[-empyre-] Horsemouth

[anthony at metamute.net]

Hello there,

Apologies for the delay pedal on this response. Earlier this/last week
Johannes posed some questions about the Noise & Capitalism and book.

At Pauline's prompting I subscribed to Empyre to try to answer some of
these questions and respond to the interest in this book/ongoing project.

Mattin, a musician originally from Bilbao working with noise, improvised
music and performance initiated the process of a book consisting of 12
contributions together with Audiolab - a group dedicated to audio research
based at Arteleku in San Sebastian. The book was intended to bring some,
then much needed, critical reflection on the politics of experimental
music practices and it's relation to capitalism as a social relation.

Mattin and I have been friends since he lived in London around 2000. I
helped him edit the book which finally saw publication in 2009.
Arteleku/Audiolab kindly supported the design, printing and distribution
of the book.

The book was intended to be translated into Basque and Castillian
Spanish. This has yet to happen, but my hope is that one day it will at
the very least in Epub or PDF.

As a way of launching the book and opening up it's content to readers,
practitioners and theoreticians of noise and improvised music, Mattin,
Emma Hedditch, Howard Slater and myself traveled to San Sebastian where we
lead a workshop around readings and discussions of the book and
performative practices we developed together in response to it and the
situation in the room. An aspect of the ethos developed around the book's
disseminations involves not separating or hierarchising discussion,
theory, utterance, gesture, movement, play, 'music', silence and so on.

Since then this group of contributors to the book has worked together with
others in a  different formations to create performative situations in the
context of festivals, concerts, workshops, book launches, exhibitions and
lectures. Notably at the Ertz festival in Brera (at the same time as the
first workshop) and Kill Your Timid Notion, Dundee 2010, CAC Bretigny,
Exhibition as Concert 2010 and most recently a performative lecture
entitled:'Noise & Capitalism: Funeral and Zombification' at DAI, Arnheim.

Another interesting aspect of the book's dissemination was that Arteleku
are bound by local cultural policy not to sell any product. Therefore,
in discussion we made it possible for the book to be available through
trading/swapping. Individuals could obtain a copy of the book by writing to
Arteleku and sending something in exchange - often an audio project or art
object. By our request these were to somehow respond to the question which
informed the book - what is noise? what is capitalism? These works are
documented on the Arteleku noise and capitalism blog. There were many
interesting responses and there is a kind of potlatch sensibility to this
archive. However, in other respects this was a disabling aspect of
distributing the books - when people hear about a new book people expect
to find them in the shop or on Amazon - and this is also where people find
and hear about new books. So, even if a few record shops exchanged in bulk
with Arteleku and then resold the books, I guess this also showed how
non-property-based relations are marginalised under capitalism and giving
stuff away for free does not necessarily challenge the buying and selling
of everything else and the fact that our access to certain vital
necessities are only obtained through money - access to money for those
with out any is through work for someone with money and so on...

An integral aspect of this will be some sort of
live event in the near future and an opening up of the first book to
criticism (self-criticism), discussion and new practices in this area.

I hope that answers some questions and that engagement with the book still
gives some food for thought.

All the best
Anthony

> I this morning introduced this suggestion with the subject line, 'from the

> horse's mouth', which may have appeared as more of a demand for an

> authoritative (because authentic/direct/authorial?) account of the project

> than it was meant to... but, be that as it may, I suppose hearing more

> directly how the project originated and developed would certainly be

> useful for the discussion.

>

> I'll continue to follow with interest.

>

> Best,

> Pauline.

>

>>

>> without wanting to distract from the new strands of discussion starting

>> today, and Lasse Scherffig's interesting first post

>> on the research on writing "Human-Computer  Interaction against

>> Cybernetics,"   I was indeed interested in the

>> in/apparent policies of ARTELEKU to give out the "book" on "Noise and

>> Capitalism"  (with many essays signed as

>> anti-copyright or open) a) free online  or b) print-copy in exchange

>> with

>> a gift of the same kind to Arteleku.

>>

>> I also assumed the writing was published in Basque language, and so I

>> wondered whether and how "Noise and Capitalism,"  and the authors

>> contributing to it,

>> appeared (edited? translated back?) into English, and how the

>> dissemination worked and what the "cybernetics" of this

>> non-academic/academic in/comparable book implied,

>> how it feedbacked into the noise and free improvisation (in sound/music

>> and laptop?performance) scenes local and remote?

>>

>> If the "book" was referenced, as it wants to be (since it is published

>> in

>> theory-heavy discourse-language

>> with authors, chapters, pagination, source apparatus, etc), then how did

>> it function in the academic research world, or did it?

>>

>> I had not worked on sonic matters until just a few years ago, and admit

>> being ignorant of it until seeing a note in a magazine

>> called  "Neural" [http://www.neural.it/]  which is published in Italy;

>> I

>> was searching for info on Swiss musician Zimoun and

>> his sound sculptures and sound objects (Woodworms), and then stumbled

>> across "ruido y capitalismo'.

>>

>> was/is the "audiolab' a collective of english-speaking writers and

>> artists

>> publishing this book in basque first?  now that is rather unusual, or am

>> i

>> not getting the point.

>>

>>>.

>> NOISE & CAPITALISM liburuak argia ikusi zuela urte terdi pasa eta gero

>> AUDIOLABek liburu honen gaztelerazko bertsioa argitaratu du: RUIDO Y

>> CAPITALISMO. Zarata, musika, ekonomia, politika eta filosofiaren arteko

>> lotura, elkargurutze eta eztabaidak aztertzeko ahaleginarekin jaio den

>> argitalpen honetan hainbat herrialdetako idazle, kazetari, pentsalari

>> eta

>> musikarik hartu dute parte: Csaba Toth, Eddie Prevost, Ray Brassier,

>> Bruce

>> Russell, Nina Power, Ben Watson, Matthew Hyland, Matthieu Saladin,

>> Howard

>> Slater eta editore lanak burutu dituzten Anthony Iles eta Mattin.

>> Liburua lortzeko bi modu daude: Bata zuzenean interneten debaldeko

>> deskarga bidez (www.arteleku.net/audiolab/ruido_capitalismo.pdf) eta

>> bertzea paperezko bertsioan, Artelekura eskaera eginez. Azken modu hau

>> nahi izanezkero ez da dirurik ordaindu beharrik, liburua, jatorrizko

>> bertsioa bezala, elkartruke bidez banatuko baita. Hortaz liburuaren ale

>> bat jaso nahi baduzu, bidali zure sorkuntza lanen (idatziak, musika
)

>> ale

>> bat (gero, Artelekuko liburutegi publikoaren artxiboaren parte izango

>> dena) edo hartu liburuari buruz iruzkin bat idazteko ardura eta zuzenean

>> jasoko duzu liburua zure etxean.

>>

>>>>

>> RUIDO Y CAPITALISMO

>> April 13th, 2011 by audiolab

>>

>> Un año y medio mas tarde de la publicación del libro NOISE & CAPITALISM

>> AUDIOLAB presenta la versión en español del mismo libro: RUIDO Y

>> CAPITALISMO. Esta publicación nacida con la intención de analizar las

>> intersecciones, fisuras y relaciones entre el ruido, la música, la

>> economía, la política y la filosofía esta formada por sendos ensayos de

>> varios escritores, periodistas, músicos y pensadores de varios paises,

>> entre los que se encuentran: Csaba Toth, Eddie Prévost, Ray Brassier,

>> Bruce Russell, Nina Power, Ben Watson, Matthew Hyland, Matthieu Saladin,

>> Howard Slater y finalmente Anthony Iles y Mattin, que además de incluir

>> textos propios han realizado las labores de editores.

>> Existen dos modos de conseguir el libro: El primero, directamente por

>> descarga gratuita en internet

>> (www.arteleku.net/audiolab/ruido_capitalismo.pdf) y el segundo en

>> edición

>> física de papel, realizando un pedido a Arteleku. Si prefieres esta

>> edición, no tendrás que realizar ningún reembolso de dinero, ya que se

>> distribuirá principalmente, tal y como ocurrió con la versión original,

>> mediante intercambio. Por tanto, si quieres recibir una copia de libro,

>> mándanos algo que represente tu actividad creativa (textos, libros,

>> música
) para que quede en la colección pública de la mediateca de

>> Arteleku o comprometete a escribir algún comentario del libro, y

>> recibirás

>> una copia en tu casa.

>> [from http://www.arteleku.net/noise_capitalism/]