The Anthology of Chaotic Sampling

An intro to ‘Dangdut Stereo’

**

When people say, “Hey, the world is your oyster,” we would like to add, “Hey, the internet is your oyster.” The internet is a vast goldmine of opportunities. It’s a privilege of the modern digital era—an amplified age where small ideas and details are magnified, processed by algorithms, and shared more widely than we could ever anticipate.

But here’s where I hit a moral snag. The act of borrowing—navigating copyright, trademarks, and all those rules—feels paradoxical. These concepts might seem modern, yet the instinct to borrow and transform is ancient. Humans have always adapted and evolved concrescent ideas. We’re drawn to what inspires us, what feels significant for our next steps.

1  Sakrison, Angela, Rowboat Phenomenology, pg. 58 –  I borrow this concept of staging from Isabelle Stengers. As a vessel for thought, the rowboat is an experimental apparatus that allows me to enter the landscape in a different way and be in the presence of different entities. Stengers alludes to the power of co-presence, in that it allows for new combinations of thought to emerge. Thought in itself is a form of resistance simply because it has lingering effects. Not that these influences can or should be traced out, but what Stengers motions toward in her essay ‘The Cosmopolitical Proposal’ is an acknowledgement of the new ‘could’ that evolves out of an intentional gathering.

2  From personal thoughts, referring to 1  – With co presence, the thought of understanding and importance coincides with experience. In reality I am putting myself in an alien condition, in mediums, I am attracted to things I have no experience with. I would like you to re-think about your senses of belonging and how shifting towards a new perspective leaves you– not only enlightened with knowledge, but, also a sense of disconnection and losing in a way, a sense of self; Especially when you have difficulty pulling out of past references, and more especially once you are taken out of a certain environment. I think social media is taking the hum out of the room, and from the memory— as Garrett Laroy Johnson has mentioned in a particular discussion. Asocial, apathetic, apathy, – There is sometimes in me, personally, a desire to belong back into certain situations, but, beauty lies in the knowing that you can not reverse, and that understanding only expands, though parts of old continuity might dissolve.

Today, however, there’s a hesitation—a reluctance to engage with something perceived as belonging to someone else. We live in a society so deeply tied to ownership that it distorts our connections. I’ve felt this myself. Originality isn’t about exclusivity—it’s about transformation. Everything we create is open to interpretation, inherently destined to grow into something fresh and unique.

This leads me to AI and the concerns surrounding it. The issue isn’t just about data sharing—it’s about attachment. We cling to the idea that our creations are solely ours. We produce something, we own something, we pay for something. Knowing our production contributes to something new is how ideas expand and evolve. This process is immanent, like free jazz and improvisational music. ‘Understanding’ mixed with the notion of abstract, pushes creativity within the pattern of progress.

3 Whitehead, Alfred N, Modes of Thought, pg. 54 –  Process is the immanence of the infinite in the finite; whereby all bounds are burst, and all inconsistencies dissolved.

4 Whitehead, Alfred N, Modes of Thought, pg. 56 –  All that we can do is to make an abstraction, to presuppose that it is relevant, and to push ahead within that presupposition.

5 Whitehead, Alfred N, Modes of Thought, pg. 57 –  We cannot prescribe the pattern of progress

6  Whitehead, Alfred N, Modes of Thought, pg. 87 –  There are always forms of order, partially dominant, and partially frustrated.

7 From discussions, referring to 6 :  None (forms of order) is ever complete, in both, transition is necessary. Transition is a frustration of the prevalent dominance. In a way, transition is frustration, transition is tension; Transition is flow, flux, and change.

But AI is different. It mimics human creativity through mathematical formulas, without the human touch. Computers lack emotional memory. They don’t carry the weight of experiences, the nostalgia of firsts, or the echoes of past moments shaping the present. They compute; we feel. This is the gap that separates human art from mechanical reproduction.

This inability to replicate human emotion and experience, I think, is why cybernetics faltered in its vision of computation overtaking human interaction. Machines may serve the capitalist hunger for productivity, but they can’t replace the depth of human expression and experience. But in itself, with resistance and confidence there is a different output out of creativity.

8  Stengers, Isabelle, Gaia, the Urgency to Think (and Feel), pg. 2 –  What threatens us has no face but a complex interrelated set of models and data.

Sampling—whether in art, cooking, or life—is essential. It’s how we learn and innovate. A chef might recall a steak they loved at a restaurant, not to reproduce it, but to reinterpret that experience in their own way. Maybe they recreate the tenderness and aroma using mushrooms or tempeh, transforming the memory into something new with exploration of materiality.

9  From personal thoughts, –  To make something important is to make it into poetry.

When I work with sound—borrowing from Dangduttracks, for instance—I’m drawing from personal memories and experiences. What I consider good or bad art is deeply influenced by familiarity and context. Alfred North Whitehead says, “It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.” To me, these fragments of memory and influence form a constantly shifting system. I feel a loose sense of ownership over this accumulation, but it’s fluid, alive, and ever-changing.

Memories fade, replaced by new experiences, and the threads of influence extend into the lives of others. This process—this flow of creation and reinterpretation—drives my art. It’s about making sense of life in abstract, non-linear ways, finding meaning through the ephemeral and the evolving.

For now, I’ll leave it at that.

DW. 07.12.24

**

FA24

Dangdut