Re: [microsound] glitch and/as neo-modermism?

[dbuchwald <dagmar.buchwald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My five cents: maybe "technoromanticism" because now there is hardly anything
left to romanticize -- unless you're a hippie or nature freak (as I am still to
a large extent).  As long as there have been machines, there have been "ghosts
in the machine", the unconscious side of rationalization.  But it seems that now
the sublime and the unknown and the irrational haunt machines more than anything
else.  Speaking of "techgnosis" -- now it seems that the craving for a pure
spirit seems to haunt machines more than anything else (it's Davis's merit to
expose to what large extent the seemingly posthumanist rationalists such as
Marvin Minsky [body as 'meat' or 'wet ware'] and Moravec [upload the human
personality -- which is in his view the content of his brain -- into software
and there you go: eternity, pure spirit], belong to gnosticism.  Others have
written about that too, Hartmut Boehme, e.g. in Germany) .
Now there are at least two sides of it: the rationalist approach with a
subconscious strain of gnosticism in it -- contempt of flesh and matter, of
being-in-the-world, feeling homeless on earth longing for eternity, light,
perfection, purity (ocasionally there are repercussions of that in minimalism
and the return to pure structure; I wouldn't call that modernism though,
modernism was so much more).  The original romantic approach was fighting
rationalism as well as commodification and the mass (democracy) in the name of
the unique, the genial, the divine (or demonic, in black romanticism).  And the
neo-approaches wouldn't consider themselves as such, and that's the crux.  I
would see neo-romanticism as a danger that is simply lurking whenever artists
see themselves as unique, individual creators striving for THE work of art,
fighting against the mass, the commercial, the mechanical, the middle class
taste -- it's easy to see that this romantic trap sits there waiting for all of
us, when we fight the same things, and some in this list do.  Hardly anyone
would call him- or herself neo-romantic, but it's so alluring to fall into that
stance (I remember a remark in one posting: "most music/art is not worth
mentioning; I am only interested in the best stuff" [completely
decontextualized; who decides what is the 'best stuff'? -- The genius?]
Techno-Romanticism would relocate the sublime, the divine/demonic, the
unknowable, transcendental in the machine, in technology.  That is a trap I am
constantly in danger to fall into: romanticizing the 'glitch' into an utterance
of the subconscious in the machine, romanticizing chance and coincidence.  Even
Michel Serres couldn't escape the trap completely: the end of his book about
"The parasite" -- and the 'glitch' is the parasite, right? -- is about the devil
as noise or noise and white noise as the devil, the flood overwhelming order.
If the tiny parasite gets really large it is blown up into romantic views of the
devil, the demon (God's dark side).

I forgot who it was, but someone posted that he is looking for a way to get away
from binary distinctions, away from dichotomies.  And I would fully underline
that.  As soon as we argue in dichotomies the whole gnostic strand comes back in
(darkness against light, good against evil, spirit against flesh).  To think in
terms of at least three positions (subject, object, abject for example) without
understanding this in terms of dialectics (thesis, antithesis, synthesis -- that
would be Romanticism again) or even better to think in terms of multitudes, the
multiple, the tiny, the swarm is the only way out, at least the only way I see
so far.  And I don't care whether this is post-something, I'd rather call it
para-something, because it was always there, but always muted by this
overwhelming urge to think and theoretize in dichotomies.

So what the 'glitch' will be depends to a large extent on the
contextualization.  Of course, you can make use of the glitch in a fully
romantic way.  Of course you can also use it as an element of a future
mainstream product.  You can see it as rebellious, as dirt, as parasite, but you
can also glorify it.  You can also make "pure art" with it.  And you can wait
until it happens.

Dagmar

The pHarmanaut wrote:

> Based on _The Language of New Media_ and _Generation Flash_, I don't see any
> connection between Manovich and glitch. The only nod Manovich makes to music
> is to DJ mixing, and the only audio software package that ever comes to mind
> when reading Manovich is Sonic Foundry's ACID. You know, I really need to
> get into Curtis Road's book, especially the last chapter on aesthetics, and
> perhaps it will spark some thoughts on the relationship between glitch,
> microsound, and modernism. I'm skeptical of the statement that glitch is a
> return to pure art, especially if this means conflating glitch and
> minimalism, but I don't feel fully informed to make comments on Ian's
> assertion. I come from a literary background first, theory second, and I
> feel sometimes that painting and music may involve somewhat different
> flavors of modernism than I'm familiar with. But I really don't think I can
> agree with this point that Ian made earlier: "a dominant aesthetic has
> emerged that can be described as a return to the pure." I don't get the
> sense of a dominant aesthetic--I feel that things are still very pluralistic
> and that we have a lot of options and variations of practice. I fear that
> just because there are still relatively few works on new media aesthetics
> that Manovich is being placed as some kind of dominant authority figure in
> the field. Too bad that Pepperell and Punt's _The Postdigital Membrane_ is
> out of print. Looks like the aforementioned _Techgnosis_ by Erik Davis is
> also out of print. I thought that these works pointed in much more
> interesting directions.
>
> Now I'm eagerly waiting for the arrival of this _Technoromanticism_ book. As
> someone else on the list suggested, it sounds like it may be more
> interesting than the whole modern/postmodern application. I guess what I'm
> really wondering now, though, is why there's this desire to define our era
> by grafting "techno" or "neo" or some such prefix onto an already
> established "movement". Even "post-digital" doesn't quite do it for me, as
> the "post" just rings too much of the postmodern, and it just makes me feel
> like things are kind of tired and worn out. What bothers me about
> "technoromanticism" as a term--and to an extent "techgnosis" as well--is
> that it implies that our age is defined uniquely by technology. The previous
> manifestations were somehow more natural, unfiltered, and now we have the
> technological version. But the previous manifestations WERE technological.
> 18th/19th century romanticism was intensely shaped by technology, from
> Wordsworthian reactions against industrialism to De Quincey's prototypcial
> neuromanticist drug literature. Blake may have provided the most joyously
> ambivalent embrace of industry, particularly in the realm of publishing.
>
> -=Trace
>
> >
> > Well, due to popular demand (OK, two people), I think we should
> > continue. I don't have too much to say to your points, since I'm mostly
> > in agreement with what you say. But here is where I would like to
> > explicitly open the discussion to others, as well as invite your
> > comments. Do you think glitch is mobilizing Manovich's neo-modernism,
> > perhaps even without realizing it? I'm still mulling over Ian's
> > contention that glitch is a kind of neo-modernism and/or return to a
> > pure art. In some ways that may be true, and yet I'm not entirely
> > convinced, or perhaps just not entirely convinced that it's nec a bad
> > thing.
> >
> > ph
> >
> > ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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> >
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> >
> > speaker/interlocutor (xenophony media, canada)
> > scan (s'agita, italy)
> > synat (acidfake, macedonia)
> > ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
> >
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