Re: [microsound] Laptop, etc as Performance device

[Scott Carver <fscthaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Taking the basic kernel of laptop performance to be sitting behind a 
keyboard, and then theorizing about how to make that more interesting 
as performance (or how it is /already/ interesting as performance) 
seems to be, to some extent, a dead end. One of the primary qualities 
of the laptop is that its portable... making it perfectly capable of 
generating performances nearly anywhere (probably anywhere you can get 
a pair of speakers, if its a musical performance). Secondly, computers 
can be an incredibly powerful tool for recording input from their 
environments, and creating/controlling interesting outputs (outputs of 
all kinds... sound, video, network data, electrical signals, radio 
signals, etc etc). There is very little need for a laptop performance 
to rely on (and try to fit into) the context provided by a traditional 
concert/show event. A cello is an oddity, it relies heavily on the 
concert/show performance environment to connect to the audience and to 
the world... its out of place and alien nearly everywhere else /but/ 
here. But a laptop is already at home nearly anywhere, and can be 
adapted to fit itself into a huge variety of situations. Using a laptop 
artistically, to break from the politics of the laptop as a business 
tool, is an interesting idea... but why perform this break in a 
club/concert venue/etc. when it can be performed in an office?

- Scott Carver


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