Re: [microsound] Re: us citizens... (OT)

[stephen hastings-king <brainstone@xxxxxxxxx>]

i want to echo what was noted earlier--to my mind, the political extends 
to thinking about any and all of the various modes that shape your sense 
of imbrication in the world, your view of the world itself, etc.  

this encompasses the modes of taking a distance on the tradition 
relative to which one works when structuring sound---being able to 
understand a tradition as a set of devices to be referred to, as 
materials and rules that can be manipulated, violated, crossed and 
recrossed is a function of a mode of engagement that is in itself 
political.  
from this viewpoint, it does not matter if that sense of 
authorization--which underpins the ability to operate at a distance from 
modes of thinking that present themselves as dominant--is worked out 
practically or explicitly.
nor does it matter whether individual cultural workers make for 
themselves a distinction between what their work is and politics in the 
conventional sense--this would be understood as an option within the 
wider field of the political.  it would not work to make a seperation in 
principle between cultural production and the political.

it is interesting that this cultural politics--for lack of a better 
shorthand--may or may not cross with, may or may not be informed by 
positions articulated in the field of "politics" (in the narrower sense.
for me, at least, this split is in itself a symptom of the situation in 
which we operate.  
it is a matter than can and--for me at least--should be thought about.  
thinking about the conditions of possibility of this split and the 
effects of it is an avenue for working out a different type of 
reflexivity in my work.  

so i do not see any grounds for attempts to police the content of this 
list by trying to drive a wedge between matters that pertain to how you 
operate with reference to sound and those matters that, directly or 
indirectly, serve to socially situate that way of operating.



most of the people i know who are engaged with making things and who 
find themselves, for one reason or another, stranded in the states are 
actively engaged with trying to work out how to continue functioning in 
an appalling political context.  i see this as a necessary period of 
adjustment.  i think this period of adjustment itself raises interesting 
questions about the political nature of producing music.

i do not see it becoming a permanent feature of every discussion.

stephen

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