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Re: [microsound] MAP Series Guest Lecture: Ian Andrews
Hi Dagmar,
Thanks for your comments. I agree with just about everything you have said.
But I would argue that the return to pure art, and the aesthetics of the
glitch are not mutually exclusive. First of all I don't think that the
foregrounding of the materiality of the glitch must neccessarily entail a
return to pure art. Rather it is the accompanying direction of minimalist
reduction, the exclusion of all other elements, that tends toward purity.
And even then it might not be such a bad thing as long as it can keep well
away from the kind of essentialism espoused by Greenberg, Bazin, etc. But
can it? Next I would argue that its possible for there to be an art which
is concerned with the foregrounding of errors and material process which is
pure (such as in the case of structural-materialist film) or hybrid (such
as in the case of Godard, Brecht, etc.) I know that these comparisons with
film don't quite fit because music is not concerned with representaion as
such. But I do think that much of the writing around these issues (Wollen,
Heath, Michaelson, Krauss, etc.) has some value in regard to music
I find your refernce to Lacan's category of the 'real' quite interesting
here. I've never really thought about aleatory and random processes that
way before. It makes perfect sense that the use of these processes to
transcend subjective boundaries and thus bypass aesthetic judgements
(expression) would have some kind of appeal to the 'real.' But as long as
the 'real' is not understood as some transcendental signified - some sort
of 'truth' beyond human understanding - a common tendency of the 20th
century avant-gardes.
best,
ian
>Hi Ian,
>
>eventually managed to read your article. It helped to sort a few things
>out, but after while even more questions formed themselves.
>
>Sorry, if I just rave on:
>Is the aesthetic of the glitch, the modulations, the 'errors' of the
>material processes really a return to pure art? Is it not rather an attempt
>to reach the 'real' (forever unreachable according to Lacan) in the slips
>and folds of illusionary reality (reality as a social and imaginative
>construction; the glitch as an eruption of the real, the non-human,
>non-intentional).
The use of aleatoric elements as a device to invite the
>"real" in? In that view, "the real" would be everything beyond human
>intention and conception. Clicks&Glitch aesthetics might be an attempt to
>see computers, the digital as "nature," their productions as something
>partially escaping human conscious intention, nudging "chance" in. Somehow
>our conception of the "Real" (as opposed to reality) includes "chance" --
>in the sense of an order that is beyond human conception, appearing thus
>more real (maybe because it disrupts our expectations). The modern and
>postmodern condition seems to be unable to reach the "Real" unless it
>disrupts reality as the unknown, inexpected, unforeseeable.
>
>Thus I am not sure whether this is exclusively a terrain of aesthetics;
>seems to be there is some kind of ontology, if not cosmology behind it. If
>the cosmos is noise, then music in the classical western sense is a filter
>of that noise, just as our colours are filtered white light. If the
>'errors' bring in an element of chaos, an element of noise, there is the
>hope that by courting error and chance we can trick out the filters or
>shift them or whatever. Since we can't aspire to experience the original
>white light, nor the real cosmic noise, we beseech them to enter our
>compositions through the backdoor. If the computer is our mirror (in the
>narcissistic sense of being our product thus reflecting our wishes and
>designs) we try to tinker with this mirror in order to get reflections not
>of ourselves but of what may lie behind our backs ... (wrong metaphor
>somehow, too much fixed on the eye.)
>
>[Maybe this is a very feminine perspective, conflating the Real with the
>material. But I simply can't see matter as anything else but spirit on a
>low level of vibration. Thus attempts to exclude the Real are acts of
>cowardice, controlmania or ego-inflation. O my, a manifesto?]
>
>I don't see the 'aesthetics' of noise and errors as an attempt of
>representation; there is often the ironic element, the element of
>self-reflection of the medium etc. But what I find really interesting is
>the music of noise as a creation process in its own right, not
>re-presenting something but allowing that something to present itself as
>the process of its own emergence. When noise condenses to structures (or
>when structures are filtered out of noise) the emergence of order parallels
>the creation of everything there is. On the other hand when 'errors' are
>foregrounded, this outcry of the medium somehow introduces the "Real," the
>chaotic which is the conditio sine qua non of emergence -- I don't know,
>sounds almost like negative theology, or as if the "sublime" is imbedded in
>the seams of reality.
>
>As much as I like Erik Davis's book Techgnosis I would take another stance:
>maybe the digital aspires to a state of pure spirit -- but hell, give me
>errors, give me something Real... I can't see in what sense this would be
>"pure art".
>
>Merely some ramblings triggered by your article.
>
>Yours,
>
>Dagmar
>
>
>
>
>Ian Andrews wrote:
>
>> A very rough version of this talk is now up at
>> http://radioscopia.org/postdig.html
>>
>> On Monday, November 4, 2002, at 06:11 PM, shannon o'neill wrote:
>>
>> > MAP SERIES PRESENTS A GUEST LECTURE BY
>> >
>> > IAN ANDREWS
>> >
>> > on
>> >
>> > POST-DIGITAL AESTHETICS
>> >
>> > What are the characteristics of a post-digital aesthetics?
>> > This presentation looks at issues concerning process, originality,
>> > aura, error, neo-minimalism, conceptualism and performance
>> > in relation to recent music, sound, video and online art.
>> >
>> > Ian Andrews is a video, film and electronic music/sound artist.
>> > His work has been exhibited inter/nationally. He is currently
>> > working on digital video and net based sound projects.
>> > http://radioscopia.org
>> >
>> > 5.30-6.30pm
>> > Wednesday, November 6
>> > Lecture Theatre 3.510
>> > Bon Marche Building
>> > Harris St, Broadway
>> > University of Technology Sydney
>> >
>> > FREE - All welcome!
>> >
>> > MAP Series is presented by Media Arts and Production
>> > at UTS, and is coordinated by Shannon O'Neill. It features
>> > artists working across sound, video and new media.
>> >
>> > For more info mailto:Shannon.ONeill@xxxxxxxxxx
>> >
>> > --
>> > shannon o'neill
>> > lecturer, media arts and production
>> > faculty of humanities and social sciences
>> > university of technology sydney (uts)
>> >
>> >
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>> >
>> >
>>
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Ian Andrews
Metro Screen
Sydney
Email: i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.metroscreen.com.au
Metro Screen
Sydney Film Centre
Paddington Town Hall
P.O. Box 299
Paddington NSW 2021
Ph : 612 9361 5318
Fax: 612 9361 5320
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