Life Without Wires

Lisa Salem writes here about how Bob Dylan deliberately built a new audience at a time he needed a change, which he explains in his autobiography Chronicles. The line between music and video is very blurry these days. The tools of the trades are now very similar, and nowadays I’m just as likely to be able to bring a projector and my movie and ‘play a gig’ at a venue as a musician.  I filled in for a musician at Piedescalso Cafe on Saturday by playing Dublin:The Movie, which we projected onto the wall. Everyone there enjoyed it- they didn’t care that it wasn’t music (which they’d usually see). I think its deadly that video art is getting more like music. Its liberating. The tools we use to make and distribute music are converging with the same (or similar) tools for video. Its all art. Those musicians always know what’s best- I’m going to keep following the music. What’s also cool is that video artists (filmmakers) can now ‘practice in public’, like Bob Dylan. Which is nice.