electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, employed many ideas and methods from the book in the creation of his music. He described it as "a handbook of how to use tape recorders in a crowd … to promote a sense of unease or unrest by playback of riot noises cut in with random recordings of the crowd itself."
Present Time
A revolution like the industrial revolution no one wants to define out of fear because it is actually taking place and affecting us all.
See also
- MemeMemeA meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
- MemeticsMemeticsMemetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a "unit of...
- Tabula RasaTabula rasaTabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...