DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid has fun in finding parallels between post-modern philosophical constructions and contemporary cultural happenings, especially in electronic music (since he is a DJ). Recently DJ Spooky, a.k.a. Paul D. Miller, visited Moscow as part of the Andy Warhol festival to hold two workshop lectures.

A major in philosophy and French literature, Miller writes for, among others, the Village Voice. The central theme of most of his writing is the application of the philosophical method of deconstruction to an analysis of cultural development. The DJ has been part of many artistic collaborations, like a multimedia presentation at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and has been a part of various musical projects, like playing with Yoko Ono and Thurston Moore (the guitarist for Sonic Youth), on occasion in New York clubs.

He was not scheduled to play here in Moscow but, unexpectedly and without prior notice, he agreed to do a small jam.

I spoke with DJ Spooky right before his unplanned set at the Propaganda club.

Why was this gig unplanned and what will you play?

I just felt like playing. I love the idea of things being spontaneous and low key.

Depressive ambient [the musical genre Spooky invented, Illbient] is more for a formal art context, or an experimental venue. Today I'll just play a typical party mix of my own stuff for the right vibe.

Could you quickly explain the essence of your theoretical work?

I just like the idea of applying deconstruction and other ideas to culture at large. The culture itself is deconstructive. It's always changing. For me it's like a new way of thinking about humanism. I like the idea of music – as a language that is beyond every culture I know. Music is a way in which you can have a theater without the theater. That's what makes music so advanced as a language, because people can understand it everywhere you go. And DJ-ing for me is a universal language.

But it's fascinating that I can see the parallels between the high culture scene and the low one. For example, the first DJs didn't know anything about Derrida, and vice versa. But I think that they were developing the same ideas. I see this parallel as a sign of the unconscious evolution of culture.

What about culture outside the Western world?

America has had a great reflection all over the world. Local cultures are becoming extinct. When I travel I want to see unique cultures, but people everywhere are just interested in what's happening in New York.

You can see this in the movies, by listening to the radio, surfing the Internet. Even the English language is spoken everywhere.

But it's not like everyone made a choice: "We all want to speak English" or "We all want to hear club music from New York." It just happened that way.

(Takes a sip from a glass of vodka.) This is my local experience here in Russia. (Nervously gulps down the vodka.)

How is it that you came as part of the Andy Warhol festival?

I feel like Warhol was one of the first true multimedia artists. Warhol was trying to portray living as total theater. But for me, now, club culture is equivalent – it's a theater of different environments that people move through.

Warhol deconstructed art. Art for him was about transience, about replications, about social issues or about simply changing copies. Before that, culture was more distant.

How has modern technology influenced your art?

I was born in 1970. Those born then were probably the first totally digital generation in human history. Also, we were the first generation that grew up with that kind of deconstruction implicit in the culture.

We are a generation mediated by the screen. We are guided by how electronic media make us think. Information systems, watching a TV or computer screen, can make you have a certain system of responses. Psychologists have shown that even fragments of sound or just one sample (a DJ sample) can influence your behavior.

But then I think of today's weird statistics, where something like 50 percent of the world's population has never made a phone call yet.

My way of thinking, my imagination is dependent on TV, radio and all kinds of different frequencies. So when I go to a rain forest in Brazil or something, I feel like I'm from a whole different form of existence.

But music is probably how I would be able to communicate with those people.

How do you think art will develop in the future?

Everything will be digital.

Also I really think that genetic engineering and biotech will be the new forms of art in about 20-30 years. And there will be an increasing accent on psychology. It's not going to be just about a painting on the wall, it will be more about the psychological environment.

I think we'll come to a time when no one will be able to own information. It will be like a metaphysical Napster.

Right now corporations and the government are trying very hard to control information. In the future these efforts will look absurd.

For example, corporations are now trying to trademark DNA. They're ready to copyright your genome, so that it will work out that IBM can own my left finger. However I'm hopeful that we are at a crossroads, picking the road where information can be free.