Re: [-empyre-] microsound as music's digital praxis

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@uiah.fi>]

> Do others of you on this list think this idea that microsound is deeply
> related to formal thinking as I've described it, particularly in a kind of
> self-reflexive way? If that makes no sense, would you please comment on how
> your work embraces its own critique -- or, at the least, how you see a
> praxis of theory/content and form getting mixed up in your compositions
> and/or improvisations?

some rambling reflections of that relationship -- kind of backwards, but...

it would appear to me that the labelling process -- i.e. "microsound" 
as a reduced term trying to cover a range of human activities -- is 
indicative of the socially anchored problematic (of abstract 'formal' 
thinking in general) vs the un-name-able activities of creation. 
While it does give us a handle on a thread to discourse 
(linguistically) about, I have the feeling that, thankfully, 
sonic/music/audio work is essentially divergent from labels...and is 
essentially an embodied experience.   And critique is that 
abstracted-from-the-real-praxis linguistic process that tries to 
reduce the energy of the acoustic event to a social meme.  Is there a 
point to this process aside from an ongoing socialization process? 
Sometimes it seems one outcome is the subjugation of the embodied 
experience to the critical review of same.  I find that subjugation 
VERY problematic these days.  Where the re-production of something, 
the simulation of something, seems to carry more social weight than 
the original thing/event.  But maybe that brings thoughts back to 
Benjamin and the aura.

Just wondering...

(Vygotsky's idea -- that ideology is anchored in language and is 
embedded in social systems) -- It is possible not to name anything, 
or to name things idiosyncratically, tho' one becomes isolated from 
broader social intercourse.

it seems to be a process that social 'safety' is built on -- if I can 
use a term like 'microsound' I fall into a social comfort zone 
instead of groping in a linguistic landscape devoid of over-arching 
terminologies, risking mis-understanding (and so the Tower of Babel 
fell).

I wonder, while we are bringing our linguistic meanderings into 
juxtaposition here, how interesting it would be to be able to take 
all the personal sonic threads and weave them, and NOT comment on 
them...

You are doing something of that, Trace, in the ADAPT project ...

Cheers
JH


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