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RE: [microsound] post-Modernmisms and their discontents




----------Original Message-----
-----From: Gregory Taylor [mailto:gtaylor@xxxxxxxx]
-----Sent: Friday, September 08, 2000 8:56 AM
-----To: microsound
-----Subject: [microsound] post-Modernmisms and their discontents


-----Maybe it's an age thang; within the space of my own short lifetime,
-----the dominant paradigm was once a kind of formalism which sought
-----to admit *only* questions of formalism - to see art
-----objects as disconnected
-----sets of propositions floating free of their social or
-----epistemic contexts. We
-----were all expected to quote Clem Greenberg at the drop of a
-----hat to the
-----effect that encapsulations of anything other than a set of
-----formal relations
-----within a piece or within the narrowly defined contect of
-----"the art world"
-----were attempts to enforce a kind of utilitarian aesthetic,
-----wherein the quality
-----of a work was connected directly to the degree to which it
-----got its message
-----across, and to which it was the "correct" message.


Hey, I'm only 31 and I feel outdated sometimes ;)  When I was in
architecture school everything revolved around Derrida, Lacan, and the
phrase of the day: "deconstruction."  The focus has changed, yes.  (And
perhaps for the better, because I always thought de-construction was kind of
silly when literally applied to what was essentially con-struction!)

I often play devils advocate on this list, though.  Having practiced for 7
years now I see the power struggles and name calling between the acadamy and
the practice. This kind of thing probably goes on in the world of music too,
no?   I know that to be a good architect I must practice outside of the
"hypothetical" project realm of the university,  but at the same time I must
also find a way to keep my soul in a world that would often be content to
crush anything beyond that which is pragmatic and useful.

But hey don't feel to outdated...we are all lucky enough to be experiencing
a tremendously creative and productive time for music, right?

Gunnar