[-empyre-] fragile identities / taboo of destroying property

[magnus lawrie]

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 06:56:42PM +0000, Johannes Birringer wrote:
> 
> 
> dear soft_skinned listeners
> 
> thanks Magnus for expanding, i found it very helpful, and also wish to reflect, perhaps,
> later on Menotti's responses, the current debate largely responding to Marie's posts
> and her performance.  Before going on to discuss, may I ask whether some of you here
> were involved in or have more information regarding some of the references (I am 
> thinking of "Noise and Capitalism" - a publication I was not aware of until now) and
> how you understand the a r t o . a r t i a n [musika txikien katalogoa / catálogo de musicas mínimas]
> 
> http://www.artoartian.org/?p=1141
> 
> project...... apparent re-released or published online in english (edited?, translated?) by Mattin and
> Anthony Iles,   and as i tried to track and then  read this interesting manifesto, i saw a further reference
> to this  (is is what Magnus also describes, a different even or same?)
> 

I don't have any particular or direct involvement. In the past I have
attended events that have some tangential connection - things from the
london particular and other groups which feature in Mute (Anthony Iles
et al). Thinking about the premises for this month's discussion and
Johannes' information from the Funeral & Zombification at DAI event
- I hazard a quess that this a variation on a theme and possibly
  similar to the performance I've described - I located the following
quote from London-based writer Howard Slater:

"Dematerialization of the art object can only presage a 'void'
if the passing of the art object is mourned. The mourning itself, in
substituting a mimetic trace for the lost object, is, in the case of
conceptualism's adherents, refashioned many times over from this
mimetic trace to become fixated on, for instance, the 'pictorialism of
a text based practice'or in the populist adventurism of indexing
creative activity that has escaped the art institution. "

"THE ART OF GOVERNANCE - on The Artist Placement Group 1966-1989"
http://www.infopool.org.uk/APG.htm

> >>
> Noise & Capitalism: Funeral & Zombification at D.A.I.
> 
> January 4th, 2012 by mattin
> 
> ‘Noise & Capitalism: Funeral & Zombification’
With Mattin and Anthony Iles
> 
> 12 January, 20.00h
Dutch Art Institute
Kortestraat 27, Arnhem
20hours
> 
> This evening will inaugurate the first of a series of workshops that will reflect on and ‘dig the grave’ for Noise & Capitalism (2009) a publication edited by Mattin and Anthony Iles. More than two years after it’s publication, what is the relevance for the book’s attempt to understand the practices of noise and improvisation in relation to capitalism? So many world-changing events have taken place in the intervening years, how has capitalism and the struggles within it changed and how does this reorient us critically to the object of this book? The editors propose an open process of reflection for the publication in joined effort to rework, rethink and identify its problems. This process will be guided by a performance that will introduce the book content and pave the way for ‘collective study’ between the authors and the audience; a proposed collaborative exercise against the grain of self promotion often found in the ‘book launch’ form. Furthermore, this evening aims to blur the boundaries
>  between ‘author’ and ‘audience’, to block the valorisation of either authoritative or distinguished subjectivities, and to experiment and put into question how we may invalidate such subjects’ accumulated ‘capital’ by releasing unquantifiable and non-exchangeable ‘product’.
> 
> Noise & Capitalism’ is a collection of essays by various musicians, academics, activists which reflects on the artist-audience binary, specifically how “noise,” “improvised” or “free” music offers resistance and tensions that may, at worst, provide instruments for capitalism but also, at best, point to modes of ‘subjectlessness’.>.

subjectlessness, different from objectivity/subjectivity ?
> 
> what is meant by Mattin and Iles when they speak of digging the grave for "Noise & Capitalism"?  
> And, fascinating as it is, how did (Menotti's curating?) Marie's posts on noise shift our debate to sound performance (from initial focus on in/compatible research)?  What exactly is noise incompatible with, if it in fact is an everyday life experience for all of us continuously and perennially negotiated? And possibly analyzed by Henri Lefebvre in his "rhytmanalysis" as an elementary "rhythm" of and in our lives?  What then does noise resist, or how does it rupture particular medium specificity or particular reception situations in high or low or mass cultures and high or low academias  (how come one never talks about low academia?).
> 
> This may all be obvious to you, and perhaps reading in starts and stops is not good on my part, in a durational debate where continuity (apart from contingencies that Marie validates in her writing) is perhaps of some importance, but I am really interested in whether claims (on behalf of noise in sonic arts/performance) of noise are here also claims on behalf of "sharing" and the participatory pathos in much contemporary art discussions (I see that the "Funeral and Zombification" event thinks that participatory noise or silence is also a tool to struggle against property and ownership/intellectual property?

> is noise then conflated with open source initiatives or "resistance"  (yes, Baruch, I sensed your impatience), aesthetic and political, which perhaps (if we remember the issues raised my Marc and others here, regarding research and scholarship and practices-as-research accreditations) links the noise in the system or authorization to unacceptable knowledge or badly written up ideas?   quite apart from the broken loudspeakers. 

Mention of open source brings to mind virality, with its association
to noise and overload (just think of viral marketing). And now, I can
see a reason free and open source software advocates could be unhappy
with the description of the GNU license as a viral license. 

(for some other perspectives, see  "GPL: Viral Infection or Just Your
Imagination?" http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/33968.html 
and "The GPL is not viral"
http://metastatic.org/text/the-gpl-is-not-viral.html)

Best wishes,

Magnus

> 
> with regards
> Johannes Birringer
> dap-lab
> 
> PS  "Noise and Capitalism" proposes that improvisation and noise contain or can produce emancipatory moments ...   these practices point towards social relations which can extend these moments.
> It might be good to talk further about these social relations and what is meant by them,  and also define more closely in what sense improvisation emancipates. From what? from order or adhered structure, from
> rules, and precise choreographies?  
> 
> 
> - - - -
> 
> Magnus schreibt:
> >>
> > In response to Marie, Magnus mentions that he felt "lucky to participate
> > in a performance 'going fragile', involving Mattin and other contributors
> > to Noise and Capitalism. This was part of Arika's 'Kill Your Timid Notion'
> > festival in Dundee in February 2010. It seemed as if people ('audience')
> > couldn't bear the silence and the absolutely (radically) open structure of
> > this collaboration. The performace and the notion of 'going fragile' made
> > a real impression on me."  This was picked up by others, but i am not so
> > sure (Cage's 4':33"  and his ideas on silence go back to the 50s) what
> > surprised audiences, what made anything un-bearable, or why an open
> > structure (an indeterminate structure?) would be considered radical?
> 
> To explain the performance......
> ..[clip]
> hope it is clear from what I've described that a drama unfolded, through a
> kind of direct improvisation (just dealing with the immediate moment,
> without much expectation or intent) and from this point the public really
> entered the frame and were faced with some options, for example to accept
> the premise of the performance or retain a critical detachment, to speak
> up or remain silent, to recognize the choice before them to become an
> actor and director and to do something about that, or to not respond. What
> I observed and heard after the performance had ended, was that some people
> felt very challenged by this situation - intimidated or offended, bemused
> or wondering, overwhelmed or affirmed, as well as having many
> contradictory thoughts and emotions.
> >>
> 
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