reverse engineering perspective & some new media rotating
Mutek
====
some new words rotating around
Mutek:Bridges:
knowledge, ideas and their interpretations- interview by Irena
PiekuteIrena Piekute from the Lithuanian
media arts web journal Rut Rut asks me a few questions about music and
culture with a focus on Mutek. Also translated into Lithuanian. The
language barrier is evident here, but the attempt at a cultural discourse is
admirable and I hope it continues. As the last question is a bit confusing and
my response appears highly slanted, I should make clear that I asked Irena about
the question, and she clarified that what she wanted to know was more about
myself--i.e., how I (apparently, but not really) do a lot of things at once.
Lost in Flow +
Words Sounds Views - remix of quotations by Irena
PiekuteIrena remixes various bits of Mutek
coverage by Malcom Levy and myself, mainly from the Dusted
piece and ZeD. Part of the same Rut Rut
issue.MUTEKINTRO - footage by Malcolm Levy et al
[.mpg]I get sampled from the Mutek Digital
Cultures panel for the
MutekIntro.===================amsterdam
and media spin-outsThe sun has
returned to Amsterdam after a few days of rain, and I've lumbered off the couch.
I leave tomorrow for Montreal, and home. I've been dozing away a few weeks in
Western Europe, and I feel like I've come to settle into a few comfortable
perspectives here. The incorporative liberalism of the Netherlands (every
protest is incorporated into society--squatting, drugs, etc.), the passion of
Catalonia and Spain (the public displays of joy), the grandeur and beauty of the
French and their relation to time (the grand architecture of Paris and the wines
of Bordeaux are all homages to the delicacies of time)--these are all dear to
me. I am lucky to find their remnants in Canada, or at least, find an
environment in which one can nurture a good
life.From this side of the planet, the
United States seems ever so strange and foreign. The pan-Euro perspective on the
US is generally one of mild amusement and barely concealed loathing. For
example, check out the recent moves by the FCC to ban profanity and
indecency from the air, to the point where local
news is censored (thanks to free103 newsroom). Fines have multiplied tenfold
for saying "fuck." I mean,
fuck.And
not only
fuck,
but joking around about stuff like Sphincterine on the Howard Stern
show.The pan-Euros look upon such
things with wonder and amazement.
Although, to be sure, often the
European system incorporates similar repressive elements--the Netherlands, for
example, is in a constant state of turmoil over its drug and squatting laws.
Things are by no means peaceful and sometimes the State's assent yields the
squashing of dissent. Yet there's something in the air here. People don't work
80 hours a week. They take three day weekends. They take one or two months off
in the summer. The average European lives a much happier existence than most
North Americans I know.Imagine that
the US is a couch slob, viewing the world as a giant TV, trying to actually
revert its timepiece back to a nostalgic & manufactured collection of
ancient centuries through the miniscule finger-movements of channel surfing. For
the Europeans, it's not a full television show--at least not yet. Debord's theorisation of the enroaching
spectacle (image-value overtaking exchange-value--Anselm Jappe's reading) can be slightly
countered insofar as the specter of fascism is all too real and painful in
Europe. Affect remains.From this
vantage point, one can watch as strategic moves are being made to implement a degree of control over the US media (and a
media already very much self-regulated, subject to pressure, control, embedded
reporting...you name it). But this is not a conspiracy: it's
an internal and fractured information
war taking place in transit and through the
porous borders of the United States. A new slogan: "The actions of the United
States are less than United." The "State" often even fails to
act
per se. The movements are confusing, paradoxical and at points illogical. While
its military invades and conquers with haunting aspects of imperialism, US
corporations advance toward a post-nation state battleground. And internally, it
is an authoritarian--which does not entail
essentially
capitalist--logic that comes to dominate two areas which, at least for awhile,
were pronounced dead objects: ideology and religion. The combination of all
these factors leads one to the observation that various tensions, like pressure
valves, must either be incorporated or fought out. This is not a dialectical
logic leading anywhere in particular, save for possible ecological disaster and
extensive planetary destruction (I thought about this for awhile, -and I can't
see any other eventual conclusion: either things change, or the planet will
kindly remove us from its skin). It doesn't entail revolution. We've dissolved
into a meshed topology with little vantage point. Chaos politics has come home
to roost.This process is
multidirectional, if not multidimensional (think of all the different
times
people are trying to impose over others: medieval temporalities, puritan
throwbacks, religious alpha-omega times, apocalyptic times, times of paranoia
and fear and dread, immanent times of forgetfulness....). Paul Virilio identified an aspect of this
particular breed of self-cannibalization as
endocolonization--when
a State colonizes and exploits its own territories and peoples. Some would say
this is the founding moment of the State itself, although Virilio identified it,
at least in the climate of the late '70s, as a post-Imperialist strategy (once
the world is sucked dry: turn on your own people). I think we are experiencing
all of this at once, which is why a few debates in political theory become valid
on both sides: we are in a world of
both
post-national corporations and imperial dictatorships. It is probably too
inclusive and too easy to say that this is both Empire and a possibly
authoritarian nation-state, but it is tempting. I've been thinking that perhaps
a better way to analyse the convoluted topology of the political would be to
consider it in terms of temporal pockets.
Anyways, we've been chatting about
this stuff here in the late night walks and dinners. There's several ex-pat
Americans who are moving back to the new world--and preparing for the shock of
the past. .. /. .. /. /.
.. /./ ./. /. /. .. /. /. /./. .. ./ ./. . . .
.<transmissions>
posted. Mon - July 5, 2004 @ 12:51 PM
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..ziP:
./them.hallucinates./.
.this blog sketches words & links from tobias c. van Veen -- renegade theorist & pirate. Everything here is in-progress, often a mess of thoughts and poorly edited grammar.
currents.projekts
- [o8.28.o4] improv.show, curated by Aime Dontigny, with Diane Labrosse, Esther B, Marinko Jareb, Constantine +. more info tba.
- [10.14-19.o4] New Forms Festival, Vancouver, BC.
recent.enough
-[o6.28-o7.o6.o4] Amsterdam, Netherlands, @ Steim
-[o6.20-28] SLS, Paris, France.
-[o6.15-20.o4] Barcelona / SONAR, Spain
-[o6.16.o4] performance @ ColdCreation Gallery, Barcelona
-[o6.11.o4] No Type showcase @ Casa del Popolo
-[o5.29.o4] Addictive TV jam_session @ SAT. Free, 8pm+ .
-[o5.21-23.o4] Phantom Power, North Bay, Ontario
-[o5.16.04] SAT w/ me & Colin the Mole [HOSER A].
-[o5.o3.o4] SHARE.dj, NYC (Open Air, East Village, 9pm-12am).
-[04.28-05.04] Troy/Boston/NYC.
- [04.15.04] Anyware :: broadcast from SAT with Tomas Phillips, [sic], Sylvain Aubˆ©, Physical Noise Theatre. Organised by SHARE.dj, NYC.
- [03.31.04] Casa del Popolo: a. dontigny & diane labrosse. [experimental turntablist set].
- [03.27.04] Primavera (art happening & music). [La boite H], Studio 389, Groover Building,
2065 Parthenais. Info: 514.529.1007 . Metro Frontenac, Montreal.
- Deep Listening Night, MTL [03.06.04]. Contact for invite. Feat. myself and Thomas Phillips collaborating among others.
- Artivistic Conference. McGill University, Montrˆ©al, Cultural Studies Building, 3475 Peel St. " Sampledelia: Turntables and Sonic Force" [talk with turntables, March 2nd, 7pm]; Vernissage with tunes, March 2nd, 9pm; Roundtable on " The State of Art in Activism Today and Future Artivist Strategies" [March 3rd, 2:30-4pm].
- Left.Coast jam_sessions @ SAT. w/ Noah Pred, Colin the Mole, VJs Chanti & cousinchang. [02.25.03]
- DJ Spooky @ SAT. opening techno-turntablism & collage. [02.13.04]
- No Type show at Casa del Popolo feat. Books On Tape &
Mr. Mixel Pixel & me un/manning the wax. Jan. 28, Montreal. $8.
- olo J. Milkman - RECOMBINANCE - light projections & lines @ SAT. WiTH me on turntables. jan 29. 7-10pm, FREE, Montreal.
- Autonomedia/Chronoplastics fundraiser for Sound Generation book. January 8th & 10th, NYC.
detailed.recent.projekts
+ dj sets +
- [o6.20.o4] "...attico mixdown," barcelona. streams: 48k | 128k + downloads: 48k | 128k. hosted by Burn.fm.
\\ back.ground & contact
friendly.fire
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numbers that mean little:
absolut numerosity..:
...puplished 0n: Aug 13, 2004 01:51 PM
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