[-empyre-] networked bodies | public music

[jan hendrik brueggemeier <jan@pingfm.org>]

hi adam, felix, hi everybody,

thanks for inviting us to join in. i bet your pardon regarding my english.
the next weeks on empyre will be very interesting to aerate my
unfortunately quite euro-centric point of view ..

a quick response: adam- you started with an interesting approach regarding
audio-art on one hand and on 'web-ness' on the other . i will need a
moment to get started, because for quite a while i haven't thought about the
net-'uniqueness' or web-immanent media. for us (or at least myself, as one
of several involved) i have been always fascinated by streaming-media as a
means of hybridising or retransferring certain net-phenomens
into physical space or other formats..  to put it in that form: backend
internet, frontend whatever.
best,
jan

---
[ networked body | public music ]

pauseandplay is the title of our current exhibition of printouts from
stills of the video-stream archive from pingfm. how is this related to our
current work? we even haven't had live-video in the last two years of
webcast. still these pictures illustrate some important aspects of our
understanding of streaming.

first of all, it is a physical manifestation of digital data produced in
what is commonly called the "virtual", in a sense in that the prints are a
static and haptic product transfered from the realm of streamingservers,
networks and computer-screens. this reflects a certain need for a
'offline' representation of hours and hours of archived webcasts. it is
also relates to an approach to the medium which stresses the importance to
the transmission of body in a live-situation as a communicative act rather
than the final product.

in that sense for us a microphone is as essential to streaming as is the
software for encoding. and it also explains our affection to beats in our
sunday sampling sessions, an activity in which mediated music in terms od
its prodcution and distribution is aiming to stimulate a bodily groove.
-to the extent that our sound has been described as "clubby" in the past.
and that's ok for us, if somebody wants to dance to webcast, we'd love it.

secondly, one of the most striking characteristics of the pictures are the
visible fragments originating from the picture compression occuring at
low-bandwidths. the far from unwanted side-effect that results in ensuring
radio reception to modem users as well has always fascinated us in that it
brought to attention the means of transmission, a certain "dust" in the
digital. it reminds us of our stimulated senses as the interface between
ourselves and our multimediated environment. as for the acoustic side of
webcast, the sound of 20kbit audio-streams, somewhere between bootlegs and
ham-radio, implies a certain freedom of being able to have a transmission
under low-tech circumstances, be it the noborder-camp in strasbourg or a
wooden theatre stage in the park.

and lastly, creating an exhibition from an archive of webcasts shows the
potential for hybridization and networking this medium has. the common
practice of linking together streaming with fm-radio can be expanded into
other fields, like cinema, theatre, clubs and conferences. and all of this
on an international level, with distance being much less important than
time in the internet. actually some of the most enjoyable webcasts we've
had were the ones crossing over several timezones, different locations and
medias, with all the confusion involving such events.

all these different aspects have had great impact on the personal works of
the pingfm members, which continue through several side-spin projects, for
example " n e t u r e  ": n e t u r e  is meant as an architectural and
media intervention in the  formerly called public space in the 'shrinking
city'. based on theoretical approach questioning at which points media and
architectural sphere coalesce and to which degree the concepts of private
and public have to be rethought? for more details about this project
please visit http://pingfm.org/leipzig

sebastians current research on brasilian music production,
http://maracatronic.de, focusses on the city of Recife in Brazils
northeastern state of Pernambuco. Musical and cultural phenomena from this
region can be considered exemplary for the uniqueness of Brazilian music.
The current part of the project includes interviews and on site research,
followed by the production of an audio documentary later this summer.

pingfm.org
ping@pingfm.org



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