Self-Identity and the Digital Realm:Processes of Signification through the Materiality and Visibility of Musical

Consumption

1. Introduction...............................................................................................1

2. Identity through Curation of Object Collections.......................................2

Side A: Analog

3.1 Authenticity.............................................................................................3

3.2 Materiality...............................................................................................4

Side B: Digital

4. I gather Data, therefore I am.....................................................................7

5. Conclusion and Outlook: Digital Data as a Nietzschean Hinterwelt......11

6. Bibliography............................................................................................14

7. Appendix.................................................................................................17

1. Introduction

It is clear that one's taste in music, always and to a higher degree than just about any

other medium of popular culture, carries within itself a significant amount of sign-value.

Sub- and counter-cultures since the second half of the 20th century have largely defined

themselves through music more than through anything else. Music is a social marker. At

the same time, objects have also come to serve as social markers, as exhaustively

analysed by Jean Baudrillard in his early writings; and the primary mode of circulation

of music has changed drastically: From vinyl to tapes to compact discs to illegal and

legal digital files. This paper aims to answer the following question: How do these

different modes of circulation result in different modes of signifying such a social

identity?

Since this is merely a short term paper, two constraints must be noted: firstly, a

thorough diachronic investigation of every historical audio medium and its respective

peculiarities cannot be pursued here. Instead, I will focus on two particular aspects, both

highly contemporary: The resurgence of vinyl as a medium in the past decade1, as seen

mostly in niche genres2, but also by some high-profile musical acts; and secondly the

way in which digital file formats and streaming services can be used to create a social

identity.

The second constraint given here is that I will focus on the music as object. A large part

of the social identity bestowed upon the consumer is determined by one's taste in music,

so to speak. Veblen:

But leisure in the narrower sense, as distinct from exploit and from any ostensibly productiveemployment of effort on objects which are of no intrinsic use, does not commonly leave amaterial product. The criteria of a past performance of leisure therefore commonly take the formof "immaterial" goods. Such immaterial evidences of past leisure are quasi-scholarly or quasi-artistic accomplishments and a knowledge of processes and incidents which do not conducedirectly to the furtherance of human life. So, for instance, in our time there is the knowledge ofthe dead languages and the occult sciences; of correct spelling; of syntax and prosody; of thevarious forms of domestic music and other household art [...] (Veblen 34)

Exhibiting such a "knowledge of art" (i.e. how cultured and sophisticated one is),

however, is a performative act which is relatively independent from the music as an

object: One may always talk about music to forge an identity, e.g. arrogantly pointing

1 "2012 represented the fifth consecutive year of double-digit sales growth for [vinyl]." Digital Trends: The Turntable Strikes Back. Ian White, February 2013.

2 The example most commonly used here will be Denovali Records, based in Bochum, Germany, whosemailorder service offers over 3,000 vinyl records and only about a thousand compact discs. http://www.denovali.com/shop/

1

out that such-and-such is merely a cheap imitation of so-and-so. What we are concerned

with here, however, is how the objects of music "speak for themselves", so to speak.3

In chapter two, I will briefly outline how the creation of a self-identity is possible

through mass-produced objects. In the third chapter, I will give reasons for the

resurgence of vinyl in the past decade, followed by a discussion of the "advancements"

of strategies of signification in the digital realm in the fourth chapter. In the conclusion

of this paper, I will offer an (all too brief) sketch of what I have found to be the single

largest peculiarity of the digital realm, and a potential mode of criticizing it through the

philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

2. Identity through Curation of Object Collections

Social identity is, in our society, created through consumption. As Baudrillard notes in

The System of Objects: "The most desired product today, says Riesman, is not a natural

resource, is not a machine, but the one's personality. And indeed, the contemporary

consumer is plagued by a honest desire for his self-fulfillment."4 This creation of

identity must always be predicated through difference and rarity. An object can only say

something about me if not everyone owns it, i.e. my identity is only meaningful if it

differs from other's identities.

Within the mechanized, mass-produced creation of art, therefore, we come to a seeming

paradox; Its aura disappears. "In all the arts there is a physical component which can no

longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our

modern knowledge and power."5 The disappearance of the aura of the singular object

after all, even the "limited" vinyl pressing has 150, 350, 500, maybe a thousand more or

less exact copies, none of which are the original6 however, can, at least for the social

purposes considered here, be recaptured through the curation of the collection. Consider

3 These two forms of social self-signification through objects and through "performance of culture" are actually highly similar and converge at certain points; the distinction is merely made to not blow the proportions of this paper.

4 Jean Baudrillard, Das System der Dinge. Frankfurt/New York: Campus 2007 (3rd Edition). Self-translated from the German edition.

5 Paul Valry, Pices sur LArt, 1931; quoted by Walter Benjamin in the preface of The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility, 1936.

6 Benjamin: "From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask forthe authentic print makes no sense." (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Chapter IV)

2

that mathemetically, millions upon millions of possible combinations immediately arise

out of small sets of numbers; so that while the absolute uniqueness i.e. the aura of

any single object is not given, one's collection is still very much unique, a singular

possession. It may be theoretically reproducable, but these odds are extremely unlikely,

giving the object collection its aura of authenticity, of "signifying-myself-ness."

Baudrillard, in The System of Objects:

When the object is not valued in accordance with its function, its role is determined by thesubject: in this case objects all become possessions, an abstraction of passion. A single object cantherefore not satisfy: There has to be a multitude of objects, possibly a whole series, thatcorresponds to the fulfillment of a desire. This is why the possession of an object of any kind issimultaneously so fulfilling and so disappointing; a whole series continues and unsettles it. [...]Only a more or less complex organisation of correlating and interacting objects will depict everysingle object with enough abstraction to be experienced by the subject in his desire ofpossession.7

With this preliminary theorization, we may now begin to discuss the vinyl.

Side A : Analog

2.1 Authenticity

Why, in particular, a revival of vinyl? Why is tape, which was the dominant force of the

eighties until superseded by the compact disc, not in for a revival? What is so specific

about the Vinyl?

First, it may be argued that vinyl will forever be the most authentic form of recording

music: there simply is no older form of recording. Tape and CD are phases we went

through, and we may go through many more such phases, but there is only ever one

origin; and for the mass circulation of music, that origin is vinyl.8 For example, on the

one hand vinyl records are heralded for their fidelity, for the supposed superiority over

compact dics in regards to sound quality.9 At the same time, however, consider the

7 p. 111, Self-translated from the German edition. Emphasis mine.8 Strictly speaking, the phonograph cylinder existed earlier. The vinyl record's popularity and ubiquity,

however, was unprecedented. It may also be argued that many myths of "authenticity" originate in the 1950s of post-war America (Cf. Coontz 1992) and by then, the phonograph cylinder was long forgotten.

9 It may be prudent here to refer to a hearing test by the german computer magazine c't, which had 13 people compare the sound of mp3's of varying quality and compact disc originals. There is, in effect, aminiscule audible difference between a good mp3 file and a CD. The perceived difference between vinyl and CDs often comes about due to the fact that the vinyl versions use different masters of the recorded songs, that is to say, entirely different sources. These differences are then merely heard by theear as "superior" to conform to the expectation of the listener that vinyl is, in fact, superior; cf. the

3

example of Quentin Tarantino's movie Django Unchained, whose soundtrack Tarantino

recorded from his own vinyl collection, including the crackles and hisses.10 They

become a marker of authenticity, of hearing it "just like Tarantino wanted it to." Now we

may see this kind of authenticity as a simply form of conditioning (in the same sense

that a movie running on 24 frames per second feels more "movie-like" than something

shot on a higher frame rate, which "feels" "cheaper"11), and we might in due time grow

exactly as accustomed to and feel the same sense of authenticity for mp3 transcodes

with low bitrates: Note that there already is a subgenre called glitch-hop, which makes

heavy use of the odd feeling of sounds being "cut" due to errors12. For now, however,

the analogue errors and noises of vinyl are, far from being a mere nuisance, a definite

part of our fascination with them. Not only, then, is its audio quality "warmer", even its

shortcomings are somehow "warmer": homelier, more authentic.

2.2 Materiality

Second, the visibility of the record being played surely holds a large part in the enduring

of vinyl. Which other medium allows us to so clearly see the sound? Certainly not the

compact disc, whose mechanical operations are entirely invisible to us; other than the

short moment during which we insert the disc, we do not even see the insides in its

passive state, let alone while the disc is spinning. An interesting exception that

nevertheless proves the rule: the CD version of Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero13 is coated

with a thermo-chrome heat-sensitive surface, which causes the disc to change color

while being played the result of which is, however, only visible after taking the disc

out again, that is to say, after the fact: the materiality of the process of playing the music

can still only be seen as a trace.14 And how much more opaque still the digital soundfile

Soundmatters blog and the c't article in the bibliography.10 "A note about the condition of the older recordings I am using on this soundtrack a lot of these came

from my personal vinyl collection. Instead of having the record companies give me new digitally cleaned up versions of these recordings from the 60's and 70's, I wanted to use the vinyl I've been listening to for years complete with all the pops and cracks. I even kept the sound of the needle being put down on the record. Basically because I wanted people's experience to be the same as mine when they hear this soundtrack for the first time." from the sleeve of the Django Unchained soundtrack (on vinyl, of course).

11 As can be seen by the reaction to Peter Jackson's The Hobbit movies being shown in 48p; cf. the articles by The Guardian, The Rolling Stone and Variety in the Bibliography.

12 Mostly based on the Mille Plateaux label, located in Frankfurt, Germany.13 Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross (Producers), Rob Sheridan (Artwork): Year Zero. 2007 Interscope Records. An image of the CD can be found on the Wikipedia entry for the album. 14 A further exception: The luxury brand Bang& Olufsen has created CD players wherein the CD

4

on one's computer the inner workings of which are a total enigma to us. The tape

could offer us a chance, but it too does not compare; much like the floppy disc, outdated

as it is, still serves as our collective symbol of "saving" something on a computer, so too

is the vinyl forever our idea of music playing; the spinning plate, the needle-head

hypnotically racing towards the middle in slow-motion will always remain for us be the

most radiant form of music consumption. Nowhere else, pace the live concert, can

music be seen so literally. And no form of music curation is as social: There can be no

comparison between the idle, life-less YouTube-diskjockeying at a social gathering and

the inexplicably solemn duty of picking up the record players' needle, rummaging

through the vinyl collection, finding what one has looked for, and re-placing the needle-

head. . .15 Its odd combination of advanced technology and yet so mechanical operation

offers, for us, an unparalleled fascination.

Lastly, the sheer size of the vinyl (which held a ghostly presence in the preceding

reason as well) makes it the ideal object to collect and to signify: For no other medium

is the artwork of the sleeve as clearly visible, and therefore as important. The vinyl is a

collectors item par excellence. Consider the various "bonus" or "region exclusive" songs

released; any such kind of bonus material will inevitably find its way onto the internet

in a matter of hours after release. Even songs "exclusive" to the vinyl version can easily

be ripped and converted into digital files with modern vinyl players. The only aspect

that can still, then, be truly called exclusive or "limited" is literally the material itself

not the songs, the "sound material", but the object, the materiality. And this is being

openly flaunted: Denovali Records, for example, makes sure to consistently note the

"thick gatefold sleeve[s]"16 of their releases; and there is always a "limited" edition

where the vinyl itself is of different color a literalization of materiality which the mp3,

remains visible while being played. Nevertheless, the vinyl triumphs: For on the vinyl, we can clearly see the length of each song, a clear correspondence between the position of the needle-head and the resulting sound. The laser of the CD player, by contrast? We cannot hope to localize any particular song on the CD's surface. The vinyl, spinning at 45 rounds per minute, feels alive. An audio CD spinsat 210 to 480 rounds per minute and becomes completely incomprehensible to us.

15 A "truly marvellous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain," in the words of mathematician Pierre de Fermat, could be attempted through a literary comparison of the descriptions of music being played at social gatherings in Julio Cortzar's Hopscotch (found, for example, in chapters 12 to 16, and often running on for half a page) to the scarcely-found and laconic mentionings of music in Tao Lin's Taipei (The most sustained description can be found on page 84: Paul, stomach-down on his mattress, asked what music he should play and clicked "Heartbeats" by the Knife. They both laughed a little and Paul clicked "Last Nite" by the Strokes and said it sounded too depressing. He clicked "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service and said "just kidding." He clicked "The PeterCriss Jazz" by Con Caballero. He clicked "pause." Daniel said to put The Postal Service back on and snorted half his line").

16 A description used in every single newsletter from the label. The number of copies pressed and color of the editions ("350x clear black") is also always noted, while the CD version is described with a laconic "nice digipack." An exemplary newsletter can be found in the appendix.

5

floating imperceptibly only as data, could never aspire to.

Its literal dimensions, with a surface nearly four times as vast as that of a CD, make

vinyl a larger canvas upon which to reflect ones personality which is created through

the entire collection, but reflected through the individual sleeves, or, in the words of

Baudrillard: "The collection consists out of a chain of individual links, but the last link,

the final piece is the character of the collector himself."17 And the comparatively steep

price of the vinyl in comparison to the CD, far from being counterproductive, actually

plays a crucial role to further this effect: Within one's vast personal collection of mp3s,

all downloaded for free, not a single album stands out; it is merely the total sum of the

collection which marks my identity, or, as Rob Sheridan, art director for Nine Inch

Nails remarks: "We live in the iPod generation - where a 'collection' of clunky CDs feels

archaic - where the uniqueness of your music collection is limited only by how eclectic

your taste is."18 But with a vinyl collection, as expensive as every single record is, every

single record also becomes a strong signifier; As Baudrillard, through Bataille and

Veblen notes, the point is to spend (time or money), to show that one is able to waste,

i.e. that one is wealthy:

The act of consumption is never simply a purchase (reconversion of exchange value into usevalue); it is also an expenditure (an aspect as radically neglected by political economy as byMarx); that is to say, it is wealth manifested, and a manifest destruction of wealth. It is thatvalue, deployed beyond exchange value and founded upon the latter's destruction, that invests theobject purchased, acquired, appropriated, with its differential sign value. It is not the quantity ofmoney that takes on value, as in the economic logic of equivalence, but rather money spent,sacrificed, eaten up according to a logic of difference and challenge. Every act of purchase isthus simultaneously an economic act and a transeconomic act of the production of differentialsign value. (For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, p. 112-113, emphasis mine.)

And so the high cost of a vinyl emboldens the connection between the album and me;

the album in question more convincingly becomes a part of the identity I wish to

signify. The large price and the large size of the record produce a proportionally large

canvas upon which I may project myself. The larger the object, the more meaning can

be ascribed to it, the more meaning the collection can inscribe into me. A vinyl

collection of 500 records makes for an impressive row of shelves in a way the Compact

Disc never could. And how much more so the mp3, whose material presence is not

given at all; it cannot hope to satiate this desire in the slightest at least not through its

materiality.

17 Das System der Dinge, p. 116. Self-translated from the German edition. Emphasis mine.18 Rob Sheridan, When Pigs Fly. Personal blog entry, 2007.

6

Side B: Digital

3. I gather Data, therefore I am.

So with a vinyl collection, the mere possession is enough to create identity, as the

possession indicates having spent money, and therefore having "wasted" towards this

end. How can, in comparison, one's digital library signify one's capability of wasting,

and thereby one's identity?

An illuminating anecdote is at order here. In 2013, in reaction to the NSA spy scandal,

German president Joachim Gauck downplayed the magnitude of the information

gathered by the NSA by comparing the situation to that of the Staatssicherheit in former

Eastern Germany, noting that "[we] know, for example, that the situation is not akin to

that of the Staatssicherheit or the KGB; there are no dossiers on paper, neatly filed

away. It's not like that."19 The true reason for the absence of such "neatly filed away

dossiers" was simply that, if all of the data had been printed out, these dossiers would

have taken up 17 million square kilometres.20 In exactly the same vein that Gauck was

simply unably to feel the sheer size of the scandal, due to the lack of "neatly filed away

dossiers", so too is the digital collection, robbed of any materiality, unable to imprint a

strong identity onto us. And they are also robbed of any way of showing wasteful

expenditure: since it is expected that everyone illegally downloads at least some music21,

there is no way to differentiate in one's personal digital collection between legally

purchased and illegally downloaded music; one's collection may be eighty gigabytes in

size, but this number does not correlate to any amount of money spent. This problem is

compounded by the advent of streaming, through services such as Soundcloud or

Spotify, where my collection escapes even the most rudimentary form of materiality, in

the form of a number; these so-and-so many gigabytes of music are not even on my

hard drive, but instead only somewhere in the "cloud." Here, too, however, lies the

solution. In analogy, perhaps, to the move from industry to services in the 20 th century

from the creation of a material product, that is to say, to a "service" that one provides

19 Sddeutsche.de, Aktenberge so gro wie Europa, July 2013. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/stasi-versus-nsa-akten-bis-oman-1.1713311 Archived on March 16th, 2014

20 ibid.21 Sheridan: "[If] I filled my shiny new 160gb iPod up legally, buying each track online at the 99 cents

price that the industry has determined, it would cost me about $32,226. How does that make sense?" Itis indeed simply absurd to expect people to pay that sum of money; and therefore anyone's collection may have cost anywhere between $32,226 and nothing we simply cannot know. And neither do we know how much time they spent on the collection: Is every album of the digital collection hand-selected, or did they indiscriminately download everything in sight?

7

so too is there within the digital realm a new kind of conspicious consumption: that of

data.

The most comprehensive service to be seen in this light is last.fm. It automatically

records every song one listens to and creates a thorough timeline of the user's listening

habits which one may freely peruse. And one's profile is constructed in a very specific

way: The information at the very top is what one has been listening to the most recently.

Following that, one's "library", of which a snippet is given; this snippet, crucially, is

highly customizable. It may automatically show the eight bands one has listened to in

the past (and the exact definition of this "past" is up to the user: the past seven days,

month, three, six or twelve months, or simply the entire history) but the user can also

simply select eight bands himself. These eight bands are then displayed prominently and

with a small picture of the band (either the band logo or a shot from a live concert).

Below that, the website lists the user's top artists and songs (or albums), again with a

customizable time frame. These eight bands, through the small pictures22, already form

the first new form of materiality, in a way: not to be touched, but at least highly visible,

and therefore analogous to the most important feature of the vinyl's materiality.

The most important, albeit quite subtle, aspect of last.fm, however, is the fact that one

may freely retroactively delete certain tracks from one's library, and that, furthermore,

the user is always able to temporarily deactivate "scrobbling," i.e. the gathering of data:

which is to say that one is able to freely "curate" one's profile. Any unwelcome blemish

say, something one only listens to as a guilty pleasure, or a style of music one has

outgrown and no longer identifies with in one's listening history can simply be erased,

can therefore be split off from one's identity. It is illuminating here to recall

Baudrillard's talk of simulating:

To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one das. To simulate is to feign to have what onedoesn't have. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But it is more complicated than thatbecause simulating is not pretending: "Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and makeeveryone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of thesymptoms" (Littr). Therefore, pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact:the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the differencebetween the true and the false, the real and the imaginary. is the simulator sick or not, given thathe produces "true symptoms." [...] Even military psychology draws back from Cartesiancertainties and hesitates to make the distinction between true and false, between the "produced"and the authentic symptom. "If he is this good at acting crazy, it's because he is."23

22 Notice that one's Facebook profile also includes a small picture for every movie, book, band, and video game one likes. Visibility is essential.

23 The Divine Irreference of Images (p. 3-4), from: Jean Baudrillard, Sheila Faria Glaser (transl.): Simulacra and Simulation, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994.

8

In direct analogy, we can say that since the feature of deleting certain data points or of

temporarily disabling the scrobbling of music is not in any way a hidden function,24 is

expected to be known by everyone so too do we have to take the data of a user on

last.fm at face value, even though we know that they are possibly "cleaned", curated

simulated. We would have to modify Baudrillards thesis to say that "[if] he is this hell-

bent on curating his profile in this manner, it is because that curated profile is his real

self."

Within the digital realm, then, what we facilitate is a form of self-identity creation

wherein anything that is not "on the record" can be disavowed. The popular mantra of

"pics or it didn't happen"25 is modified and extended to data or it didn't happen. With

vinyl, we saw a form of creating self-identity through an object and its materiality: I

possess, therefore I am. Within the digital, without any literal materiality, an analogous

strategy is nevertheless pursued: The authority of what is "truly a part of me" is instead

handed over to a service, a website, and is being made visible there. "Pics or it didn't

happen" is literalized: The birthday party has, in a way, literally not taken place until

pictures of it are uploaded; the movie that one has watched has nevertheless not "really"

been watched until one likes it on Facebook. This function was once fulfilled by the

cinema tickets kept in the drawer. The ticket does not allow the person to go to the

cinema and watch the movie again, but that is not the goal regardless; it is merely a

materialization to make this particular movie a part of my identity. To purchase a movie

on DVD or BluRay is to follow the same desire: one may theoretically rewatch it at any

time, but the point is merely to add it to the "collection" and therefore to one's identity.

With Netflix, one may freely decide to watch that movie again and again, but that is not

what one wishes for A movie streamed via Netflix a hundred times may become part

of my internal identity, but not of my social identity: To fulfill that desire one has to

"like" it on Facebook. (We may say that the proverbial tree, falling down in the woods,

does not make a sound until we mention it in a Facebook status.) As Veblen notes:

For some part of the time his life is perforce withdrawn from the public eye, and of this portionwhich is spent in private the gentleman of leisure should [...] be able to give a convincingaccount. He should find some means of putting in evidence the leisure that is not spent in thesight of the spectators. [...] So much of the honourable life of leisure as is not spent in the sight

24 It is, for example, adressed in the Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.last.fm/help/faq?category=93

25 cf. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pics-or-it-didnt-happen and http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pics%20or%20it%20didn%27t%20happen

9

of spectators can serve the purposes of reputability only in so far as it leaves a tangible, visibleresult that can be put in evidence and can be measured and compared with products of the sameclass exhibited by competing aspirations for repute." (Veblen 33-34, 37)

Last.fm allows exactly this: Whether or not one spends one's "life of leisure" in "the

sight of spectators," one certainly produces a visible result. And the data, despite the fact

that everyone might freely simulate them, is nevertheless able to create a "convincing

account" (in both senses of the word). As we can see, then, a new form of materiality, or

at the very least visibility has emerged.

Ostensibly, the digital distribution of music has resulted in a ever wider choice of how

much to pay for music: Bands on the service Bandcamp.com may let the fans decide

how much to pay for an album26; Bandcamp, iTunes and Amazon all allow the

consumer to download single songs instead of whole albums; and the variety of formats

(mp3, CD, Vinyl, "CD Bonus Edition", "Vinyl Bonus Edition". . .) in general give the

consumer a wealth of potential price points. The most important points of this scale,

however, are always the two extremes: It is always taken as a given that the consumer

may just download the music for free, and there is inevitably an expensive edition

advertised as "limited". Nowhere is this more apparent than with Nine Inch Nails'

Ghosts I-IV (2008). The first nine tracks of the album were released for free, while the

whole album (of 36 tracks length) can be purchased digitally for five dollars.

Importantly, however, the whole album has been released under a Creative Commons

license, in effect making the sharing of it legal; there are absolutely no repercussions for

up- or downloading the whole album for free. And, on the other hand of the spectrum,

the album was also released in a "Ultra Deluxe Limited Edition" with a price point of

300 dollars, which "[included] a four-LP vinyl set and two Giclee prints amid 'luxurious

packaging'" and was "limited to 2,500 copies [...] autographed by Reznor."27 On the

basis of this album, we can see the two divergent contemporary strategies in a

microcosm: The expectation that dedicated fans who wish to strongly identify

themselves with a certain band or album will prefer to pay more money to make their

"wasteful expenditure" more clear, and simultaneously the knowledge that a large

majority of people will download large chunks of random music without paying for it

26 The "pay-what-you-want" model was most famously used for Radiohead's In Rainbows (2007), but is also commonly used by small independent bands.

27 Billboard.com, New Nine Inch Nails Album Hits The Web, written by Cordney Harding, March 2008. http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1046383/new-nine-inch-nails-album-hits-the-web Link accessed on March 21 2014.

10

anyway and should therefore be accommodated to do so.28 As Rosetta, a post-metal

band with a strong Do It Yourself ethic explain:

One of the most unexpected positive outcomes of the release was how many new people wereexposed to our music. Because of the large volume of first-day traffic on the album, we hitBandcamps front page as the best-selling release for the day and week (in any format) andstayed there for quite a while. We also saw a large viral reach over social media, about 5 timesthe exposure that a typical news release or tour announcement would get. People were excitedabout the release and letting their friends know about it this is the lifeblood of DIY music andthe most important factor in the success of this album.29

This sums up the digital approach to music succinctly: the most important goal is to get

people to listen to the music, so that data can be recorded. 30

5. Conclusion and Outlook:

Digital Data as a Nietzschean Hinterwelt

While the preceding pages have concentrated on music, I have already hinted at

analogous processes taking place elsewhere as well. Services such as Rate Your Music

(music and movies), Goodreads (literature) and Backloggery (video games) allow the

consumer to make visible his consumption of the various contemporary arts. Facebook

integrates all of these mediums through the all-encompassing function of "liking"

something. In every domain, the act of consuming seems to be incomplete until made

public, until made material and visual for others to see, the culmination of which is the

selfie: One's life is not really real until it is "on record" through photographic evidence.

Within the digital, there is a distillation of the materiality of objects into visibility of

what one consumes, and here one is completely free to determine what ought to be

visible. Is this visibility a phenomenon that is completely analogous to that of

materiality? I would argue that, as troubling as the concept of objects as prestige-

bestowing already is, the concept of visibility within the digital poses an even larger

problem. It appears to create a haphazardly easy way of disowning, of splitting off parts

28 An example even more extreme than Ghosts I-IV has surfaced during the creation of this paper: The Wu-Tang Clan has announced on March 26th that they will only release a single copy of their upcoming album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. (See the March 26th article by The Verge in the bibliography)

29 http://rosettaband.tumblr.com/post/58369637459/explainer-the-anaesthete30 The reason why I mentioned that they have a DIY ethic is that we could, if we wanted to, invert the

formula here: The musicians are conspiciously consuming their time to produce art, and any kind of "Do It Yourself" ethos strengthens this conspicious consumption: we did this all by ourselves. See alsothe rising popularity of "indie games" in the world of video games.

11

of one's identity. One's statistics on last.fm may be faked, everyone acknowledges that

they may be faked, and yet they are taken as fact. Similarly, the Instagram filters, the

composition, the "graininess" of a selfie are fake, and yet the photo is seen as authentic,

as reality. A cynical person might even go so far as to equate one's digital "residue,"

one's pictures and records as a religious Hinterwelt in the Nietzschean sense31: A world

wherein the self is idealized to only encompass what oneself chooses to include in it,

where one may shed from one's self-identity anything undesirable; this possibility seems

to be almost inherent within a system that creates identity through one's objects and

consumption,32 and even more so within the digital system of statistics and data in a

total inversion of Nietzsche's sentiment that "[...] you yourselves are also this will to

power and nothing besides!"33 Instead, we are our Facebook profile, "and nothing

besides." Nietzsche said to love one's fate34 while simultaneously echoing Heraclitus in

saying "character is destiny."35 What Nietzsche said out to do within his philosophy was

to overcome any kind of belief in a world or reality beyond this one, within which he

saw a life-denying belief a belief that posits another world (whether heaven or the

Platonic ideal form) as the "true world" automatically devalues this world, this reality.

He wanted to say "only yes"36 to existence in its entirety, and we may certainly take this

to include ourselves, our actions, every moment of our lives but with the advent of the

digital, events have not really "happened" until they have been documented digitally,

which automatically implies that a large part of what actually happens is discarded, is

disavowed. If this conclusion seems to increasingly distance itself from what was

analysed within the body of this text, it may be helpful to remember that Baudrillard

was heavily influenced by Nietzsche37, but was much less optimistic than him. As Dr.

31 For Nietzsche, the Christian belief in a world beyond this one heaven was the Hinterwelt par excellence, but he extended this, for example, to Kant (Gtzendmmerung, chapter Die "Vernunft" in der Philosophie, 6) and traces all such concepts of an "essential world" which are waiting behind the "phenomenal world" to Plato and the Platonic idealism. Kjin Karatani, pace Nietzsche, instead tracesthis back to Egyptian beliefs (pages 8-11 of Architecture as Metaphor).

32 Note that Facebook gives very little space to talk about one's job about what one produces.33 The final line of Der Wille zur Macht, which reads in full: "Diese Welt ist der Wille zur Macht und

nichts auerdem! Und auch ihr selber seid dieser Wille zur Macht und nichts auerdem!" 34 His concept of "amor fati." Cf. 276 of The Gay Science. 35 119 in Heraclitus' collected fragments. Nietzsche noted that "[towards Heraclitus' thought] I must

admit the closest kinship with anyone else's philosophy." (Ecce Homo, Chapter Die Geburt der Tragdie, 3) An example of Nietzsche taking up the belief that "destiny is character" can be found in Beyond Good and Evil, 70: "If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs. "

36 "Und, alles in allem und groen: ich will irgendwann einmal nur noch ein Jasagender sein!" 276 of The Gay Science.

37 There is, in fact, a short aphorism within The Dawn that pre-sages the entire idea of wasteful expenditure: To divest oneself to give up part of one's belongings or rights this causes joy if it is a means of indicating great wealth. Of such kind is generosity. (315)

12

Paul Mahoney remarks: "This is something that distinguishes Baudrillards vision of

postmodernity from Nietzschean modernity: the transvaluation which Nietzsche desired

is no longer possible value-systems have declined, as predicted, but with resultant

apathy and indifference."38 Baudrillard himself: The great Nietzschean idea of the

transvaluation of all values has seen itself realized in precisely the opposite way: in the

involution of all values. We have not passed beyond Good and Evil but fallen short of

Good and Evil."39 Baudrillard, for all his railings against our society, seems himself

trapped within it, and becomes deeply nihilistic, especially in his later work. Nietzsche

argued that, within his oeuvre, he was:

"[R]ecounting the history of the next two centuries. [...] I am describing what is coming, whatcan no longer come in any other way: the advent of nihilism. This history can now be relatedalready, for necessity itself is at work here. The one who speaks here has [...] has done nothingup until now other than to reflect upon himself: as a philospher and a hermit bys instinct, inwithdrawing to the side, in standing outside [...]; as a Versucher-Geist who has alreadys losthimself once in every labyrinth of the future; as the spirit of a bird of prophecy who looks back,when he narrates what is to come."40

And it would indeed seem that Nietzsche has been recounting the history of the next

two centuries: almost a full hundred years later, Baudrillard astutely analyses the

nihilistic drive within the our social relations to objects and sign-value, and yet is

powerless to stop it. And another few decades later, the materiality of objects and how

they create sign-value is distilled into the visibility of the digital data, allowing for the

free disavowol of parts of the self, creating a digital, life-denying Hinterwelt which is

taken to be the "real world": digitize it or it didn't happen.

Throughout For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, Baudrillard makes use

of the word prestation, on which the translator remarks: "Prestation is rare in English or

French. Baudrillard develops and uses it so extensively that it almost becomes a term.

The sense is most succinctly expressed when he refers to 'the mechanism of social

prestation...a mechanism of discrimination and prestige.' The word indicates a feeling of

obligation to an irrational code of social behavior." Indeed we may want to ask

ourselves how this irrational code has come about, and whether we really need to wait

for Nietzsche's two-hundred years to pass before it disappears.

38 Paul Mahoney: Sourcing The Un-Sourced: Tracing Baudrillard's References to Nietzsche.39 From Paroxysm: Interviews with Phillipe Petit. (p. 2) 40 From the preface to The Will to Power. Quoted from Chapter 3.1 of Nishitani Keiji: The Self-

Overcoming of Nihilism. Nishitani Keiji's book deals extensively with Nietzsche and delineates in howfar he is the first "consummate nihilist", in whom nihilism overcomes itself.

13

5. Bibliography

Jean Baudrillard, Joseph Garzuly (transl.): Das System der Dinge. Campus Verlag,

Frankfurt / New York. 3rd Edition. 2007. Originally published in French by

Gallimard,1968.

Jean Baudrillard, Charles Levin (transl.): For a Critique of the Political Economy of the

Sign. Telos Press, St. Louis.1981. Originally published in French by Gallimard, 1972.

Jean Baudrillard, Sheila Faria Glaser (transl.): Simulacra and Simulation. University of

Michigan Press, 1994. Originally published in French by ditions Galile, 1981.

Jean Baudrillard, Chris Turner (transl.): Paroxysm: Interviews with Phillipe Petit.

Verso, London / New York. 1998. Originally published in French by ditions Grasset,

1997.

Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit.

Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin. 2010. Originally published in French in Zeitschrift fr

Sozialforschung Jahrgang V, pp. 4068. 1936.

Stephanie Coontz: The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap.

Basic Books, New York. 1992.

Julio Cortzar, Fritz Rudolf Fries (transl.): Rayuela. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am

Main. 1971. Originally published in 1963.

Kjin Karatani, Sabu Kohso (transl.), Michael Speaks (ed.): Architecture as Metaphor:

Language, Number, Money. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1995.

Originally published in Japanese by Kdansha, 1983.

Paul Mahoney: Sourcing The Un-Sourced: Tracing Baudrillard's References to

Nietzsche. From: International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Volume 8-1, Online.

January 2011.

14

Friedrich Nietzsche: Die Frhliche Wissenschaft. In: Friedrich Nietzsche, Giorgio Colli

and Mazzino Montinari (editors): Kritische Studienausgabe, Vol. 3. dtv, Munich / New

York. 1980. Originally published in 1882 / 1887.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Jenseits von Gut und Bse. In: Friedrich Nietzsche, Giorgio Colli

and Mazzino Montinari (editors): Kritische Studienausgabe, Vol. 5. dtv, Munich / New

York. 1980. Originally published in 1886.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Gtzen-Dmmerung oder Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert.

In: Friedrich Nietzsche, Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (editors): Kritische

Studienausgabe, Vol. 6. dtv, Munich / New York. 1980. Originally published in 1899.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Der Wille zur Macht. Insel Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main /

Leipzig. 1992. Originally published by C.G. Naumann, Leipzig. 1906.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Ecce Homo. In: Friedrich Nietzsche, Giorgio Colli and Mazzino

Montinari (editors): Kritische Studienausgabe, Vol. 6. dtv, munich / New York. 1980.

Originally Published in 1908.

Tao Lin: Taipei. Vintage Books, New York. 2013.

Thorstein Veblen: The Theory of the Leisure Class. CreateSpace Independent Publishing

Platform. 2013, Digital. Originally published by Macmillan, 1899.

Online Sources:

Billboard Magazine Online: New Nine Inch Nails Album Hits The Web. Cortney

Harding, March 2008. http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1046383/new-nine-inch-

nails-album-hits-the-web - Last accessed on March 25.

c't magazine, 3/2000: Doppelt blind, MP3 gegen CD: Der Hrtest. Carsten Meyer. Also

online: http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Kreuzverhoertest-287592.html - Last accessed on

March 25.

15

Demonbaby: When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief

History of Record Industry Suicide. Rob Sheridan, October 2007.

http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html -

Last accessed on March 25.

Digital Trends: The Turntable Strikes Back. Ian White, February 2013.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/the-turntable-strikes-back/ - Last accessed

on March 25.

The Guardian Online: The Hobbit: first glimpse gets mixed response. Ben Child, April

2012. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/apr/25/the-hobbit-first-screening-

cinemacon - Last accessed on March 25

Rolling Stone Online: Review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Peter Travers,

December 2012. http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/the-hobbit-an-

unexpected-journey-20121213 - Last accessed on March 25.

SoundMatters: Vinyl vs. CD in the Loudness War. Marc Henshall, September 2012.

http://www.soundmattersblog.com/vinyl-vs-cd-in-the-loudness-war/ - Last accessed on

March 25.

Sddeutsche.de: Aktenberge so gro wie Europa, July 2013.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/stasi-versus-nsa-akten-bis-oman-1.1713311 - Last

accessed on on March 26th, 2014

Variety Online: Hobbit preview divides CinemaCon auds. Josh L. Dickey, April 2012.

http://variety.com/2012/film/news/hobbit-preview-divides-cinemacon-auds-

1118053075/ - Last accessed on March 25.

The Verge: Wu-Tang Clan will only sell a single copy of their new album. Nathan

Ingraham, March 2014. http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/26/5550260/wu-tang-clan-

will-only-sell-a-single-copy-of-their-new-album - Last accessed on March 26.

16

7. Appendix

7.1 Email from Denovali Records (Shortened). Received on 06.03.2014

Subject: Out now: new albums of Federico Albanese, Petrels and Origamibiro +

Mailorder News.

MAILORDER NEWS This week's mailorder update includes the restock of the Bohren LP version, new Oval

LP, Hauschka cd reissues, new Mogwai, new Alcest, Helms Alee, Floex Zorya LP

restocks etc.

Thanks a lot for your support.

Denovali

FEDERICO ALBANESE THE HOUSEBOAT AND THE MOON Cd | 2xLP | DIGITAL

[full size picture of the record and sleeve]

[Biographical Information]

Stream: www.denovali.com/federicoalbanese

Download: www.denovali.com/mp3shop

Facebook: www.facebook.com/federicoalbanesemusic

Vinyl 2xLP:

::: thick gatefold sleeves

::: download code

::: limited edition: 150x clear

::: regular edition: 350x black

::: price: 22.00 euro

17

Cd

::: nice digipak

::: price: 13.00 Euro

ORIGAMIBIRO ODHAM'S STANDARD Cd | LP | DIGITAL

[Full size picture of record and sleeve]

[Biographical information]

Stream: www.denovali.com/origamibiro

Download: www.denovali.com/mp3shop

Facebook: www.facebook.com/origamibiro

Vinyl LP

::: thick sleeves + thick printed inner sleeves; 180g vinyl

::: download code

::: limited edition: 150x silver

::: regular edition: 350x black

::: price: 16.00 euro

Cd

::: nice digipak

::: price: 13.00 Euro

18