RE: [microsound] wittgenstein

[Christopher Sorg <csorg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> my brother gave me a copy of "The Wiggenstein Reader" (pub: Blackwell) for
> xmas and I have been dipping into various essays for some writing
> I'm doing
> for an arts journal...upon re-reading an anthology of minimal art ed by
> Gregory Battcock I noticed that many of the minimalists of the 70's were
> very into Wittgenstein and this re-kindled my interest in his work...I
> think a lot of his ideas are very timely given the current state of
> microsound/post-digital music...

Bruce Nauman and Joseph Kosuth were big fans of Wittgenstein.  I think
they're all keen.

An interesting book on the intersection of Wittgenstein's thoughts and art
is "Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the Modern Arts".  It's not exactly about
Wittgenstein, but more about the ideas in the Tractatus and how they were
(and are?) a part of the zeitgeist of the artistic concepts of the late 19th
and early 20th century.  It's an easy and fun read, yet has an interesting
take on the art of that period.

It might be interesting to look at how the technology itself encouraged a
minimalist approach to producing sound.  Terry Riley's use of delay units
intersected quite a bit with his minimalist compositions, and it seemed
almost necessary for him to take a paired-down approach to music when using
delays.  Then again, you could look at Edgard Varese, Erik Satie and perhaps
even Schoenberg as some of those turn-of-the-century composers tuning in to
that same Wittgenstein/Bertrand Russell zeitgeist, eliminating the metaphor
in favor of a more literal approach to sound.  Perhaps that's too broad for
a 70's cum contemporary approach, but it does seem to be a thread that pops
up every few decades.  Just a thought.

__________________________________________
Christopher Sorg
Multimedia Artist and Instructor
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
http://csorg.cjb.net
csorg@xxxxxxxxx
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