Humankind's relationship with music and rhythm dates back tens of thousands of years, to prehistoric times. The first tool of communal life and communication wasn't spoken language; it was body language—movement—that emerged long before painting and writing.
The transformation of bodily movement from the realm of individual expression into a collective, rhythmic act, then enriched with enriching details like magic, music, and rhythm, transformed it into a unifying group ritual. When the universe and the order of life resorted to collective supplication and totemic worship, while delegating the problems it couldn't understand and solve to a higher authority, rhythmic movements became a part of this ceremony. When we were born, married, exalted, going to or returning from war, dying, being commemorated, in short, in both joy and mourning, we developed methods to synchronize with music and rhythm.
Dance, a companion to our lives since ancient cultures, is one of these, and when considered as a form of individual expression, it can have a liberating and shackling role. However, when it transforms into a collective and synchronized movement, it has the opposite effect: it shackles the individual by squeezing them into a rigid construct. Therefore, it wouldn't be wrong to say that collective dance is the aesthetic disguise of the individual's physical submission.
Humans accept many of their submissions in aestheticized forms. In the words of Zygmund Baumann, these acceptances are "the smiling arrival of power instead of tyranny." The aestheticization of what we perceive as resistance, manifesting in writings, art, and public squares, is essentially controlled by political authority and the capitalist industries that fuel it. Whether we're shouting the slogan dictated to us in the squares or dancing the halay in protest, we're little different from caged birds; our wings spread as far as they will, and the fact that we can never fly is forgotten.
Therefore, it's not entirely inappropriate that George Orwell's "1984" has become a frequently cited reference source in our language these days. Like other dystopian writers, he touched upon important issues regarding the growing power of central authority and the gradual fading away of the individual while writing the codes of the future. In my opinion, one of his most valuable concepts is the new language he defines as "newspeak," which the authority allows to be spoken in Oceania.
This new language is a design that aims not only to reduce the traditional vocabulary spoken but also to restrict thought. For example, by eliminating the concept of evil and categorizing everything as "good," "less good," or "less good," it is envisioned that we can also eliminate the meaning of evil. Just like the emojis that have recently entered our lives.
To the extent that emojis determine which emotions we can express, there is no room left for our other emotions in the in-between space. The grays and transitional tones gradually fade. We either laugh or we cry. Before we know it, our emotions, concepts, and letters vanish. We find ourselves nestled within artificial intelligence algorithms, speaking and writing the language they generate. Every time we think it's paving the way for us, helping us, our thoughts are manipulated, restricted, and we're confined to our own little worlds where we're left alone with our stupidity.
(As a side note, according to MIT's latest research, there's been a significant decline in our abilities to think, remember, and synthesize after the recent introduction of artificial intelligence. The same research also clearly reveals the performance gap between those using AI and those using their own intelligence.)
Our relationship with AI, like our historical relationship with authority, resembles a rhythmic dance. The DJ is now an AI, and by replacing old music—the past—with new mixes and beats, he can shape the crowd's immediate emotions and create a rhythm that prepares them for the next tune. Just as newspeak can make us forget certain concepts, it can make us forget certain melodies and even notes.
We must adapt to the rhythm and the crowd, repeating predetermined figures harmoniously. Otherwise, we risk being excluded from the system, ridiculed, and ostracized from the group. Dance is now a synchronized action in every medium.
