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February 10, 2004
week 4 reading - comments
post any notes you have on this week's reading here. mine are included in the extended entry of this post.
"instruments as general purpose tools" - demarinis questions the notion of creating a medium, in this case, a synthesizer, for the creation of music, with the intent of ignoring the thing itself -- that is, the syntheiszer is made to create music, but the technical work of art underlying the machine is dismissed. This is an interesting notion, one that has been explored by a number of electronic musicians. a couple interesting examples, as I'm thinking of this, in the less esoteric of recorded music, would be Robert Fripp and Tom Morello. With Frippertronics, the recording process itself is the message, so to speak; and Morello is known for showcasing the electric, mechanical aspects of the electric guitar. Clearly, there are many other, probably better examples of this, as it has sort of been "done" in the computer media world ad infinitum. Anyway, these are all examples, therefore, of Demarinis' idea that "the circuits themselves are works of art," which could be again would harken back to McLuhan's famous: "The medium is the message."
- Demarinis is very concerned with voice analysis. it's interesting to note that in general, building interactivity is highly concerned with analysis, and these vocal pieces could simply be viewed as a recognization of that fact.
speech / melody / music - power of human voice in music. For a while, electronic music was really ambient, bells and whistles, etc. I'm blanking on the name of the composer (he was a french radio engineer), but he used tape loops of children talking on a musical bed, and once you hear the human voice, it adds this completely other level. I can't remember if it was EBN, but there was a more modern piece that was basically layering Dan Rather's voice onto a breakbeat. It changed the whole thing, and now that's used to the point of me wanting to break things when I hear it. But I digress...Marinis uses all this in a nice way: his voice work is interesting because it plays off these principles, both employing, and commenting on them at the same time.
Edison Effect - further emphasis on the medium - "Unlike the environmental sounds, these sounds would not exist if the recording had not been made. I call this the shadow of technology."
"For me the real illusions are the ones that still mystify even when the technology is revealed and explained."
"Thus the artist's role is to animate with the imagination the way things work."
Posted by will at February 10, 2004 11:43 AM
Comments
"I think of technology as having a dual-being. It is simultaneously a dream, or product of our dreams, and the medium in which our dreams are exchanged and elaborated."
"The promise of technology enabling us to be conscious masters of our experience...."
"Art is a response to belief and acts as a consolidating force within culture. It gives place, time, image and sound to myths."
"Thus the artist's role is to animate with the imagination the way things work."
"...the way technologies mediate the relationship of people to their memories and to question the situation of technology in our lives, the mythos of technology."
This was a very interesting read. I had never heard of DeMarinis before and it was a nice introduction. I was very interested in his comparisons between art and technology and his explainations of how and what technology is. His work is very original and a nice alternative to traditional art and technollgy.
Posted by: Stephanie at February 10, 2004 12:43 PM
The "Victorian Science" section got my attention...speaking of obselete technologies, developing societal metaphors, and the application of abstract precursory ideas to tangible objects.
The idea of storing sound, instead of reproducing it was an interesting thought...the digital seems to be more about duplication than replication. That is, condensing something tangible (picture, book, music) into an abstract form, which is entirely different than an automaton built to recreate the act or form of the object. Or to put it yet another way, a CD is a lot less cumbersome, and inherently different, than a hired string quartet (or even a robotic string quartet).
Sound has always fascinated a lot of people writing about digital and contemporary media. On its own it has an ephemerality...action is required to maintain it. Sound has no physical form, only motion-a state of being that's comparable to stored electronic information.
Edison moving on to cinema after the phonograph in a "today the ear, tomorrow the eye, soon the mind" strikes me as the sort of thinking Dr. morel was thinking of in that one book I read. I doubt this myself, but maybe the phonograph was a point where fooling the senses became an truly structured, organized agenda (it's always been a science).
I also wonder if Babbage ever thought about including a sound element within his analytical engine (certainly would have been workable)...pirating operas on wax cylinders on universities might have become rampant...
Posted by: todd at February 10, 2004 12:51 PM
Notes on Paul De Marinis article: formerly posted in "Links to Reading"
Two points stood out to me in this interview:
1. When talking about "The Edison Effect" Marinis talks about the ancient belief that all senses relied on an extension of touch. That vision was a visual ray believed to emit from the eyes permitting the viewer to see by touching with his eyes. It was interesting to come upon this seeing as how, we tend to think of interfaces as needing the sense of touch to be interactive. A mouse, keyboard, game controller etc...we only use our eyes to see, to receive when dealing with interactive technology, but what if our eyes really were used for "touch." Enabling interactive technology to interface with our sense of vision has presented some interesting problems with the question of "sending" versus receiving.
2. I find that his analysis of technology being a dream that is all enveloping to be very true. It raises interesting questions about our relationships to our own technology and whether or not we really invent things to help us or hinder us. Is our perception really changed by the advent of tech that is supposed to enrich our lives?
Posted by: Sam at February 10, 2004 03:26 PM
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