After spending a month in Antarctica recording the sounds of ice melting, Paul D. Miller is putting a new spin on environmentalism with his multimedia compositions. For a recent set of shows, he combined turntables with videos and a string ensemble. Miller studied philosophy and French lit in college, and planned a career as a diplomat before becoming a globe-trotting deejay.
How'd you pick your name?
"Spooky" is based on Freud's idea of the uncanny. Modern life is super uncanny. Genetic engineering, iPhone apps, you name it. I've become an architect of the uncanny—shaping massive information flows that artists are generating. Information is a tool; that in itself is uncanny. My next project after Antarctica is about multiple universes with the physicist Brian Greene. We inhabit a universe that is made of information, and we're just beginning to translate it.
And "That Subliminal Kid"?
It's a nickname from Nova Express by William S. Burroughs. I'm a big fan of Kerouac, Burroughs, Amiri Baraka. They play with language and so do I. Nuanced complex engagement is beautiful. I hate America's willingness to reduce everything to simple sound bites.
A lot of your aesthetic is built on sound bites.
But sampling is a collage. It creates more complexity. My new album has material from several languages—Chinese, Russian, Farsi.... It's like one plus one equals three.
Why did you want to become a diplomat?
I grew up in an academic household and we always had guests from different countries. And my mom made sure we viewed America as just one place among many. We went to Jamaica, Kenya, Egypt, Greece.
Do you currently find expression for your diplomatic impulses?
Some people might say that, but music is much deeper than diplomacy. You see cultures' basic operating systems in dance and celebration in a way you don't sitting in an embassy. I like to think of myself as an amateur anthropologist. I look at the deep structures of human nature. It's pretty fun.
You drop a lot of highbrow references when discussing what some would consider lowbrow culture, such as hip-hop. Do you ever overanalyze things?
Without question. I've been told that by various girlfriends. If I'm going to think about something, I'd rather really think about it.
Are more environmental projects in the works?
The Antarctica film project will be a trilogy. The second part is on the sinking islands in the South Pacific, so I'll film in Nauru and Vanuatu. And the third's about growing deserts, so I'll visit Namibia.
Do your remixes of sea ice inform public debate?
Absolutely. You can't be as didactic as a lot of people in the environmental movement would want. Persuasion has to be information-based, social-based, and, above all, emotion-based.
Tags:
anthropologist,
collage,
deep structures,
diplomacy,
diplomat,
genetic engineering,
human nature,
impulses,
information flows,
iPhone,
kerouac,
multiple universes,
physicist
