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



>Based on _The Language of New Media_ and _Generation Flash_, I don't see any
>connection between Manovich and glitch.

I don't see the 'glitch' as belonging exclusively to music.  It has its
equivalents in video art, online art and net.art. I prefer to look at the
question of post-digital aesthetics from a multidisciplinary perspective.
The post-digital aesthetic extends to all of these practices.  As I said, I
do not attach much importance to Manovich's writing but I brought him up
for two reasons. 1. because, in _Generation Flash_, he notices a dominant
aesthetic in  net.art and video art (although he does not mention music).
2. because his text reads like a manifesto ( a hallmark of 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.

Ok first let me sum up roughly the elements of what I believe to be the
dominant aesthetic in post-digital music:

- a reduction of foreground elements and a foregrounding of material
substrate, self reflexivity on the medium. This is often accompanied by
some form of minimalism (if the background material substrate is to be
foregrounded a reduction of overall content is often a necessity)

- form over content: formal mathematical structural concerns rather than
expression/melody/emotion
- this carries over into the visual element (videos, album cover artwork) -
geometric and abstractionist or minimal /blank.

- musique concrete over cut-up/ recombinant media.  ie. the use of natural
or autonomous sound objects in collages rather than grabs from media (other
music, sound from films, TV, radio, etc.)

- Complete absence of text, spoken word, lyrics, etc.

Now, I don't really have a problem with any of this, its just that I've
noticed this aesthetic emerging. Its not that it has to be like this.  Its
not that we don't have a lot of options.  But it does seem to me that this
aesthetic is at least the most fashionable within the genre of (for want of
a better term) post-digital music (a genre that, for me, includes
microsound, glitch, headphonics, neo-minimalism, infra-media).  The
dominance of this particular aesthetic has little to do with technology and
much more to do with its most powerful institutions (MP, the Wire, etc.).

I also perceived a kind of guardedness exhibited by critics and some record
labels. This guardedness seemed to want to ensure that its own particular
genre remain uncontaminated from anything that was  foreign to it.  This
surely has its origins the intense exclusionary division into genres that
is dance music DJ culture - which when seen from the perspective of
aesthetics, begins to look more and more like a move toward purity.

So I then decided to look at some precedents in history.  The only examples
I could find in music were in minimalism and process art /muisic (Lucier et
al).  I could not find much theory associated with these practices by
either the artists themselves, or by cultural critics.  So I looked at
structural-materialist film (London co-op movement) which  has been
extensively theorised and which seemed to have very much in common with
post-digital music (even more so than minimalism and process art).  The
analysis of these writers (Wollen, Heath, etc.) highlighted the problems of
certain essentialist direction inherent in this work, showing how close
such positions can come to Greenbergian essentialism. So I'm kind of
issuing a warning: that a certain theory of post-digital music is in danger
of coming very close to a theory of pure art.  I'm not saying that
post-digital music (glitch or whatever) is pure art.  I'm saying that the
only way that it can escape this direction is for it to embrace hybrid
forms.  And I think that it does this first of all by resisting formalised
structures.  It does this despite the pronouncements of the ideologues
(Manovich, Salvaggio et al).

 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.

Yes I agree completely. I think that you hit the nail on the head in one of
your previous posts when you mentioned the usage of te word 'new' in
Manovich's writing.   Maybe the technical aspect of 'new media' is enough
to scare away a great number of academics and teachers.  Perhapst they
don't feel confident enough to be able to apply the theories of older
disciplines to digital art.  The fact that _is_ still called 'new media'
after all these years says something in itself.
My contention is that there is not a great deal that is really new in new
media art.  Many of its elements  (literature,cinema/time based moving
image, sound, design, gamming) have been around for quite a while. I don't
feel that its necessary to come up with a grand new unified theory that
embraces the lot.
>

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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