[no subject]

I don't necessarily agree with this sentiment. Since I work on a Mac for a 
lot more than music, I can assure you that while its case and industrial 
design is quite slick (in my opinion anyway), it was not a purchase in the 
interest of fashion. It was a purchase based on the need for a fast, 
powerful tool to complete a substantial amount of computer-based work. I 
think it is also partially a by-product of the general direction in which 
the American economy was heading, in which companies could afford to invest 
more in the surface design of their products rather than strictly their 
functionality. Seeing as to where things appear to be going now, it will be 
interesting to see whether industrial design maintains the same degree of 
significance in many companies' products. Personally, I don't feel that a 
nice design for a product renders it merely fashionable; there can be an 
equal amount of importance placed on form and function, but that's an 
argument that's been around for ages.

>It's not the cost of the laptop that's an issue (it's not so different from
>a nice guitar, sax, drumset, etc.) but the concept of making the tools
>themselves the focus of your art.  If microsound is music that necessarily
>must center around laptops, dsp software, and digital culture (internet,
>cellphones, cable) then it tastes to me like a particularly superficial
>artistic stance that will become tired and outdated as people become sick 
>of
>cyber hype and digital rhetoric (aren't we already?).

this argument doesn't necessarily apply to all microsound artists (or those 
who tend to be considered as such), because it is a generalization to say 
that all this music is strictly computer-based. In fact, some of it isn't 
computer-based at all. Take the work of Janek Schaefer, or Steve Roden... a 
minimal amount of digital work, where many of the sounds are generated 
through "organic" means...

Then again, to criticize this loose group of digitally-based sound artists 
for being technologically/media focused (if in fact that is their intent at 
all) seems irrelevant. Is this different from Frank Stella's early 
minimalist paintings ("what you see is what you see") or the severe, formal 
minimalism of Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman, Agnes Martin....? Whether 
boundaries are being pushed may remain in the eye (or ear) of the beholder, 
but to me a lot of the L_NE and 12k microsound releases resonate with the 
spirit of these artists, albeit in a sound-based format.

just my loose collection of thoughts....
matt







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