On the stage there's only a laptop. The mouse click has replaced the solo. Concerts will never be the same again. But studio recordings have also changed: "You don't have to be a virtuoso to play something, a loop, and then to sample it" (Hans Nieswandt). Sampling negates the status of uniqueness, looping has provided the proof of difference in repetition.

What impact do the so-called new media have on artistic production? "Actually the production technique has not changed much; today you've got everything in the computer, which was not usual yet in the 70s and wasn't possible to the same extent. But even then Can were already allowing themselves to constantly access all experimentation possibilities" (Hans Nieswandt). What new forms of identity have modern recording systems created? The computer is no longer an avatar. The processor sets the he(a)rtzbeat of the music. The I is a sample – and that's OK.

David Moufang
aka Move D, musician, Source records

Hans Nieswandt
musician, Whirlpool Productions, 1991-93 Spex editor

BR/intermedium 2