RE: [microsound] digital dub, not at all OT

[Philip Sherburne <psherburne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bernard Elsmere [mailto:belsmere@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 3:58 AM
> To: microsound
> Subject: Re: [microsound] digital dub, not at all OT
> The studio based subversion
> question raised by dub is on topic to my mind. It brings up a 
> difficult
> problem for us collegiate honkies - is glitch/audio 
> deconstruction really as
> subversive as we'd like to think? or is it a comfy and infintitly
> reproducible new genre that fits nicely into a defunked advance guard
> lineage...I hope not.

I don't think there's anything subversive about it. Or perhaps more
precisely, I don't think it's nearly as "subversive" as the rhetoric
surrounding it would suggest. 

Of course, "subversive" is a pretty wide-open term, and one that's often
overused, I think. Academics like to brand things as "subversive" when they
run out of other reasons to justify studying it. The term falls into the
same category as "interventions" and even "work" (as in, what kind of
"theoretical work" are you doing with that...). 

Interesting letter in the new issue of the Wire, criticizing Radiohead for
their oblique politics, when so many critics/publicists have called them
"subversive." It's applicable here, I think, in that it brings up the very
complicated question:

What are our expectations for digital art? Must it be "subversive," and if
so, what qualifies as such?

Of course, this question, minus "digital," drove much of the 20th C.'s art,
and I suspect it will continue to do so well into this century. In other
words, I don't expect we'll resolve it on Microsound. :)

Cheers
Philip