adorno essays

[brad bordine <tpmjg@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Understanding the
> commercialization and socialetal role of music has
> little bearing on whether
> or not a particular piece of music is good
> (aesthetics). Granted, such
> analysis does serve to better understand a culture.
> But you must establish
> an aesthetic framework first.

I noticed in the "best 2002" Artforum a cry for
reemphasis of the work of Pierre Bordieu. I expect
that this will go unheeded for the same reason it
always does- it is discomforting to implement fully
into one's "aesthetic" analysis. To interpret one's
preferences by the logic of "Cultural Capital" leads
relatively easily to perceiving the "lost meaning" of
modernism. That the "invisible hand"ed logic of
domination populates fine, low, high and stoned art
helps explain the riddle of the apolitical (or at
least strikingly ineffectual) art community. The shock
of the new is our purest currency, and we all know
that those novel, and stunningly beautiful ways to
fight a tyrant are mostly exhausted by a handful of
truly beautiful 70s artists. 
Adorno's opposition of Schoenberg to Stravinsky was
noted by Jameson as a defining moment for this
post-modernism, the genius of technique forcing modern
man's alienation into true music. Stravinsky's sinful
nostalgia is where we swim today; not a renunciation
of modernism but a pitiful attempt to REpopulate it.
(props for nuance?)
But of course we all know that's tired, so whats our
hypermodern ideology taste like?

desire

justice

or what?

novelty, virtuosity, power?

of course to me the desire part of it is most
appealing, simply as counterpart to alienation. And we
all know that Fordism tastes like shit.

Brad

> Without such, all one can do is create more labels
> and categories
> (unpopular, anticorporate, degenerate,
> entertainment) to serve a political
> agenda, and worse, confuse them with aesthetic
> values (honesty, style) as
> Gann has done. This only contributes to the
> alienation that Gann says he is
> trying to avoid.
> 
> No, I have not read the essays. I assume they are
> more enlightening than
> that article.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kim Cascone" <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "microsound_list" <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 9:13 AM
> Subject: [microsound] adorno essays
> 
> > > tell me something i don't know
> > so then you have read this collection? if so, how
> was it? can you comment
> on
> > the translation of the essays?
> >
> >
>
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