{"id":19849,"date":"2012-06-14T05:30:45","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T12:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=19849"},"modified":"2012-06-16T22:16:06","modified_gmt":"2012-06-17T05:16:06","slug":"print-screen-2012-you-i-are-changing-with-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=19849","title":{"rendered":"Print Screen 2012: “You & I Are Changing with the World”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eyal Rob, Gilad Kahana & Yoav Kutner at Print Screen 2012\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMy existence depends on being heard,\u201d Israeli music editor Yoav Kutner expressed the essential issue for musicians and other artists working in today\u2019s post-digital revolution era. Creators and users alike have almost unlimited access to everything from music, video and film to the means of production, distribution and critique. Anyone and everyone can make music; being heard and noticed is another matter entirely. What\u2019s a musician to do, and where is the music scene going?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou & I Are Changing with the World\u201d offered opinions and insights on the changing music scene from musician Gilad Kahana (The Giraffes, The Walking Man), music editor and presenter Yoav Kutner, and DJ\/Producer Eyal Rob (Soulico). The lively, no-holds-barred conversation took place on Wednesday, June 13th in the context of the Print Screen Festival 2012 at the Holon Mediatheque. The talk was followed by a round of beer for all, and the screening of Press, Pause Play<\/em>, a documentary directed by David Dworsky and Victor K\u00f6hler, exploring the digital era of art through interviews with creators such as Moby, film director Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture), music producer Hank Shocklee (The Bomb Squad), and Napster co-founder Sean Parker.<\/p>\n

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Gilad Kahana\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEverything happens on facebook,\u201d said Kahana, \u201cpeople are obsessed with finding the right tag words and how to get more \u2018likes\u2019\u2026what makes me sick is that musicians only talk about marketing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI disagree with you,\u201d said Kutner, in what was to become his trademark phrase for the evening, \u201cthe basic things have not changed. There are more technological tools available, but that only makes people more connected to the real thing: hearing musicians perform live.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Kahana concurred that \u201cperformances are always the heart of the matter\u2026 a one-time event, a dialogue with the audience like the relationship between a man and a woman,\u201d the outspoken musician went on to add, \u201cI don\u2019t like the begging that goes on [when musicians promote their concerts] \u2013 promising special guests and \u2018I\u2019ll pull a piano out of my ass, just come to my show.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Eyal Rob\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recalling the halcyon days of desperately wanting to hear an album or song and saving up the money to buy a CD, Rob deplored today\u2019s \u201cunbearable lightness of wanting a song and hearing it immediately.\u00a0 You used to release a product and if someone wanted it, they had to buy it \u2013 that link has been broken. There is a point of no return that took place when we all stopped buying music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should you buy a song? Listen to a song,\u201d Kahana responded, noting that music is a thing of the spirit, rather than a commodity, \u201cIt should be free for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t agree with you,\u201d said Kutner, presenting an alternative perspective on the creative vision of the musician, saying that \u201can album makes a statement that is different from a single song. If everything is free then people will only download single songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

YouTube came on the scene in 2005, about the same time as Facebook began its heady trajectory, with the same enormous impact, as Kahana noted, \u201cYouTube demands a clip.\u201d As any YouTube user knows, there are few things quite as disappointing as encountering a YouTube version of a favorite song with a lame video, or worse, no video, just a static photo.\u00a0 Kahana went on to say that he is not overly fond of watching clips that do not visually contribute to the song\u2019s message, adding, \u201cUnless it has kusiyot<\/em>.\u201d The term is the plural form of \u201ckusit<\/em>,\u201d Hebrew slang for \u201chot woman\u201d derived from Arabic Kus (or koos) meaning “cunt.”<\/p>\n

Kutner challenged Kahana\u2019s use of the term with panache, saying, \u201cHave you become just like everyone else?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kahana, not to be outdone, responded, \u201cI\u2019ve been just like everyone else since I was born.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panel discussion was the perfect platform for presenting Kahana\u2019s clip to a new song, called \u201cDafni, Dafni,\u201d dedicated to Dafni Leef, one of the main leaders of last summer\u2019s protest movement in Israel. Kahana said that he felt the protest was a \u201cbenchmark in Israeli history\u201d\u00a0 and the song was inspired by the realization that \u201csummer has begun and nothing is happening.\u201d The accompanying clip is very digitally au courant, with appealing stop motion animation filmed entirely with iPhones.
\n<\/object><\/p>\n

The digital music scene is replete with contradictions. The ease of producing music and the new independence from record labels empowers musicians, and makes entering the music industry in some way accessible to all; yet the chances of \u2018making it\u2019 and earning a living as a musician appear more tenuous than ever.\u00a0 The proliferation of free music on the internet would appear to be a great gift to music fans, but has its downside for listeners as well, who need to find a way to navigate through the random files of music to find something they like.<\/p>\n

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Yoav Kutner\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI believe that we are in an interim stage,\u201d said Kutner, giving his own experience as a music editor and radio presenter as an example, \u201cThree or four years ago I was in despair, thinking: who needs me? My historic role is obsolete. But people want someone to help them, someone whose taste they trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curation, the process of selection and commentary, is crucial in this era of over-information, yet this issue as well is deeply tangled, if not ensnared, in the digital net where everyone comments on everything. What do you<\/em> think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy existence depends on being heard,\u201d Israeli music editor Yoav Kutner expressed the essential issue for musicians and other artists working in today\u2019s post-digital revolution era. Creators and users alike have almost unlimited access to everything from music, video and film to the means of production, distribution and critique. Anyone and everyone can make music; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}