Boom Boom Pow: The Digital Afterlife.

I'm more a rock n' roll kind of gal, but every now and then I feel like doing my nerdy little head nod to something more techno.  So I remembered a song that went boom boom something, and looked it up.... and wham, came face to face with the cyborg.

Okay, so the lyrics "boom boom pow" aren't exactly deeply thought provoking, but the concept and the visuals most definitely are. The song itself is about music going digital... the opening scene of the music video is a listener selecting the song from a 'list' on a computer.  The singers constantly switch places with cyber singers and dancers, and in one scene Fergie has "monster hands" which to me signify the "monstrous" implications those unfamiliar with the cyborg may assume.  Will.i.am and Fergie actually spell out the concept of the cyborg in the "making of" video:

The concept of the singers and music being transported into the digital realm of the computer implies the formation of the cyborg... both the artists and the music become part of the technnology used to play the song.  In the "making of" interview clip above, there are several excellent statements made by the singers that signify that they have considered the implications.  Fergie speaks of the computer as a "digital afterlife"and describes how the album's title, E-N-D (Energy-Never-Dies) implies that once one is on the internet, one has created an identity that cannot be destroyed.  Will.i.am discusses how when music is digitized, there is no longer any seperation between the art and the music.


I find Fergie's concept of the "digital afterlife" interesting, since it is true that personalities created on the web will never die as long as there are servers to store them on.