RE: [microsound] digital sound / digital aesthetics.

["ph!L @ c e n t i b e l" <hellomynameisphil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

paul webb:
>what is a 'digital' sound / digital aesthetics??? <
Ian:
"i've always thought that a digital aesthetic would be one founded on
the 
advantages of digital technology over other means. with tech we can
record 
or sample sounds to use their signifying potential, we can create
imaginary 
sounds no instrument can make, we can explore formal parameters like
spatial 
trajectories and ambience that are otherwise difficult or impossible. if
you 
want to work with mathematical forms so precise that humans can't
perform 
them, then digital is probably the way. anyone negotiating these
concerns i 
think is working in a properly technological (possibly non-digital) 
aesthetic."
 
ph!L (me):
But a digital aesthetic could also be critical of digital technology. I
can't think of examples offhand, but it would be possible to create a
work digitally that was critical of the digital medium and/or the ways
in which it transforms our experience of the world. This would (or
could) be a deconstructive critique, in that it would inhabit the medium
of the very discourse under critique.
 
[snip]
Ian:
"what a digital-tech aesthetic is vs an analog-tech aesthetic is a
different 
question, probably interesting."
 
ph!L:
A digital aesthetic could probably be best described as an aesthetic
which can only exist in light of digital technology. You could describe
most of the work on the 12k label (to use an obvious example) as having
a digital aesthetic, both because it would be difficult to produce using
analog equipment and because it implicitly investigates the ways in
which our perception relates to "hyper-digital" timbres (how do we
hear/perceive what Deupree calls "microscopic sound?").
It seems that the only reason that "digital aesthetic" is meaningful at
all is because "analog aesthetic" is so meaningless. (What would that
be? Tape hiss?). The term "digital aesthetic" only really exists to
differentiate digtial sound/audio/music from electronic music/sound in
general, since historically much electronic music has been made with
analog electronic equipment. Even much historical "computer music" uses
computers only as control devices for analog devices like oscillators.
And when computers are actually generating sound on their own, it can
often be difficult to distinguish from "non-digital" electronic music,
so it doesn't necessarily provide something that could be called a
"digital aesthetic". 
paul:
>and why did Ars Electronica change the award catagory
of computer-music to digital-music? <
Ian:
"the term 'computer music' is strongly associated with a specific
american 
aesthetic, usually based around computer synthesis and practiced in 
university studios. also, ars e probably thought 'digital music' sounds 
hipper (which is true).
 
ph!L:
A cynical response, but possibly not far off the mark. I would prefer to
believe that AE changed the label to be more inclusive. Ian is right
that "computer music" is a term with a lot of baggage, and by shifting
terminology, one can perhaps encourage more aesthetic openness. The
change in wording is also a recognition that a lot of recent work with
computers and sound (like contemporary microsound) doesn't fit well into
"computer music and all its accompanying baggage. Further, not all
digital music is computer music, as samplers and digital delays can be
used to produce sound/music without a computer being anywhere in sight.
I mean, techincally, a sampler or a dsp box is a kind of computer
(what's called an "embedded system"), but you know what I mean. It's not
a Mac or a PDP-10. You can't use it for email or word processing (at
least not without a *lot* of hardware hacking).
ph!L

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