The purposes of my writing this paper are multiple. Firstly, my intent is to communicate a certain hypothesis about the formation of the soundscape, the operation of the acoustic artist in the soundscape, and the use of the Internet in bringing these happenings to the attention of the broader public, and in doing so, hopefully raise the general level of awareness about the concerns of not just soundscape artists but the WFAE in general.  To that end, I intend to present not so much a map of the acoustic ecology of the web, as much as this poses an interesting and important project, but a map Acoustic Ecology ON the web - how Acoustic Ecology, the WFAE and soundscape research and practice in general is both representing itself and being represented on the Internet.  I wish to finally propose a shift away from traditional media thinking to what is being often touted as the web 2.0 model.  The is about thinking of the Internet as  a marketplace of ideas. (spin).

I think in this small passage from Rhythmanalysis, Henri Lefebvre manages to flesh out a little of the teleology of change that I am interested in. He states:

Social times disclose diverse, contradictory possibilities: delays and early arrivals, reappearances (repetitions) of an (apparently) rich past, and revolutions that brusquely introduce a new content and sometimes change the form of society.  Historical times slow down or speed up, advance or regress, look forward or backward.. ..Objectively, for there to be change, a social group, a class or caste must intervene by imprinting a rhythm on an era, be it through force or an insinuating manner.  In the course of a crisis, in a critical situation, a group must designate itself as an innovator or producer of meaning.  And its acts must inscribe themselves on reality.    (14)

Another quote via the Microsound email list:

some clarification of this phrase is necessary. firstly, it is apparent that there is somewhat of a minor tautology in this if one has an understanding of revolution in the politico historical sense.  of course, I am using the phrase specifically in relation to the notion of open-networks, of which the current Internet is the most salient and ongoing example.  in the early days of the Internet, much was said of its democratising potential, and this coupled with the digital revolution would herald in a new era of public participation in the processes that shape our political and cultural landscape  (see Rheingold for a particularly buoyant assessment of this potential).  Whilst I similarly believe open-networks have this potential, what I am more interested in is the sense in which open-networks (especially inter-networking hubs such as the Internet) facilitate a general coming together of social systems, or members of differing social groups, in a common environment of circulation and hence social interaction, stripped of some of the more cemented mechanisms of spin found when we engage in face to face contact, that bodies have baggage.

In a sense, I am interested in a general notion of communion, and its relationship to a media commons, and the manner in which political, cultural and spiritual communion can be instigated in an open-network where the primary mode of interaction is that of the e loop, and reinforced through a practice of repetition.

This somewhat unconsciously applied metaphor for the harmony of the spheres from Brian Greene:

Early scientific study focused on the kinds of things one might see or experience in everyday life.  Galileo dropped weights from a leaning tower (or so legend has it) and watched balls rolling down inclined surfaces; Newton studied falling apples (or so legend has it) and the orbit of the moon.   The goal of these investigations was to attune the nascent scientific ear to nature's harmonies.  To be sure, physical reality was the stuff of experience, but the challenge was to hear the rhyme and reason behind the rhythm and regularity.  Many sung and unsung heroes contributed to the rapid and impressive progress that was made, but Newton stole the show.  With a handful of mathematical equations, he synthesized everything known about motion on earth and in the heavens, and in so doing, composed the score for what has come to be known as classical physics. (7)

What is it that I am trying to do with technology?

Firstly, in the process of building some sort of multi channel dispersion system, I am playing with sound in a very spatial sense.  What am I trying to achieve in doing this?  Really, what I have always had I'm mind is synthesizing soundscapes indeed the soundscape) from a systemic viewpoint.  That is, from a compositional viewpoint I am interested not in producing compositions per se but defining and constructing a system which produces an ongoing soundscape that interrogates the very functional principals of soundscape - the way in which it is created and way in which it is experienced, the way in which it is perceived and the way in which it is recognized.  That is, I am looking to setup a system in a space and leave it there such that I can interact with the system in an ongoing manner to learn about the relationship between the functional modes of repetition as they can be employed in a systematic, compositional and constructive manner.  The content itself is not of interest so much as is the ability to investigate the modes of repetition through the content and to use the modes of repetition to generate content.

Tasks tagged with: revolution

polemic, undisciplined and raw

Networks of artistic practice don't necessarily have to create artists. They are pedagogic resources essential to developing and nurturing a creative society by instigating a source of artistic influence. In other words, evolving and circulating the meme of creativity.Revolution is the state (perhaps not stasis) whereby the meme of creativity has infiltrated and can intervene in all modes of repetition such that even in the most harrowing of circumstances the capacity persists for the creation of an alternative; in short, for the creation of difference.

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