Re: [-empyre-] question for Barbara

[Barbara Lattanzi <threads@wildernesspuppets.net>]

At 12:23 AM 3/15/2005, you wrote:
> I have a question for you, Barbara, if you like.
>
> > http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/IL/projects/blockjam/index.html
> >
> > "We believe in a future where music will no longer be considered a
> > linear composition, but a dynamic structure, and musical composition
> > will extend to interaction. We also believe that the divisions of
> > composer, performer, and audience will be blurred, by the introduction
> > of such media."

Jim,

I think that there have been many years of experimentation in that 
direction already.  People are adapting technological processes based on 
prior cultural experiments and necessities, and are thus building on those 
cultural experiments/traditions.  The "introduction of such media" happened 
as an effect, not a cause, of such experimentation.

Do you agree?

(As a kind of proof, take the inventions of the phonograph and the 
telephone and their relative impacts on the development of sound art across 
the span of the 20th century...Why did the telephone have so much less 
significance for sound experiments until late in the century? What caused 
the "discovery" of the phone as a medium for art as well as communication 
in the 1980s work of Mr.Apology, for example, as well as sonic artists since?).

Nonetheless, the extended use of media over time does feed back into the 
way that one experiences one's world, producing certain patterns of 
perception, expectation and engagement, etc.  I just think that, at this 
point in time, we can look for changes beyond those of compositional 
restructuring. For example, the DIY aesthetic grew out of punk and this has 
fed just as much into the blurring of divisions between artist and audience 
as what has been enabled by technological interfaces.


> What is your feeling about this sort of possible future concerning video,
> particularly as experienced in front of a computer at which one 'works' (we
> 'work', right?).


My software participates in DIY culture. When it comes to video and 
film,  I identify as part of the audience. Therefore, my effort is in 
creating active ways of viewing screen images.  The act of seeing becomes a 
performance, which means that the division between maker and viewer becomes 
blurred as an effect of the performativity of the audience (myself or 
others using software).

Eventually DIY culture changes the construct called "audience" 
entirely.  Groupings coalesce with entirely different expectations and ways 
of engaging the screen.

I may be over-emphasizing the DIY aspect.  It isn't just about different 
ways of positioning oneself as a viewer.  It is also about escaping what is 
over-determined and predictable, probing/constructing labyrinths to get 
lost in, etc.  The computer is so chimerical... a mimic of other 
machines... But, at this point in time, if we happen to still "work in 
front of the computer", I do not know how productive a challenge it is to 
speculate on how that might change someday.  Obviously it will change.

What do you think, Jim?  I guess that you raise the question because you 
have some insights of your own.

Barbara



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