This week's chat... hit the jump (if I set up a jump right)
[15:57] Sabrina Loudwater: next week my avatar definitely won't have a protruding belly!
[15:58] Kathereene Kahanamoku: bhodi, I forgot how to sit again
[15:58] Howl Yifu: yes, got to keep the avatar up to the real - you should have a baby to accompany your avatar next week
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
We So SyFy
With the completely huge and wide-ranging topics covered in Sound Unbound there can easily be a lack of organization to a discussion about the text--which is likely the way that the writers would have expected it (or, instead, as a string of separate conversations, which is likely what this will be, that will combine to make this other thing, which is both our class and some other text/file/thing/?//).
Before I get into questions, I want to draw your attention to an assertion from the book's editor that will set up my next two questions: Miller writers, "We live in an era where quotation and sampling operate on such a deep level that the archaelogy of what can be called 'knowledge' floats in a murky realm between the real and the unreal" (11).
So thinking of that quote, what do we think of Doctorow's argument in favor of keeping technology going--the anti-Metallica approach--that "crippling" this technological change "to save someone's outmoded busienss model is a crime against humanity"? Other references to this issue from other writers (even Lethem's kind plea not to pirate his texts for awhile, but to remix away) all seem to feel similarly.
So yeah, what do we think? The question has come up in class before, about intellectual property, and copyright, but with this book's bold assertion that copyright laws are misused and damaging to future art.
If we continue on a similar thread, to move to Lethem's essay on plagiarism (which he pretends to plagiarize, but then attributes sources--kinda cute, but really takes the plagiarism out of the picture. Why not have said, "Ya know what? I stole half of this essay. Eat it."?), is there a necessity to quote and borrow, and a "delight" as he suggests (43)?
I definitely think there is, and yet often when I'm writing, I'll think of an idea, and then suddenly panic when I realize it's terribly similar to something I'd see before--or worse, something I see after that turns out to have been done before. If this is just crytomnesia, and something natural, and something I support fully, why do I dread my influences still? Do the other artists here do the same thing--painstakingly try not to repeat, even if the greatest artists in history borrow and steal themselves?
Jumping forward a bit, Ken Jordan and Paul Miller cover some issues about audio composition software. We have an assignment in this class that could easily involve some of this. They liken parts of the process to building out of Legos with sound. In my experience recording with Garage Band, this is a pretty accurate assessment. Similar to the arguments made about Cage (and Cage's responses), this makes music production awfully easy. I think of one of my favorite electronic musicians, Four Tet, and it sounds really "GarageBandish"--which seems like a bad thing.
So I have two videos to sort of get us thinking about this issue:
First is a video of a song from a guy who claims to not be able to play either the piano or the drums, but was edited to appear that he can. The video, in this case, just adds a bit of intrigue, the sound is recorded simulatenously, so in effect, this editing would work just as well without it. This is clearly awesome (sorry to be leading), but something's still unsettling about it.
And this next video is of a Tenori-On. This is an instrument that really emphasizes the maker as the listener too, as Jordan and Miller suggest that music is moving towards. As you watch this, you can probably see that playing this could easily lead to letting yourself be the listener and producer at the same time. Aside from the fact that I want to buy one of these immediately (and am pretty sure I'm going to), does this take away from skill in programming? In a demo video of the instrument, Four Tet notes that you can sound pretty good on it without any practice.
What do we make of Goldsmith's "uncreativity"?
This essay is, as far as I can see, a lie. It's clearly creative. You mention that idea to just about any artist and I imagine most would say "Hm... weird" and BAM, it's creative and interesting. The act might be painful, and the result might not be something I'd be particularly interested in reading--but it's creative. It's fresh, it's the opposite of what he claims he wanted. Sorry Goldsmith.
Finally, and this isn't a question (though I do want to talk about Oliveros's improvisatory school), but reading about Kurzweil's cybernetic ideas was really exciting. I've got a 76 weighted key giant purple Kurzweil keyboard in my room, and it's been a treasure for years, and I never knew the company's founder had such bizarre and cool things to say.
But if we're out of time, and want to talk more about computers making sounds, this video can spark some conversation related to Oliveros as well.
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand from Aaron on Vimeo.
Okay, that's all, let's get talking and sound making.
Before I get into questions, I want to draw your attention to an assertion from the book's editor that will set up my next two questions: Miller writers, "We live in an era where quotation and sampling operate on such a deep level that the archaelogy of what can be called 'knowledge' floats in a murky realm between the real and the unreal" (11).
So thinking of that quote, what do we think of Doctorow's argument in favor of keeping technology going--the anti-Metallica approach--that "crippling" this technological change "to save someone's outmoded busienss model is a crime against humanity"? Other references to this issue from other writers (even Lethem's kind plea not to pirate his texts for awhile, but to remix away) all seem to feel similarly.
So yeah, what do we think? The question has come up in class before, about intellectual property, and copyright, but with this book's bold assertion that copyright laws are misused and damaging to future art.
If we continue on a similar thread, to move to Lethem's essay on plagiarism (which he pretends to plagiarize, but then attributes sources--kinda cute, but really takes the plagiarism out of the picture. Why not have said, "Ya know what? I stole half of this essay. Eat it."?), is there a necessity to quote and borrow, and a "delight" as he suggests (43)?
I definitely think there is, and yet often when I'm writing, I'll think of an idea, and then suddenly panic when I realize it's terribly similar to something I'd see before--or worse, something I see after that turns out to have been done before. If this is just crytomnesia, and something natural, and something I support fully, why do I dread my influences still? Do the other artists here do the same thing--painstakingly try not to repeat, even if the greatest artists in history borrow and steal themselves?
Jumping forward a bit, Ken Jordan and Paul Miller cover some issues about audio composition software. We have an assignment in this class that could easily involve some of this. They liken parts of the process to building out of Legos with sound. In my experience recording with Garage Band, this is a pretty accurate assessment. Similar to the arguments made about Cage (and Cage's responses), this makes music production awfully easy. I think of one of my favorite electronic musicians, Four Tet, and it sounds really "GarageBandish"--which seems like a bad thing.
So I have two videos to sort of get us thinking about this issue:
First is a video of a song from a guy who claims to not be able to play either the piano or the drums, but was edited to appear that he can. The video, in this case, just adds a bit of intrigue, the sound is recorded simulatenously, so in effect, this editing would work just as well without it. This is clearly awesome (sorry to be leading), but something's still unsettling about it.
Amateur - Lasse Gjertsen - watch more funny videos
And this next video is of a Tenori-On. This is an instrument that really emphasizes the maker as the listener too, as Jordan and Miller suggest that music is moving towards. As you watch this, you can probably see that playing this could easily lead to letting yourself be the listener and producer at the same time. Aside from the fact that I want to buy one of these immediately (and am pretty sure I'm going to), does this take away from skill in programming? In a demo video of the instrument, Four Tet notes that you can sound pretty good on it without any practice.
What do we make of Goldsmith's "uncreativity"?
This essay is, as far as I can see, a lie. It's clearly creative. You mention that idea to just about any artist and I imagine most would say "Hm... weird" and BAM, it's creative and interesting. The act might be painful, and the result might not be something I'd be particularly interested in reading--but it's creative. It's fresh, it's the opposite of what he claims he wanted. Sorry Goldsmith.
Finally, and this isn't a question (though I do want to talk about Oliveros's improvisatory school), but reading about Kurzweil's cybernetic ideas was really exciting. I've got a 76 weighted key giant purple Kurzweil keyboard in my room, and it's been a treasure for years, and I never knew the company's founder had such bizarre and cool things to say.
But if we're out of time, and want to talk more about computers making sounds, this video can spark some conversation related to Oliveros as well.
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand from Aaron on Vimeo.
Okay, that's all, let's get talking and sound making.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Reflection in Asphalt
Before I even begin with questions, I want to discuss this idea that Silverman discusses in her Acoustic Mirror, bringing together a connection between film and reflection in a metaphoric sense. She cites Kracauer as suggestion that a movie goer goes to the cinema because he or she yearns for his or her own life (8). I interpreted this as a desire not to compensate for something, but instead to recognize and understand. When we look in a mirror, we attempt to see ourselves, and what we see may not always be entirely accurate, but it's close. Film can do the same thing--as does any art--and represent who we are as people in a way perhaps the viewer has not considered.
I love film. I spend much of time watching movies, thinking about movies, and attempting to make movies. That said, this book's use of psychoanalysis and theory assumed an enormous base of knowledge (explanations from the first chapter about fetishism, castration, lack, gaze, etc. were all explained far too quickly and with a sort of attitude that said "of course, duh, you know this is fact, why am I boring you?")--and as a result I really struggled to understand.
Our goal for these blogs is to take two questions and answer one of them, but I know that my answering of one will be very basic and probably wrong. So in its place, I'll answer a sort of easy one and ask two additional questions.
First, the one I think I can answer--what is the point of studying the female voice in film (as The Acoustic Mirror sets out to do)?
Previous work in film theory has focused on the way that the medium accentuates male gaze. Silverman argues that a similar "gaze" (is there a word for audio-gazing? do i even understand the concept of gaze enough for this metaphor to work for me?) is at work in Hollywood's use of the female voice--film holds the female to the female body. For example, there are few female voiceovers since allowing the female voice to be seen and not heard would put her beyond the reach of male gaze (164).
This leads me to another question--really, why aren't there female voiceovers? Silverman's suggestion mentioned above fits her thesis, but it doesn't seem to really answer the question at all (which is part of my problem with this kind of theory, but that's just my problem). Is it because more men get screenplays produced and few men write about women, or is there something else going on? I thought of my love of Discovery and BBC's Planet Earth, narrated in the US by Sigourney Weaver, but was narrated by David Attenborough for the British broadcast and the DVDs. Although I never heard Attenborough's, friends of mine said it was much better than Weaver's--and I remember constantly feeling strange that she was narrating. Was it a bad narration or is something else at work? I don't know why I have to struggle so hard to think of a film with a constant female voiceover, but I can think of dozens of films with male voiceovers.
Finally, Silverman suggests that viewers accept sound of a film as something "real," and that this stems from the "metaphysical tradition" that sound is immediate (43). She cites Lacan when she says that speech actually leads to absense, and that what you end up with is an "impression of reality" (44). Why is there a need to associate sound in film as something real? Is it only obvious because of the time we've had with the media in the present that clearly sound is NOT real, that the actors are mic'd, that sound effects are added in post (or sometimes even diagetic dialogue is voice-overed, re-recorded)? Do we actually trust sounds the way Silverman suggests (think about being scared at night, you hear creaks and rumbles, and trust sound even less, forcing yourself to turn on the light to know that everything is fine).
I'm including only a picture of asphalt here, to represent how clearly I could see this text:
I love film. I spend much of time watching movies, thinking about movies, and attempting to make movies. That said, this book's use of psychoanalysis and theory assumed an enormous base of knowledge (explanations from the first chapter about fetishism, castration, lack, gaze, etc. were all explained far too quickly and with a sort of attitude that said "of course, duh, you know this is fact, why am I boring you?")--and as a result I really struggled to understand.
Our goal for these blogs is to take two questions and answer one of them, but I know that my answering of one will be very basic and probably wrong. So in its place, I'll answer a sort of easy one and ask two additional questions.
First, the one I think I can answer--what is the point of studying the female voice in film (as The Acoustic Mirror sets out to do)?
Previous work in film theory has focused on the way that the medium accentuates male gaze. Silverman argues that a similar "gaze" (is there a word for audio-gazing? do i even understand the concept of gaze enough for this metaphor to work for me?) is at work in Hollywood's use of the female voice--film holds the female to the female body. For example, there are few female voiceovers since allowing the female voice to be seen and not heard would put her beyond the reach of male gaze (164).
This leads me to another question--really, why aren't there female voiceovers? Silverman's suggestion mentioned above fits her thesis, but it doesn't seem to really answer the question at all (which is part of my problem with this kind of theory, but that's just my problem). Is it because more men get screenplays produced and few men write about women, or is there something else going on? I thought of my love of Discovery and BBC's Planet Earth, narrated in the US by Sigourney Weaver, but was narrated by David Attenborough for the British broadcast and the DVDs. Although I never heard Attenborough's, friends of mine said it was much better than Weaver's--and I remember constantly feeling strange that she was narrating. Was it a bad narration or is something else at work? I don't know why I have to struggle so hard to think of a film with a constant female voiceover, but I can think of dozens of films with male voiceovers.
Finally, Silverman suggests that viewers accept sound of a film as something "real," and that this stems from the "metaphysical tradition" that sound is immediate (43). She cites Lacan when she says that speech actually leads to absense, and that what you end up with is an "impression of reality" (44). Why is there a need to associate sound in film as something real? Is it only obvious because of the time we've had with the media in the present that clearly sound is NOT real, that the actors are mic'd, that sound effects are added in post (or sometimes even diagetic dialogue is voice-overed, re-recorded)? Do we actually trust sounds the way Silverman suggests (think about being scared at night, you hear creaks and rumbles, and trust sound even less, forcing yourself to turn on the light to know that everything is fine).
I'm including only a picture of asphalt here, to represent how clearly I could see this text:
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Idiot Splicer
Question 1: How does "rhythm science" (which may be more about rhythm than science) apply to literature?
In the short time I've been serious about trying to become a fiction writer, there's been no shortage of discussion about influence. Like many new writers, there's a sort of inescapable desire to channel the voices of the writers that compelled us to write in the first place. Recently I received an e-mail from the Engl 418 professor (whose students many of us MFAs are mentoring) telling us that we might need to sit down with our students and have a difficult discussion about making sure that we are not merely channeling one of those dominant influential voices, but making something your own.
And I agree that it can be a dangerous thing, relying solely on regurgitating other voices you've encountered, but Miller argues that in many indirect ways, that's exactly what you're doing no matter how "original" your writing is. There's something wonderful about Paul Miller's approach to this issue in Rhythm Science. According to Miller, as one collages, and remixes, his/her "taste and preferences become mapped onto the specific structure of the rhythm" (40). If this wasn't already easily translated into the writing world, Miller later made that direct connection, describing writing as "infectious," with the same epidemiology metaphors he used for dj-ing.
Perhaps even more intriguing is the description Miller has for music as an unfixed, malleable entity. Rather than thinking of something like a song as a unit, he takes it apart and considers each track like a Lego set, able to be taken apart and rearranged. How much each part of those parts is a part of someone is much less relevant than what one does with those parts. In writing, the Lego analogy is even more tangible. We write within a set amount of blocks (whether you break it into sentence structure, words, sounds, or even lettes), and although of course we can make up new ones, for the most part we work within that set. So when one writer creates something with those pieces, another writer can take that apart and build something different--and it is within the similarities as much as it is the differences that we can see who the writer is and what they are bringing. I remember when I was a bit younger, and making a mix-tape (not splicing songs, but merely gathering a bunch of cds and making a casette of a mix of tracks) was much more laborous than it is now. Making these for friends was very deliberate, and although it doesn't say as much about me as my writing, I think the concept really does apply. What you choose to be influenced by, and what you choose to reflect of that influece, is what makes your writing both yours and a part of the rest of the "record collection" we can all sort through. It's a wonderful idea.
Question 2: With all of this emphasis on influence a I've discussed above, how come it's so easy to understand when an artist complains about copyright violation? In other words, how come I can understand Miller's suggestion and it seems perfectly clear, yet on some levels I can understand why an artist would make something and NOT want it chopped up, remixed, werd?
This book makes me feel like the only good approach would be to post one of my favorite remixes...
I dare you not to smile at Girl Talk's ability to mix Nirvana's "Lithium" with Deee-lite and Salt n Pepa simultaneously. Plus the video is lovely work of splicing as well:
Second is just a link, but it's one of my favorite remixes ever because both the remixer and the remixee are both extremely fluent in mixing analog and digital art. Here we have Cornelius's mindboggling track "Fit Song" remixed by the Books. Listen, love. "Eat. White. Paint." It gets progressively stranger and more wonderful as the source material blurs into.... who knows what this other thing is.
Cornelius - Fit Song (The Books Eat White Paint Remix)
In the short time I've been serious about trying to become a fiction writer, there's been no shortage of discussion about influence. Like many new writers, there's a sort of inescapable desire to channel the voices of the writers that compelled us to write in the first place. Recently I received an e-mail from the Engl 418 professor (whose students many of us MFAs are mentoring) telling us that we might need to sit down with our students and have a difficult discussion about making sure that we are not merely channeling one of those dominant influential voices, but making something your own.
And I agree that it can be a dangerous thing, relying solely on regurgitating other voices you've encountered, but Miller argues that in many indirect ways, that's exactly what you're doing no matter how "original" your writing is. There's something wonderful about Paul Miller's approach to this issue in Rhythm Science. According to Miller, as one collages, and remixes, his/her "taste and preferences become mapped onto the specific structure of the rhythm" (40). If this wasn't already easily translated into the writing world, Miller later made that direct connection, describing writing as "infectious," with the same epidemiology metaphors he used for dj-ing.
Perhaps even more intriguing is the description Miller has for music as an unfixed, malleable entity. Rather than thinking of something like a song as a unit, he takes it apart and considers each track like a Lego set, able to be taken apart and rearranged. How much each part of those parts is a part of someone is much less relevant than what one does with those parts. In writing, the Lego analogy is even more tangible. We write within a set amount of blocks (whether you break it into sentence structure, words, sounds, or even lettes), and although of course we can make up new ones, for the most part we work within that set. So when one writer creates something with those pieces, another writer can take that apart and build something different--and it is within the similarities as much as it is the differences that we can see who the writer is and what they are bringing. I remember when I was a bit younger, and making a mix-tape (not splicing songs, but merely gathering a bunch of cds and making a casette of a mix of tracks) was much more laborous than it is now. Making these for friends was very deliberate, and although it doesn't say as much about me as my writing, I think the concept really does apply. What you choose to be influenced by, and what you choose to reflect of that influece, is what makes your writing both yours and a part of the rest of the "record collection" we can all sort through. It's a wonderful idea.
Question 2: With all of this emphasis on influence a I've discussed above, how come it's so easy to understand when an artist complains about copyright violation? In other words, how come I can understand Miller's suggestion and it seems perfectly clear, yet on some levels I can understand why an artist would make something and NOT want it chopped up, remixed, werd?
This book makes me feel like the only good approach would be to post one of my favorite remixes...
I dare you not to smile at Girl Talk's ability to mix Nirvana's "Lithium" with Deee-lite and Salt n Pepa simultaneously. Plus the video is lovely work of splicing as well:
Second is just a link, but it's one of my favorite remixes ever because both the remixer and the remixee are both extremely fluent in mixing analog and digital art. Here we have Cornelius's mindboggling track "Fit Song" remixed by the Books. Listen, love. "Eat. White. Paint." It gets progressively stranger and more wonderful as the source material blurs into.... who knows what this other thing is.
Cornelius - Fit Song (The Books Eat White Paint Remix)
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