Early embracement of emerging technologies can have vastly different results for adopters. What would the news media landscape look like today if legacy outlets had jumped full-force on to the World Wide Web their first chance? How many people scoffed at the notion of computer money, and then cried themselves rivers of salt when Bitcoin soared (or fell)?
Granted, these might not be the best examples. But the underlying message is that while one particular tech pathway might not work out in earnest, there’s something to be said for those who persevere and find suitable uses for new things. British singer-songwriter, producer and audio engineer Imogen Heap is a good example of positive futurism and adaptive risk-taking.
With her techy know-how acquired largely on her own, first by tinkering with an Atari console, and her keenness for hands-on knowledge where music and electronics intersect, Heap has advanced concepts to the benefit of others in her overlapping fields (and to the rest of us) in the little over 20 years that she’s been at it as a recording artist. As many genres as she’s tagged with — alternative, indie, synth pop, electronica, ambient — Heap’s long arc and ambitious output actually share a fundamental theatricality and scope with titans of classical music.
She uses online platforms to engage fans and broaden her musical collaborations. She has invested her creative energies into experimental musical tech like the sensor-activated Mi.Mu gloves, and has used blockchain-based technology since 2015 to further new methodologies of music distribution and artist control. Heap also scores films, and wrote the music for the West End theatrical production of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.”
Just as indefatigable in her charity work, Imogen Heap has slowly become larger than life; a tech-driven altruist who happens to make incredibly enjoyable and thought-provoking music, who for all the “technology” she has embraced, remains ineffably human. As a bonus Heap’s tour opener is her on-and-off Frou Frou bandmate Guy Sigsworth. It is time, people, to adopt the proven tech of Imogen Heap; don’t find yourself weeping because you passed on the future.
Imogen Heap plays 7pm April 28 at the Fillmore Miami Beach with Guy Sigsworth, $30-$45. imogenheap.com ~ Abel Folgar
