Re: [microsound] miles of styles of philosophes

[Stephen Hastings-King <roachboy@xxxxxxxxx>]

 adrian:

i dont see any particular limits to what is discussed that can be drawn
using microsound as a placeholder.
i just dont. so far as i am concerned at any rate, microsound--whatever that
means, really--is like any other type of cultural work, operating in the
same context, subject to the same contradictions and problems as any other.

the public/private question refers most directly to an ongoing debate in 3-d
land: it has to do with whether one should or must bring one's work out, and
whether there are claims about that work that follow from bringing it
out--like whether it is art, whether the producer is an artist, that kind of
thing.  i am not sure that this is of any interest to anyone so i'll leave
it at that for now.

"the great conversation" is an academic cliche.  it refers to the
intertextual networks one can work out and play with amongst the text-traces
left by the sequence of legitimate Figures who constitute a tradition.  folk
act as though these Figures are Legitimate because of the quality of their
work, which implies that cultural markets are rational.  of course, they
aren't and the story behind the legitimation of any particular figure has as
much or more to do with the mass of commentary that builds up around them,
and with the relations of cultural power that play out across commentary.

the internet doesnt really resolve problems of bringing your work out.  you
can post it, people can download it, sure: but it is a funny kind of public,
isn't it?  in no particular place....just a bunch of atoms, it seems. when
the collective i am part of is active, we publicize new stuff and get a
couple thousand hits a month.  we are not entirely sure what any of them
mean, and we have no idea who these folk are or where they are or even if
they are.  digits just turn.  stuff happens.  it falls into a void.   there
is no press-like apparatus that classifies/sorts online releases, so there
is no structuring of a wide public for this kind of music (whatever that may
be)...and the sad fact of the matter is that it is the
classification/sorting that is the fundamental act of cultural construction
in the context through which we move.  people seem to want what they are
told they want.  of course, there are folk who operate off that radar and
trawl about for music that others dont know about, which is fine--but that
is still an act with sociological correlates.  around this point, i
generally make some reference to bourdieu.  when i do it, i usually feel
like "fuck, what an academic geek i have become." (as i do right now.  this
works every time.)


abstraction.
well, the cynic in me reverts to bourdieu again, who argues that the
tolerance for abstraction in art is a class thing, linked to a desire to
demonstrate one's distance from necessity which increases as you move up the
class gradient.
but that is general.
i dont know what you mean by abstraction.  i refers to many things, many
types of operations.  soundwise, i have found that folk refer to types of
organization that they are not familiar with as abstract--it is a kind of
default category that lets them say something other than "what the fuck was
that?" or "i didnt get it" or---more to the point--"i didnt like it,
whatever it was."--which is fine, but it doesnt tell me much.  so what do
you mean by it?

stephen