I apologize for sounding like a snob when i said "you don't even know who Grisey is do you" --- was not what i intended and came out wrong --- it was merely to demonstrate that such a great and important artist is virtually unknown to 99.999 per cent of the population.
sight vs. hearing
- Thread starter zhao
- Start date
UFO over easy
online mahjong
yeah sorry I over-reacted big time.. bad day innit.
I think I just react badly to talk of importance and intellect when it comes to stuff like this.
I stand by what I said about the irrelevance of popularity to the value of art, and the stuff about classical composers being rock stars... I do think the popularity issue is relevant though, because if it weren't this wouldn't be an issue at all right? you wouldn't be interested in the issue if you didn't think sound art generally gets a raw deal presumably
about the composers thing btw, if anything, those few (and they really were a few) that you reference were more like honorary members of the aristocracy than rock stars weren't they... what you say about its function back then is also a simplification - it was enjoyed by almost all echelons of society on different levels, and consequently fulfilled lots of different functions at once sames true of music today.
I think I just react badly to talk of importance and intellect when it comes to stuff like this.
I stand by what I said about the irrelevance of popularity to the value of art, and the stuff about classical composers being rock stars... I do think the popularity issue is relevant though, because if it weren't this wouldn't be an issue at all right? you wouldn't be interested in the issue if you didn't think sound art generally gets a raw deal presumably
about the composers thing btw, if anything, those few (and they really were a few) that you reference were more like honorary members of the aristocracy than rock stars weren't they... what you say about its function back then is also a simplification - it was enjoyed by almost all echelons of society on different levels, and consequently fulfilled lots of different functions at once
sames true of music today.
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I guess I don't understand the premise of this thread at all. If you are asking why 'sound art' isn't treated in the same way as the visual arts, the obvious answer is that 'sound art' is a very recent phenomenon, with a few strands streaming out from Russolo et alii but the vast majority of it being an outgrowth of installation art, which is an extraordinarily recent development when measured against the historical timelines of the arts ... there are bazillions of glossy magazines devoted to music and sound, however -- from popular to DJ tech to world to classical to folk to rock guitar to music tech to software to home stereo to high fidelity to noise to punk to contemporary classical etc etc, magazines devoted to sound are everywhere -- but just as there's no "Installation Forum" or "Installation News" or "Installation in America" of course there's not (yet) any glossy "Sound Art Forum" magazine ... and I think that that is just fine. Why on earth would anyone expect this recent (and contested) category of 'sound art' to receive the same coverage or attention anyway as, say, sculpture, which has been an established medium in e.g. europe for 2500 years, at the very least? ... as Ben rightly points out, there is a tradition of art music known as 'classical'/concert hall/'art music'/whatever, which accommodated just as much experimentation as the other arts ... I mean, come on, Cage, Tudor, etc down into today's contemporary classical and electroacoustic musics, there's no shortage of very high profile/visible/well-covered experimentation in classical/concert hall music ... not to mention, 'sound art' barely makes any sense anyway without the institutional/museum/space of presentation/installation impulse tacked on to it ... (Varese's Poeme Electronique was constructed for, and "installed" within, a physical building designed by none other than Xenakis, but we don't call Varese's piece 'sound art', the way that people do today for installation pieces. Why is that? Perhaps because of the institutional/museum/market role in the art world?)
This is all just to say that the attempt to read some sort of cultural lesson or historico-philosophical conclusion about 'sight vs. hearing' on the basis alone of an asymmetric relation between visual art and 'sound art' seems to me to be a very, very sloppy and ill-informed way of proceeding ... and anyway, the question of western thought's privileging of vision over sound, body, and other modes has been addressed by the philosophical tradition since Merleau-Ponty and many others writing in response to Husserlian and Heideggerian versions of phenomenology ... so i would look there ... essay collections in philosophy with titles like the hegemony of vision were all the rage some 10-15 years back, you'd be able to find lots of further ideas/support/new avenues for pursuing your question in them, just my two cents' ...
This is all just to say that the attempt to read some sort of cultural lesson or historico-philosophical conclusion about 'sight vs. hearing' on the basis alone of an asymmetric relation between visual art and 'sound art' seems to me to be a very, very sloppy and ill-informed way of proceeding ... and anyway, the question of western thought's privileging of vision over sound, body, and other modes has been addressed by the philosophical tradition since Merleau-Ponty and many others writing in response to Husserlian and Heideggerian versions of phenomenology ... so i would look there ... essay collections in philosophy with titles like the hegemony of vision were all the rage some 10-15 years back, you'd be able to find lots of further ideas/support/new avenues for pursuing your question in them, just my two cents' ...
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borderpolice
Well-known member
By "many others", you mean the 15 oddballs who listen to this stuff, like you, me, and a few hapless composition students?
Hmmm, i can't really see the excitement. But then I find the whole Ligeti, Stockhousen, Xenakis tradition of classical modernism a bit of a dead end, trapped in the harmony-centred mode of composition that is characteristic of european classical music.
I'm afraid I can't agree with you here. The sound experiments coming from this school are vastly less interesting and innovative than what pop-music (in a wide sense) has been doing with sound in the last 3 decades since synthesizers have become mainstream instruments.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Maybe Aphex was a bad choice - yes, he has done lots of melodic or fairly straightforward dance and ambient stuff. But he's also done music that's the kind of amelodic, glitchy, splattery sound-collage that makes a lot of people say "How is this even music?" in the same way Hirst's shark makes people say "How is that art?".
By "many others", you mean the 15 oddballs who listen to this stuff, like you, me, and a few hapless composition students?
my point exactly.
not from where i'm standing. spectral music is very exciting. and all ligeti et al. did was open doors for things to move forward. "harmony centred"??? have you heard any Xenakis lately??? without him Richard James would still be picking his nose in a sandbox somewhere playing with toy tanks.
i guess you are entitled to your opinion. how ever missguided. listen to Dumitrescu's Medium III and tell me ANY glitch-hop break-core dubstep ambient-industrial post-dance electronica uses sound in a more interesting and FUCKING MINDBLOWING way...
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just realized that theys no way for y'all to listen to it because i dont think it's available.
(intro to the Interview done by Tim Hodgkinson: http://www.furious.com/perfect/iancu.html)
for fans of Pan Sonic, Sunn O))), and anyone interested in SOUND... Autechre ain't got SHIT on this dude. turn up your home stereo. and i suggest sitting down before hitting play...
Iancu Dumitrescu: Edition Modern 1001 (Medium III and other pieces)
http://rapidshare.com/files/2994342/ID_M3_1.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/2994043/ID_M3_2.zip
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borderpolice
Well-known member
I don't think that tradition has had a big influence. The emancipation of noise in pop music probably has more to do with the easy availability of electric guitars and distortion units than anything else. And even where there is an influence, that influence dates back several decades now. I refuse to see this as contemporary.
I do like the dronatity of it very much. But so what? That's just taste. Let's talk about more objective categories: Soundwise nothing much is happening, due to the fairly static nature of the instruments used. Rhythmically and melodically nothing's going on either. This is true for most music in this vein. Of course they don't try to be interesting in these other dimensions.
Maybe the question is itself misguided: can we meaningfully compare composers importance, except in terms of influence (which would marginalise all contemporary classical composers)?
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somewhere around Bitches Brew in an interview Miles said he was primarily listening to, and interested in the music of Stockhausen and Xenakis. and do you think his use of noise influenced a few later-day musicians? these influences may not be direct, but i think very significant as far as the shaping of culture is concerned.
are you on some kind of tranquilizer?
that's just not fair. that's like saying dubstep doesn't have much going on in terms of sing-alongs.
i don't see how.
i don't know man... this record was just fucking DEVASTATING for me... like the earth opening up and the flames of hell engulfing entire cities...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't know who either of those guys are (or anyone else you've mentioned in this thread, bar Stockhausen
), I was just reminded of it by the "flames of hell engulfing entire cities" simile. But that albums utterly destroys. Check out the samples!
ok new comparison:
the devastation of witnessing starships on fire off the shoulder of Orion vs. the devastation of front row seat at a top notch boxing match (where your shirt get all bloodied)
borderpolice
Well-known member
As I said, there was some influence, but this was 40 years ago. this is not contemporary
I said that this music was intended to be droney. Fair enough. So is some of my music. But that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't innovate rhythmically or melodically. Neither does my music, droney or not.
That's great. I really like it too. I will probably sample it in some of my next tracks. Thanks very much for the recommendation. But such judgements do not go beyond individual taste which has more to do with one's individual musical socialisation. Why should anyone else care about your or my or john's taste?
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uh oh. here we go on the subjectivity and cultural relevance merry go round...
instead of spouting my own beliefs, let me ask you what you think determines cultural significance when it comes to art. if there even is such a thing -- or is it all the same and just, like, "depends on what you like".
and if "progress" is possible or important at all in terms of building upon what has gone before -- specifically whether there is a difference between reactionary forms which endlessly recycle (indie rock?) and innovative forms which challenge and "move forward" (grime?).
popularity is clearly not a criteria with which to judge lasting significance. Vermeer was virtually unknown in his life time yet we recognise him as one of greatest dutch masters who brought the form to like, a whole other level. and countless ubiquitous things in the charts today will be forgotten next month.
nomos
Administrator
I think tate pretty much hit the nail on the head on the last page but no one has taken up his points :slanted:
Anyway, a couple of books dealing with the Cartesian ocularcentric bias in Western culture...
Martin Jay Downcast Eyes and Jonathan Crary Techniques of the Observer
More recently, that bias has been responded to with a lot of writings on sound, sonic perception, sonic culture, etc., along with growing amounts on work on the senses in general. E.g. Berg's Sensory Formations Series.
Also, re: an argument made above, in his new book on dub Michael Veal argues that the terms avant garde/experimental/conceptual have to be defined differently depending on whether they're being applied to a European art context or Afrodiasporic dance/electronic musics, particularly those owing something to Afrofuturist ideas. In the case of the latter (following Gilroy, Corbett, Eshun, Weheliye, etc.), he argues that the music is in fact deeply conceptual but that its version of avant gardism hinges on the dancefloor in dialogue with the performer, rather than on an autonomous, heroic individual or group.
Anyway, a couple of books dealing with the Cartesian ocularcentric bias in Western culture...
Martin Jay Downcast Eyes and Jonathan Crary Techniques of the Observer
More recently, that bias has been responded to with a lot of writings on sound, sonic perception, sonic culture, etc., along with growing amounts on work on the senses in general. E.g. Berg's Sensory Formations Series.
Also, re: an argument made above, in his new book on dub Michael Veal argues that the terms avant garde/experimental/conceptual have to be defined differently depending on whether they're being applied to a European art context or Afrodiasporic dance/electronic musics, particularly those owing something to Afrofuturist ideas. In the case of the latter (following Gilroy, Corbett, Eshun, Weheliye, etc.), he argues that the music is in fact deeply conceptual but that its version of avant gardism hinges on the dancefloor in dialogue with the performer, rather than on an autonomous, heroic individual or group.
yes tate thanks for the thoughtful note, i was distracted by the one below it...
not EXACTLY what i was on about... sound art itself is beginning to be taken seriously, but what i meant is in general sound/music does not occupy the pretigious, high-culture sphere that art does in a massive scale. and also as communication, as design, as a part of urban experience, it is much less addressed than visual design -- for instance, restaurants and other public places often go out of their way to have everything look sharp, and do not pay attention how aurally one's experience of the place can be designed - other than throwing on some CD that fits with the theme.
my flatmate had an interesting take: he said around turn of 20th C. music and art switched places. that prior to 1900 music occupied the central place in culture, while painting is relegated to a function of recording the likeness of the aristocracy. and after, music became entertainment, and art, once liberated from its previous mundane functions by photography, became the revered objects on pedestals that we know today.
good stuff.
not EXACTLY what i was on about... sound art itself is beginning to be taken seriously, but what i meant is in general sound/music does not occupy the pretigious, high-culture sphere that art does in a massive scale. and also as communication, as design, as a part of urban experience, it is much less addressed than visual design -- for instance, restaurants and other public places often go out of their way to have everything look sharp, and do not pay attention how aurally one's experience of the place can be designed - other than throwing on some CD that fits with the theme.
my flatmate had an interesting take: he said around turn of 20th C. music and art switched places. that prior to 1900 music occupied the central place in culture, while painting is relegated to a function of recording the likeness of the aristocracy. and after, music became entertainment, and art, once liberated from its previous mundane functions by photography, became the revered objects on pedestals that we know today.
good stuff.
Good call. The book I had in mind in my post upthread was an essay collection entitled Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision, and Martin Jay had a piece in it. The collection's editor was a prof of mine at the time, so I read it in manuscript and helped out a bit with editorial matters. The same year Jay was finishing Downcast Eyes, which people were excited about - it ended up being a bit idiosyncratic but definitely was and remains a worthwhile contribution to visual studies and the phenomenology of vision.