Re: [microsound] Money/Mouth - PERFORMING LIVE

[tobias v <tobias@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Trace,

Wouldn't the good kind of lie leave open the possibility of
a question, of questioning the status of truth, and the lie
itself, and its ethics? Although I agree with much of what
you are saying, I cannot help but think that there is a certain
pleasure in the ambiguity of not knowing; and that the interpretation
you offer of the performance is rather visually oriented in terms
of a truth status. I think we are dealing with the question
of masochism, chains and all-- or, perhaps, the question of
magic.

I've always been interested in immersive environments where
the point of control is secret, or the secret is presented
as an enigma, with several possible answers, each which
contradicts the other; with a mythology; something that is,
or becomes, at the same time both liberatory and dangerously
controlling, where the "point" of control is thereby dispersed,
where it becomes possible to question indeed, where and how,
if at all, art becomes illusory, and reality, art; indeed,
this is the question I find raised in thinking khora, to
bring Derrida into the conversation once again.

It would be fascinating for me, at least, to enter a performance
where laptop, performer-- all of these were substantially
disrupted and questioned; where a bank of laptops was "playing"
on stage, and then the "power" to the building is shut off,
all the lights and projections suddenly go out, and
without warning-- but the music keeps playing; perhaps several
"laptop performers" are then wheeled in on wheelchairs, with
portable laptops with no wires -- but these again are the illusion:
the power is restored, and the laptops are replaced one by
one with CD players by the wheelchair-people: and the mind
goes from here

In any case, I am interested in bringing in an element of the
surreal I find so desperately lacking at performances which
present me with the "illusion," the "reality," and the "knowledge"
of the two in an clealry defined terms.

Here's to DADA.

best,

tobias

> I'm beginning to feel like one of those chained-up fuckers in Plato's cave.
> Regardless of what "acousmatic" is and/or is claimed to be, what I like
> about an OVNI performance is the fact that you CAN have access to the
> artists, you can see these guys back there turning knobs and monitoring a
> variety of programs. You can buy `em a drink. Whatever.
> 
> I think it's absolutely crucial that an audience member be able to access
> the performers at some level and to recognize that these persons, or these
> person-machine assemblages, are participating in the creation of this
> illusion, this show, this concert. The problem in Plato's cave is that the
> slaves are unable to see the puppeteers and the lighting effects technicians
> and voice actors creating the shadow play on the opposite wall. That is
> definition of a technological and ontological tyranny, and I have no
> interest in an artform that would adopt this position.
> 
> In the context of laptop, I'm not necessarily saying that this means artists
> need to hand out blueprints of their max-patches at the door. But I do think
> it means that you need to at least see the person and the instrument, see
> that there is a hybrid of human and technological products that creates the
> illusory space of art. Otherwise, to attempt to hide the fact that the
> artistic illusion is a production of this precise relationship of
> human-machine, turns art into the bad kind of lie. Derrida writes a lot
> about the good kind of lie, the one where both sides are in on it. That's
> the kind of performance I'm interested in.
> 
> But then, I'm just a simple caveman.
> 
> -=Trace
> 
>> Chris wrote: What you've done sounds pretty interesting, while
>>> certainly not acousmatic.
>>> 
>> No I am really confused. If acousmatic means "hidden from view", and I am
>> playing audio from a laptop behind people in an audience who are watching
>> some video on a screen, and the audio lacks any sort of sign/signifier
>> connection, then how is it NOT acousmatic?
> 
> 
> 
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tobias c. van Veen -----------
http://www.shrumtribe.com
http://www.targetcircuitry.com
------------- tobias@xxxxxxxxx
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