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from sony to glitch and back again -- was Re: [microsound] power settings - more thoughts / from sony to glitch and back again



A few late-night Sinutab thoughts.. let's ramble with them .. still trying
to turn my head around a few concepts in relation to droplifting, so this
offers another fold to unpack:

1. This (as in "two legged freak's" story below) is an excellent
demonstration not of James' postmodern idea of conceptual (shrink) wrap, but
rather of a way in which droplifting the "form" and not the "content" is
what "matters" -- i.e. what exposes force is not the content of the
droplift, in the way in which postmodernism theorised sampling, or the way
in which, for example, Dj Spooky theorises sampling narrative and history,
but the very way in which droplifting itself is droplifted -- the way in
which a new content/form bifurcation is constructed via the predominance of
the network and not the content or signal. Although inseparable
(content/form, signal/network), what has come to the fore recently is the
shape of the network and the networking of networks across domains, the ways
in which the very (non)concept of the network has networked itself "beyond"
the domain of what is usually given over to the concept OF "the network."
What the content is now IS the network.

2. [Theory-heads: I see this as unfolding Derrida's claims of a "general
writing" linked to a growing, every-pulsating techne (that "rules from the
{absent} centre of the ultraworld," perhaps) -- np. "Signature Event
Context" in _Limited Inc._].

3. Think of it like this: the fake posters weren't so much parasitical as
they were simply reproducing the structuration of the "scene" in question
via its material agents of communication and dissemination (posters and
handbills). They weren't parasites "on" "some-thing" just as the
"underground" is not in such a divided relation to "the mainstream." Rather
the "fake" posters were simply the network's own actualization of it/self.
The human re-posterer simply carried out the demands required to multiply
the network ["for its own sake"]. The content didn't matter--the shows, the
bands--as much as the fact that the network produced an observable force by
its replicant presence. Today, spam and virii begin to enact this scenario
in different ways. Thus the uplifting of a network can be accomplished with
no content at all, no actual "event." The "event" did not take place -- but
this is also different from Baudrillard's simulacrum (this is not a hall of
mirrors or the hegemony of the signifier) .. it's the power of the
_network_, not the image or representation severing all ties from some
original reality or (system of..) signified(s). For the "event" in this case
has shifted its meaning: from the unveiling of the always-already absent
signified as presence to the network of (possibly absent) events. It's not a
split from the content insofar as it is the "logical" extension of the
fractalized chrysalis which is the network. Self-mutation. In other places I
have called this re-formation "the seme."

4. Any argument based on an underground/mainstream distinction becomes
irrelevant in this scenario. Let's take the current washout over J. Frede's
Sony glitch sampler... did it ever occur to anyone that most of the
pioneering "glitch" works -- Oval, Herbert -- routinely sampled mainstream
artists? Remember the McDonna project? Or how about Tim Hecker's "My Love Is
Rotten to the Core" -- construced from Van Halen? "From Sony to glitch and
back again" should be the new refrain .. it's a circuit, not a dualistic
above/underground scenario. The Us v. Them scenario is a truth-schema
constructed at a point when an oppositional stance was possible. This is no
longer possible *for the Underground*: for this stance is that of the
"mainstream," i.e., it is the political topos of Empire: "You're either with
us or against us." Rather, tactical, radical, and somewhat anti-capitalist
art & media & politics must embrace the *potential* of the networks. While
the "underground" was perhaps tactically possible at some point, as a
retreat strategy or in-between position between Capitalist States and "Real
Communism," as Hakim Bey notes in _Immediatism_, perhaps pre-'89, it is no
longer tactically possible today in light of the networking of networks ..
in light of an expanding form of forms, of what Jean-Luc Nancy understand as
the world "touching itself" -- "worlding worlds itself."

5. The political topos has shifted. It's always shifting -- nothing but
shifts -- has been shifting for awhile -- and was already seen in the
theorisers of continuous shift or flux -- Deleuze, Derrida -- but here we
begin to witness its effects -- feel its affects -- and finally come to
terms with how this changes our tactics of the political -- and of course:
of art --.

tV

> 
> 
> "i cannot say if droplifting can fit in this scheme, but it defenitely
> has to do with subversion of social structures. it's the paradox of
> disinformation carrying more information that the official "information"
> because it triggers curiosity (i always get this feeling when i re-read
> fictions"
> 
> 
> back when i was young (16-17)and used to run around with the art/punk/metal
> crowd in the late eighties; i used to get the biggest hoot out of creating
> fliers for shows that never existed for bands that usually never existed.  i
> would secertly fit them in the racks of local stores and staple them to
> telephone pools everywhere that i could.  quitely i would sit back and
> listen as my friends and their friends would desperately try to figure out
> who these bands were and whether or not to spend the 5 bucks to go see them.
> on a few occasion i myself found myself joining in on the conversations
> perpetuating my own myths not sure if i was just freaking weird or if i was
> really doing it for the reasons i gave myself; which were something akin to
> the sociology of rumor and the ideas of misinformation. i found that some
> people even began to talk about these shows asking each other if they had
> gone to see the "seven foot mountainers" last night, how was? and so on?  i
> found that lies became truth from my begetting the myth and others just
> assuming that it was real and worthy because it was "parasitcally" attached
> to the normal structures of communication and not wanting to miss out or
> seem like they were missing out.  the bands (although fake)in question had
> gained noterity by being apart of the system even though they had never been
> heard.  it was truely an interesting project and i firmly believe in the
> power of the droplifitng project as stated above by dp and as kim stated in
> his morning thoughts:
> 
>> droplifting is one possible way to achieve a break in one area as it
>> involves a minimal engagement with money and control/power structures...it
>> feeds parasitically off of these structures by embedding itself into them
>> for little or no cost and offering an unsolicited chance to choose...
>> 
> 
> and strange: the fouth reference to the crying of lot 49, in three days, has
> just dropped in my mailbox. thanks kim, i had forgotten about that jukebox
> completely.
> 
> 
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tobias c. van Veen -----------
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http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
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