Re: [microsound] wittgenstein

[robert schrei <rjschrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 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...


John Cage   I-VI ,  Norton Lectures

" ....you know that i dont uinderstand wittgenstein but nevertheless i'm
using him i have the feeling that i'm beginning to understand him now at
least more
than i did and i told my friend mr holzaepfel who does understand his work
and
he said oh good and then i told him what i thought i understood
he sees more possibilities or more uses of things that just a few uses and
that ultimately there are almost limitless uses then mr holzaepfel spoke of
wittgenstein as someone who was able to ask questions that haven't been
asked this has to do with creativity that is to say bringing into existence
the things that hadnt been or hadnt been noticed so that you could then pay
attention
differently to other things."

check out the wittgenstein quotes that cage used as source material for
these lectures. ( regarding calculus)

so what are the questions that arent being asked about microsound?

the obvious visual art axis is cage, cummingham, johns   Dancers on a Plane
..
mark rosentahal in his essay  in this book said "sound was a major component
of John's earliest attempts to expand the boundries of art."  i think the
often quoted
 John's quote is closer to what i see of a great deal of microsound than any
other.

Take an object
Do something to it
Do something else to it.

some of the descriptions of  the processes that  microsounders have engaged
in for the parasite project are a perfect replication of  John's process.

another pertinent quote from I -VI

" In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all
answers answer all questions.the non homogeneity that charcterizes
the source material of these lectures suggests that anything
says what you have to say, that meaning is in the breath, that without
thinking we can tell what is being said without understanding it"

by the way,  Kim had  Ikue Mori  on his list.
 i saw her give a riveting performance and solo with
dave douglas's witness band at the santa fe jazz festival.
 a standing ovation for a laptop preformance..
so much for boring laptop performances.
was the tool the message, i dont think so.
electronica?jazz?free improv? experimental electronics?
 hard to say isnt it. a good demonstration of both the computer
and software (max  i presumed) just being another instrument, with which
she had a great deal to say.

as a mininal artist (visual) my attraction to both minimal visual art and
minimal microsound is the same.
if i remember correctly, in the note's to click and cut 2 there was an
attempt to talk about the "blueprints of sound". i think this is absolutely
true.
 it is the "blueprint" nature of minimal visual art and minimal sound art
that is so seducitve. it may be the primal sound, or at least one aspect of
that
"original matrix".

and of this, and i will close on this note, here is the translation for the
dhrupad text to Raga Miyan ki Todi as sung by the dagar brothers,

Clever as you are, O mind of mine, knowing
all about  Ragas and words and meanings and
nuance of speach; yet not delude yourself

For this - the Primal Sound - is too deep for
us, inscrutable and beyond knowledge. To
grasp it, you need not learning, but Grace.


bob