[-empyre-] intro

[adam <adam@xs4all.nl>]

hi,

Many thanks to Felix and the moderators of Empyre for the kind invitation
to particpate in this discussion.

Well, there are many avenues to explore with the topic
'Web.cast / Net.radio - Slip.stream of the Net'.

Perhaps fundamental to the topic is how we categorise the phenomenon of
audio and video data delivered over tcp/ip. Does streaming belong within
the web or do we understand that it inhabits the wider technical arena of
the internet?

This is interesting to me because the 'web' seems to be a rather hostile
environment for streaming. Even though there are many examples of
time-based media on the web (breaking from the traditional on-demand, page
based metaphors) which seem to function well within a browser, it seems to
me that _transmission_ media does not work well, either conceptually or
technically, within this framework.

Imagine, for example, that everytime you had to look at a webpage, and the
format of the image (jpg/tiff/png/giff) required that you download and
install a new software to view it. Imagine that image files had to be
displayed in an application external to the browser unless the webmaster
had specifically researched how to embed the format-specific plug-in into
the browser - with a different syntax for each image format depending on
the users browser.

I imagine that we would not enjoy this experience and we would be looking
for new technologies to use - new browsers, perhaps, that embedded images
seemlessly, or new softwares that treated image browsing as a seperate
paradigm.

Well, we put up with this sort of trouble when we implement streaming
within the web, and strangely I dont think we complain about it too much.
This isnt because it isnt a hassle to endure these limitations, it _is_ a
hassle. But on the other hand...why dont we complain about this? (more on
this later!).

Anyway, these are some of the reasons why I dont like thinking of
streaming as a web-based media. It does not belong in the web but must
associate itself with the web by virtue of the fact that our use and
understanding of streaming is very primitive (perhaps limited by our
preconceptions of what the web is - many people for example, consider
email a web-based technology because they have only known their own
hotmail account).

So for now, I will always refer to the technology at hand as 'streaming'
or sometimes as net.radio (for a specific type of streaming). And
streaming fits better within the domain of traditional transmission media
that within the web.

This ties in with the first issue that Felix raises:
"Does the webcast[sic] itself support a unique aesthetic via  streaming
data reduction, transmission artifacts and recursive processing?"

It seems that new forms of media technology have always presented unique
aesthetics. Golo Follmer has an excellent essay
(www.medienkomm.uni-halle.de/institut/team/wiss_mitarbeiter/
foellmers_pdfs/Audio_Art_eng.pdf) in which he states:

"Radio also had an aesthetic influence on music. By potentially opening up
the entire world, it released a fascination for hearing global, alien,
multi-shaped things and stimulated the imagination of artists."

These aesthetics are sometimes conjured up because of the new
possibilities of the new technology. In the example above, the technology
(radio) also allowed many people for the first time to percieve sound
without also experiencing the influence of the original source of the
sound. As Golo has put it:

"Radio listeners discovered that noises possessed an aesthetic quality
they had hardly taken notice of before."

Another influence technology can have on aesthetics could be described as
the 'limitations' of the technology.

My favourite example of this is to relate the evolution of a particular
approach to music from my home country - New Zealand. The 'underground'
culture in New Zealand developed an attitude towards recording technology
and processes which informed the sound that was created (I am thinking
particularly of New Zealand musicians such as Chris Knox, Doug Hood, The
Clean, Xpressway Records, The Terminals, Alastar Galbraith, Dead C etc).
Because there has never been much money in the arts in New Zealand, many
artists have had to 'make do' with whatever technology was at hand. In the
early 80's many NZ musicians used very simple 4-track reel-to-reel
recordings devices (the TEAC 4 track being the most used). These machines
were relatively cheap and available. The technology itself was rather
primitive and many of these artists exploited both the mechanical and
aural limitations of the technology to inform their music and to develop
an identifiable 'sound'. Even to this day, with digital recording being
much cheaper that reel-to-reel tape, many of these artists still use the
TEAC 4 track and such like.

A similar  situation exists with streaming. Codecs are relatively
primitive (The codec -short for COmpres/DECompress- is the algorithm that
converts an audio or video signal into data that can be delivered via the
internet). Because the codecs have to do a job that the infrastructure
wasn't designed for (real time delivery of large amounts of data) there
have to be some compromises made. In essence, the amount of data to be
delivered has to be optimised and reduced, and hence the quality of the
audio and/or video signal must be reduced. The technology in this case has
a direct influence over the aesthetic of the content.

Normally this effect is seen as undesirable. However, this kind of
argument has never made much sense to artists hence many artists exploit
this aesthetic within their work.

There have been some shows on this topic (eg. 'Small + Ugly'
http://concretestream.umbc.edu/smallandugly/ ), but largely I think this
avenue is under-explored because we tend to like our digital media
pristine and seemless.

Anyway, I must run - I hope this post is some kind of starting point, and
I look forward to the continuing discussion :)

adam

Adam Hyde
r a d i o q u a l i a
http://www.radioqualia.net

Free as in 'media'