[microsound] re: socio/political implications of microsound

[Revolution #9 <hendrix@xxxxxxxx>]

"I was wondering if anyone thought there was an explicit or even implicit sociopolitical 
aspect of microsound/digital music. For example, the way that lots of experimental 
music in the 60's was interested in non-hierarchical social and political 
structures which was reflected in the way that music was composed, created 
and consumed."


one of the nicest questions :-)

but, in the same time; this question is also one of the hardest you could ask, because it is almost unforseeable, with all possible aspects, standpoints, remarks, theories etc etc...
one solid text about this topic would be written for months, and those months would have been filled up with deep and thorough, honest work...
not to mention that this topic is wide (and mature) enough to devote it a book of 150 pages, without any problem...
I am, for sure, thinking that there is strong socio/political moment in any form of culture, leave alone avant-garde art...
myself, I don't prefer here terms like "explicit" or "implicit", because such a divide assumes that there are some 'more hidden' and 'more revealed' aspects in observed object (music)...
I am pleading for the as accurate as possible approach and, therefore, I think that any action that is taking place inside of the society has its "sociopolitical" aspect by default, because it can not be done outside of the society and its complex ties and relations...
that particular action is not happening in some isolated space, cut off from its surrounding that motivates, shapes and percieves that particular action...
that is why there can be no "hidden" or "visible" aspects of music, in this case, because one detailed inspection understand 'totality'...
if culture exists with no connections with society, then there can be no aspects that could be talked about, right ?...
yes, there are certainly some people (influential or not so influential) interested in jumping over this very important question by saying "art (music) has not anythinh to do with politics (social processes)", but I am sure that this idea needs no special discussion...it's absurd to the core...


digital and contemporary electronic music is, more or less, continuing tradition of first electronic pioneers, which again, were looking for the new ways and means to express the possibilities of today's human being...
of course, surrounding in which electronic musician operated in the '60s, and the surrounding nowadays could be very different, just with the bare fact that greatest leaps forward nowadays were made outside of academic circles in which great part of electronic music of the past was made...
that is one of the important notions to be held on mind...


but, this is the one of avantgarde's 'ancient questions' - is it having 'close relationships' with progressive social leanings or not ?
if it is, how that 'close relationships' are manifested ? how does it articulates itself in present social and economical conditions and what does it aspire for ?
I don't think these specific questions had different meaning in the '50s and '60s than they have now...
of course, some important things changed radically, but the basic parameters are still the same: you have "capitalism", you have "art market" (relation between the two) and you have "advanced music and its makers"...

maybe the better questions would be 'present situation in avantgarde music', with special look upon digital/contemporary electronic music, which certainly is a direction in contemporary music that opened up the doors of enormous possibilities to the artists interested in advanced music making....

if you consult people like Mattin, Jeff Gburek, Dion Workman, or Julien Ottavi, they definetly will tell you that certain currents in contemporary electronic music hold significant amount of critical, progressive and emancipational possibility, a position I am fond of, too...
in any case, this words of 'critical, progressive and emancipational practice' are corner stones of avantgarde's existence and pretensions....

I'll continue tommorow...


d.









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