[Dancecult-l] LIVE research! for your pleasures

[tobias c. van Veen]

Mark wrote:


> In following this discussion I've been a little bit surprised to see,
> on a dance music list-serv, the term "live" and its cognates used in
> the most traditional sense. The notion of "liveness" is essentially
> problematic, and not just in EDM. Rather than saying that it doesn't
> work to speak of EDM as "live" (more on this below), I would say that
> the extremely high degree of technological mediation in EDM exposes
> the constructed nature of "liveness" in modern performance in general.

Bingo.

Actually there is a precedent to this discussion which I would enjoin anyone
interested here to read -- conducted around concerns over 'live' in laptop
performance circa 2000. I also have a PDF of a conference paper that debates
& counters Cascone below if anyone is interested.

Cascone's thoughts on the matter are indispensible, as are Szepanski's, both
of which are influenced by Deleuze, Benjamin and Attali and move on to
consider the realm of transaction between human & machine, flesh & circuit,
the glitch and the click 'n' cut, areferential sound, resampling & remixing,
sociopolitical value as attached to gestural theater, positioning of the
player, spectacle, and so on, often taking the historical movements of music
into account. My interventions take place insofar as they attempt to counter
Cascone's reduction of pop music to spectacle and with it, the assumption
that all rhythm is pop music and thus irrevocably of the spectacle, in
Debord's sense (a perspective found in the most reductive moments of Adorno
when discussing jazz). For me this obliterates (Afro-diasporic)
rhythmachines as asignifying forces and thus the construction of live,
performance, pop and spectacle is rendered much more complex for me than
Cascone's tendency to polarize spectacular vs. 'non-spectacular' forms of
sound. For more you'll simply have to dig into the meat of it -- I'd
recommend checking out the 'Fuck Art Let's Dance' piece for the
ramifications of Cascone's theory as cultural policy.

A lot of this work grew out of discussion on [ http://microsound.org ] circa
2000-2002 (which I believe is archived on the site) and a conference I threw
called REFRAINS [ http://shrumtribe.com/refrains/ ] which kickstarted
further publications in Ctheory on the matter.



Ashline, William L. "Clicky Aesthetics: Deleuze, Headphonics, and the
Minimalist Assemblage." Strategies: Journal of Theory, Culture, Politics,
15:1 May 2002, pp. 87-105.

Cascone, Kim. "The Aesthetics of Failure: 'Post-Digital' Tendencies in
Contemporary Computer Music." Computer Music Journal, 24:4 Winter 2000, pp.
12-18.
    http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors3/casconetext.html

--. "Grain, Sequence, System. (three levels of reception in the performance
of  laptop music)." Hz:
    http://www.fylkingen.se/hz/n4/cascone.html

--. "Laptop Music‹Counterfeiting Aura in the Age of Infinite Reproduction."
Parachute: electrosons_electrosounds, 107, 2002. pp. 52-60.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1913/is_200206/ai_n7045917

Hecker, Tim. "Sound and the 'Victorious Realm of Electricity.'" Parachute:
electrosons_electrosounds, 107, 2002. pp. 60-68.
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1913/is_200206/ai_n7044371

Szepanksi, Achim. "Digital Music and Media Theory." Parachute 107 (2002):
24-27.
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1913/is_200206/ai_n7045522

van Veen, tobias c.

--. ³FUCK ART LET¹S DANCE.² Fuse 26.3 (2003).  pp. 12-19.
  http://quadrantcrossing.org/papers/FuckArtLetsDance-FUSE26-3_2003_72.pdf

--. "It's Not A Rave, Officer." FUSE 26.1 (2003): 30-39.
    http://quadrantcrossing.org/papers/ItsNotARave-Fuse2003-tV.pdf

--. "Laptops & Loops: The Advent of New Forms of
Experimentation and the Question of Technology in Experimental Music and
Performance." Conference Paper. November 1st, 2002. University Art
Association of Canada, Calgary.
    http://www.quadrantcrossing.org/papers/Laptops&Loops-UAAC-tV.pdf


best,

    t



tobias c. van Veen -----------++++
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org --
McGill Communication & Philosophy