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Re: [microsound] input + software = output



>An interesting point for sure. The nature of performance needs serious
>reevaluation, IMO... for instance I cannot understand the mimicking of
>rock show attitudes in the audience of various powerbook performances
>(rock out, dude), when the form is so different. It's still nice to have
>the interaction, to hear stuff on BIG speakers, etc., but what else?

i vehemently agree. the models for electronic music performance (at least
the ones i've experienced) inherited by both academic and post-techno
digital music performance seem mostly to derive from either the rock
concert or the conservatory: staring at increasingly sweaty bodies
wrangling with their instruments in the sublime simultaneity of the
creative act, or else cultured appreciation via the morally elevating
potentialities of disinterested contemplation (eg., maintaining good
posture in a torturously uncomfortable chair) -- in other words,
experiences either inapplicable to (no sweaty wrangling) or outmoded by
(the corruption of the concept of moral elevation wrt music) the cultural
characteristics of the sort of music discussed here. a third model might be
the dj booth, or watching somebody perform the most banal technical
repetition -- this is probably the most apt reference point since laptop
performances more or less resemble djing, both phenomenologically and
conceptually. (a friend of mind even confused a laptop performance for a dj
once.) 

>And I totally agree that the lack of visual virtuosity needs to be accepted
>as another method/style of presenting music.

here i disagree. digital music seems to demand new modes of presentation;
staring at the furrowed brow of a powerbook composer, face comically
*illuminated* by the glowing screen of the computer, isn't cutting it for
me. to date, the most impressive hypothesis i've come across was a
performance by skot, the farmer's manual/tina frank collaboration combining
the sort of bitwise chaos of fm with the fractured graphics of both frank's
and fm's mego and web designs. by comparison, most other performances i've
seen (not many, mind you) have come off as either silly or pointless --
they seem to lend themselves mostly to an internal dialogue about why,
after all, i should physically be there (economic support? a social bond
mediated by common cultural interests? really good speakers?). the best
performances i've heard/seen (nobukazu takemura, phoenecia) have justified
themselves basically as methods of access to either remixed versions or
new/unreleased tracks...

>Which leads me to ask the question, if DJing is accepted as a
>"legitimate" performance art, why not powerbook performing... they're
>just virtual sliders...

i guess it's because of many of those same assumptions about performance.
my question is, can a powerbook performance, within the current
technological context, be more than slider jockeying? some conversations
i've had with powerbook performers (kit clayton among them) suggests it can...

sc