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Radiohead: Data and Dada
In the current societal state of media saturation in which we as a people function within, reality becomes skewered. To put it bluntly, our reality is a galaxy of pixels broadcast from towering media conglomerates. In this culture of information overload where reality is an ambiguous uncertainty, one can feel an often times overwhelming sense of paralysis, dislocation and disillusionment. You are just another face within a crowd of drones. Such immediate sentiments are the concerns of the post-modern rock band known as Radiohead. Not only does the quintet voice their views and observations on consumer society in their music and lyrics, but also utilize other artistic outlets such as poetry, drawings and cartoon strips. Commanded by their lead singer, Thom Yorke, ironically in the face of their anti-tech preaching, Radiohead conveys their message mainly through technology itself: the Internet. Within this sliver time frame of information super-highway explosion, the band has risen from being virtually a buzzing post-grunge pack of misfits into global hyper-famedom with a true and unique voice, courtesy of their tech carrier. Radiohead's tactics rather than being considered hypocritical, are ones of marvelous ingenuity. Not only is the band working directly within the vein of post-modernism, but also their art is greatly influenced by the Dadaists. One such similarity that this early twentieth century art movement owns with the band's ideology is the notion of informationless data. Our society is like a sponge and we have reached our maximum retention of information. However, in Radiohead's argument, the media relentlessly continues to shower more and more "empty" data upon us. On the band's official web site is located a "No Data Gallery", which is a collection of simply crafted drawings that own no cryptic meaning or general information whatsoever. They function as pictures and pictures only, mocking the whole institution of the Internet as being this ominous key to the world and keeper of all of its mysteries. In another incidence, The band conducts an utterly random and schizophrenic survey within its album cover, rich with non-sensical phrases and numbers that hold no relation to one another. Such sentiments coincide with the beliefs and practices of the Dadaists who showcased and performed their many raw artforms under the ideology of it lacking all purposeful data. To them, art is art: an entirely irrational and indefinable emotional entity that holds no connection with worldly logic or comprehension. And instead of raining down leaflets from biplanes announcing the time and location of their next big pornographic performance or meaningless art show, Radiohead has embraced the Internet as its bearer, believing that this informational fixture will extend their message to its widest of audiences. Like politics, education, family, and all of the other many facets of our culture in this state of corporate capitalism, information is a booming business, and thanks to media, so is our reality. Radiohead is one of the few working artists today that are fighting against this mindless and abundant numbness. |
