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... aura & technology & ... & ...



dear Trace, list;

Trace -- thank you for a lengthy and considerate reply. I'll respond
privately to a few other things .. :)

--> [warming the floor]

I'm hoping that a few are listening along, as it were .. soundbites & words
on the sounds themselves (it's "all sound") ..  I'll attempt to lay out,
unfortunately only in brief, and extremely provisionally, what Trace has
deftly picked up on, and indeed only what was condensed & alluded to in the
Mike Shannon piece (Why? Because of space; because no one would appreciate =
a
philosophical hole in the middle of a music review; because it is an attemp=
t
to remix different discourses across domains--music criticism, writing
around sound, academic debate, philosophical discourses, etc.; all of which
has led to some criticism of these attempts already, as one can see on the
Stylusmagazine.com message board, to some degree of humour & polemic).

--However, in many ways this is not a "response" to Trace .. writing is lik=
e
DJing .. you attempt to get into the mix, dropping what you pull out of the
crate, which is half premeditation and a good deal of intuition, and you
always end up somewhere other from where you are hoping to go. Thus this
will hopefully flesh out the sounds of a few currents in a more general,
theoretical framework. It is not as tight as Trace's mix: it's a more
indeterminate collage.

--What I will also do, and with a little space on the floor, is to post
(probably in two parts) a lecture version of a talk called "Laptops & Loops=
"
that attempts to work through a few problematics in Cascone's thought (for
those interested, this was presented at UAAC 2002). It is because Cascone
has deftly managed to raise these issues today as reflective of general
sentiments and movements in spheres beyond electronic music--in net.art, fo=
r
example, and net.activism, and the digital arts in general--that I think it
is worth discussing & taking seriously. The same can be said for the
discourse I am going to invoke in response: what is being shaped as a
"politics of touch" by thinkers such as Brian Massumi, Erin Manning,  etc.,
out of the work of Deleuze and Guattari, Bergson, Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy,
Foucault, Aden Evens, and others.

On the other channel, I've been a bit weary about posting this conference
paper, as it is still rather hasty and overexcited, if not at points
polemic, and I am rewriting it in more detail for (hopefully!) some kind of
publication (academia is not too kind in exploring these topics). So I'll
see if there is much interest before sending it to the list.

.... perhaps we can treat .microsound like nettime for the next five minutes=
,
as a sounding board for exploring these issues, and the following posts of
this conference paper as exploratory and certainly not definitive ...
feedback channels up on the board, tape-echo at standby .. the soundsystem
clash in rewind mode ..

[Scratch & remix a few thoughts ...]

As Trace has laid out, the exploration of Kittler has much to teach us on
the impact of technologies. Trace has outlined in some detail how Kittler's
critique offers the positive ability to perform and critique the generalise=
d
and ambiguous role of technology (as opposed to a particular technology tha=
t
would conjure a specific "essence"--Kittler has a wonderful time with
Heidegger on this one, talking how Heidegger disliked typewriters as it
removes the "hand from creation"). On the other hand, Kittler has a tendenc=
y
to overdetermine the role of technology and production. I take his
historical reconstruction as nevertheless tracing a "discursivity," which
perhaps makes the question of the role of the laptop today, as a technology=
,
more fraught and delicate than first perceived (or heard).

--> [aura & technology]

We could move on to say that technology has no essence unto itself, no
particularity: and thus, no "aura," one way or the other (a blunt
assessment, here: I will say some things that will seem unsupported for lac=
k
of length & time in this email). Even Hakim Bey, who borders upon a return
to authenticity & presence in work such as "Immediatism," realises the
always-already acts of mediation vis-=E0-vis the Internet in TAZ (I will
return to Bey, as I think what he says can have important affect in thinkin=
g
the body in movement and action, Fussible's dancefloor, etc)..

What I would like to propose is that the problematic with "aura" is that of
what Deleuze would analyse, borrowing from Bergson, as a "false composite":
it places an essential quality "into" a "performer," a "composer," or a
specific "context" (for example, as Attali outlines in early quartets), whe=
n
this "effect" is one of a "network," and thus not an "aura" in this sense a=
t
all. Does this lead us to believe that there is something else heard in
music, namely, not even of the register of presence, aura, spectacle, but o=
f
temporalities, if not temporaneous temporalities, some kind of heterogenous
durations? What would this "mean," and how would we begin to speak of it,
sound it out? But perhaps we have jumped ahead a little too quickly.

-->[consequences of Cascone]

Let us return. Cascone's discourse that follows, from Attali, says that in
opposition to the "pop spectacle" that attempts to "reproduce counterfeit
aura" through the capitalist performance is the "authentic aura of actual
performance," which, when performed "without gestures," is _represented as
lacking aura because of the dominant pop paradigm_. The conclusion is that,
"actually," experimental performance *does have aura*, and in fact, pop
spectacle *doesn't*, which has some rather negative consequences for the
performativity of spectacle, for other-traditions (notably all of
Afro-Futurism, Detroit techno, funk music, all musical traditions of dance
that do not even recognise nor hear this authentic/inauthentic distinction
of presence and aura). What Cascone outlines is delimited by an essential
attachment to essence to maintain his argument. There are two movements in
Cascone's argument that we can summarise here:

On the one hand, Cascone's framework _can be used as a tool to deconstruct
pop spectacle, and the force that capitalist pop music production undeniabl=
y
exerts, by way of rotating its own forces against itself, and perhaps when
conjoined with Cascone's own heterogenous and abstract soundscapes, by way
of "precepts"_ (this would perhaps require another lengthy meditation).

On the other hand, its underlying foundations in aura inscribe a hierarchy,
if not of rareification, of presence and authenticity; the simple reversal
and technologization of Attali's argument results in the negativity of the
dialectic and the denying of authenticity in other modalities, and thus the
re-enforcing of power over that which is not "true aura," which amounts to
reinscribing lack on the flip-side... The dialectic rears its ugly-head, an=
d
is exposed, but is not transformed, or "grafted" onto other registers: it
remains as counter-reaction, and so the dialectic (not in its actuality, bu=
t
in its positing here in Cascone's text) remains--this is most evident in
"The tool is the message," which, if taken at its limit, has far-reaching
consequences: For what is a tool? what is a message?--in this statement?
When only some tools are legitimate tools? Is a tool the same between
"spectacle" and "authentic performance"? This latter question requires the
answer of "no," if we are to believe Cascone, but "yes" if we are to take
into account Kittler.

-->[iterability of sound]

To remix a historical soundbite and the terms of this analysis, and to spee=
d
things up through a reference: Thus I believe that the critique that can be
made here would be, and is similar to that of Derrida's in _Limited Inc..._
regarding the role of the signature (presence of the writer, ie performer),
event (the singularity of "aura") and context (appropriate or
inappropriate). To grossly simplify, it rests upon certain essences and
perfect situations. The consequence, of course, of performing the
(necessary?) labour of deconstruction on sound is that the concept of
sound's "iterability" is here carried into what Derrida comes to call "othe=
r
logics" (and which _moves_ through different non-conceptual names in
Derrida: diff=E9rance, trace, mark, iterability, etc.). We thus end up with a
concept of sound that is closer to that of Derrida's _writing_ in that it
"exceeds the concept"--and thus its oppositions--, becomes closer to an "al=
l
sound" of Cage.

A debate here arises. Should "all sound" be thought in terms of Derridean
_writing_? Or is it "something other entirely"? I think the answer is yes:
but this means that we take Derrida at his word when he says this exceeds
the relations of semiotics. We should not confuse the agreement with this
moment of "deconstruction" here as utilising semiotics to analyse music as
discourse through the limited logic of the sign, such as frequently
performed in cultural studies and ethnomusicology. We do not need to return
to Derrida's notions of textuality in some robotic acquisence to miming
Derrida's own system of signs to understand the problematic of aura: we can
turn to the more complicated and specific issue of sound's materiality in
production, technology, and body in the realm of rhythm and what we might
call "music" (which, as the concept of "music," also entails that which is
"not music") to better understand what this might entail in the
performativity of "all sound."

(For me, this will eventually lead to the question of the "social" in sonic
situations, and to my current work on rave culture as a performative site o=
f
"sonicity"--a remixed "all sound" of the anasemic "polis").

-->[trace's embodied text]

This is how I end up here, when Trace says:

"At the same time, [Kittler] allows for what I see as principally BODILY
methods of engagement with sound production as the key to the politics of
power and the development of culturally-immersed bodies."

And:

"[Fussible] suggests not a discourse on, but an embodiment of, borders,
border-crossings, boundary limits and cultural hybridization ... through
sound. I'm left and leaving here with fragments. The materiality of the
music as body-movement. Mixed forms and the power of cultural noise."

I think the clues as to this discourse lie in remixing Bergson's engagement
with sound, with a temporaneous temporality, and with Deleuze's further
scratching of Bergson to form a kind of deconstruction of ontology, a kind
of heterogenous mix between time and space which is nonetheless very much o=
f
the body (and yet a body that has had its inside/outside determinates
completely reconfigured). This is how Guattari proposes the "transactivity"
between human and machine that Szepanski utitilises to theorise the "click
n' cut": there is no divide between the two; their (ad)mixture occurs
through a process of "flows." Significantly, these flows have much to do
with Bergson's theories of the virtual developed by Deleuze, of what this
"virtual" might mean, and for this, we are going to have to get exploratory
and drop 2CB records or some weird shit (remember that label? alright) ...

Essentially, we're going to have (not as an imperative, I mean this
colloquially) to turn to Brian Massumi's _Parables for the Virtual_, and
what it says on the body in motion, and Derrida's _Le Toucher: Jean-Luc
Nancy_, on the hospitality of gesture.

-->[trace's points]

The points raised by Trace are good. I'll launch through them briefly: this
email is long enough. I refer here to Trace's points w.out quotation to sav=
e
length.

[1] I think that I can agree with 1), in that there is a "closing off" of
the discourse. I think this is actually argued as a positivity by Cascone
(the movement of microsound away from spectacle and towards acousmatic
performance, for example, situates a kind of closure and telos), that I
refrain from seeing as wholly positive, and in fact constitutes a
negativity: the movement toward acousmatic must remain open, at the same
time, to its other: pop music, but also _the other of pop music that is not
acousmatic_: AfroFuturism, what is to come, even the position that
microsound even occupies now, as essential-appendage or the "prosthesis of
origin" (np. Bjork's last album with Matmos).

In _Mille Plateaux_, I would not say this is in Achim's thought: however, I
think the _representational level_ of the label is performing this closure
through the question of appropriating "clicks and cuts" as a _genre_ (to
remain areferential, it must act as a tag or modifier: clickhouse,
microsound, clickhop, etc), and I think this is partly a tactical error on
behalf of MP in the latest Clicks n' Cuts compilation, if they take their
philosophical underpinnings seriously. (A new column to be launched in e|I
magazine in March will explore this a little more readily). On the other
hand, I remain ambiguous about C+C 3: there is much going on there, and
repeated listenings are leading me to write something probably all too long
on its method.

[2] This mysticism is ironically somewhat present in Cascone's call to move
toward the acousmatic model, yes, in the sense that it calls for the
passivity of the audience (the return to chairs, to proper places of
sitting). This is ironic because Cascone wishes to escape the mysticism
counterfeited but nonetheless powerful in pop spectacle. The acousmatic
model will only act as telos and delimit this movement as long as it remain=
s
a closed solution. I would offer that if we use it as a map for creating
something-other from the juncture, while not negating pop music (and all th=
e
other modalities), and thus _not acting as solution whatsoever_, it could
further the experience of "all sound."

For this "religious mystique" could be used as a positive encounter--I'm
inclined to think that both Adorno and McLuhan are deeply afraid of the
crowd moment and the loss of the subject, and thus, they simply exclude tha=
t
which is nonetheless powerful and historically, in the West, defined as
either a "mystic" experience (and this non-rational, and bad) or a religiou=
s
experience (and thus, of the Church: good if you are religious, bad if you
are a Marxist). I think AfroFuturism offers us maps to do this positively,
even through detourning the religious (gospel house music, the temple of
disco, the planet of funk). The ecstatic experiences of the body in dance
seem close to certain elements of a D+G'ian plateau (rave as line of
flight). However, it is the overdetermination in Cascone to acousmatic
authenticity (if not salvation) that reconfigures mystique to its
power-games of exclusion and purity. I would argue that it was a very
similar paradox that was rave culture's "undoing," i.e. that led to its
subsequent commercialisation, co-option, and loss of radical "community," i=
f
not all radical force completely. In rave culture, this was tied deeply int=
o
a masochism of the body, a strict regimentation of the rave experience
required in both attendee and organiser and DJ to achieve this state of
desire (what D+G would call a "Body without Organs"). In fact, I am akin to
believe that rave, at its apogee and limit, approached a self-referential
temporaneousness that came close to a desire for abolition--what D+G see as
fascism. Hence I think it has much to teach us of masochism, the line of
flight, the body, the aspects of sound (Burroughs: erotic, control,
liberation), the sonic gathering or "sonicity" that may perhaps be other to
that of the "polis," the implementation of a kind of TAZ, and the potential
for sonic-fascism in the TAZ .. it also remixes Bakhtin's carnival, not as =
a
model to be simply pasted into rave culture, as has been done again and
again in cultural studies (rave as "subculture," ie as reactionary, or as
"neo-tribalism," as a reminiscent longing for carnival or origin) but as a
remix in action of what this might entail.

It is here that I think we could remix a discussion of the TAZ and Fussible=
,
or of the embodiment of sound. I try to perform this in much of the "writin=
g
around sound" written in the guise of "music criticism" for various places.

It is worth noting that the two latest releases on MP, Terre Thaemlitz's
"Lovebomb" and Thomas Koner's 2xCD "Zyklop," are very close to
electro-acoustic or acousmatic music. Perhaps Achim has outguessed us all
already. After _Digital Disco_, it seems the label is splitting: if we
cannot tell a direction, then it remains open. This is good.

I would also rather try to think the relation between human and machine as
transactive, as always-already transformational and translated (because, in
part, our relation to our "self" is already this way through "writing"), an=
d
thus the passive/active dichotomy presented to us by McLuhan in fact
somewhat underlies, ironically, Cascone's discourse, in its conceptual
opposite (to grossly simplify: we control the computer--Cascone; the
computer controls us--McLuhan). I'm inclined to believe the relation is
other than to that of this control flip-switch.

[3] I'm inclined to get a sense of what you mean here, but it seems that
McLuhan's "all or nothing" approach acts contrary to even his own good
attempts at opening media to a better project. The "social" or the
"individual"? I think with net.criticism and analysis the hybridity forms
itself as a much more complex beast. However, what you say of
history--continually remixing the "present"--is valuable in that Cascone
offers a positive way to begin linking into a history. I'd like to see this
history plundered instead of followed, as if it prescribed microsound's or
experimental electronic's "necessary" engagement with acousmatic, as a
prescription of the rocket's return (the rocket never comes down: Slothrop
is disseminated across Europe, he fades from the model completely, he chart=
s
a multiplicity of characters... ;) --  (one is always "following history,"
in a sense, but the dangers I see of Cascone's discourse is to "follow
history" to our "rightful origins" of acousmatic music). In the plundering,
perhaps the sonic virtuality can be more fully explored: how the "virtual
subsists in the actual": the past is not behind us, nor is the future in
front: the two are heterogenous in the moment of the present. This implies =
a
rather different reworking of what it might mean to sample and remix,
something I think grasped in AfroFuturism, or at least in Kodwo Eshun's
ruminations. Throw some Proust down on the decks in the homoerotic echo-box
of a-referential sound ...

On the whole, and like McLuhan, I think media must be grasped as an
opportunity, although perhaps a little differently, to be neither returned
to the shelves of traditional experimentation nor to be utilised for the
McMusic of the world; this path is a delicate one, perhaps, but the most
fruitful: it has its dangers, but also its plateaus.

Long .. much too long: I fear I have cleared the dancefloor. Warning: you
may see this sampled and remixed for future sets ..

best,

tobias

tobias c. van Veen -----------
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org
http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
------------- tobias@xxxxxxxxx

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