The article Audio Poverty is translated from German by James Gussen.
From the beginning Marxist thought is drawn in with the notions of ‘value’ and’ use’ in respect to music and how it is both produced, received and controlled and enjoyed, or not enjoyed to the fullest possibilities. Diederichsen has the idea that music is capable of more than it is currently doing.
Diederichsen suggests the music world is controlled by digital reproduction and the economies that are escorted by the internet, and that because of this a type of liquefaction, a homogenised music results. That music is all but emptied of its original substance or force that evoked it in the first place. He suggests a utopian model for music that isn’t restricted by history but is instead instinctive and present, anchored in reality.
That we are encased in a manmade restrictive structure that prevents a pure experience (in this instance music) isn’t new, in western thought Plato’s Republic proposed a new way of being towards enlightenment, proposing the leaders of society have a fifty year education, so they’d be qualified to construct a suitable structure for this way of being to come into fruition, we are still waiting.
I was interested to discover the Greek origins of the word utopia, it unpacks into eu=good, ou=not and toppos= place, resulting in the double meaning of good place and no place. Confirming that utopia is but a dream, or suggesting that utopia can be found in more than one way, perhaps relating to the Buddhists thought of perfection as state of mind and way of being.
Diederichsen’s idea that music evolves when someone or group revolts against the existing music because it fails to represent for them their experience of living, could be said for all arts. But in the revolt the sound becomes part of the history of sound, and then the history becomes greater than the sound. This idea is expressed by Milan Kundera in the following quote.
“There were long periods when art did not seek out the new but took pride in making repetition beautiful, reinforcing tradition, and ensuring the stability of a collective life; music and dance then existed only in the framework of social rites, of Masses and fairs. Then one day in the twelfth century, a church musician in Paris thought of taking the melody of the Gregorian chant, unchanged for centuries, and adding to it a voice, but the counterpoint.....The counterpoint was a new thing that gave access to other new things....Because they were no longer imitating what was done before, composers lost anonymity, ... their names lit up like lanterns marking a path toward distant realms. Having taken flight, music became, for several centuries, the history of music....In anguish I imagine a time when art shall cease to seek out the never-said and will go docilely back into the service of the collective life...into the uniformity of being.”
The headiness of the talk and the slotting of it into the history overshadow the art as experience.
Bibliography
Diederichsen, Diedrich. "Audio Poverty." e-flux (2010): p. 1-10.
—. "Music—Immateriality—Value." e-flux (2011): p. 1-10.
Kundera, Milan. The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts. Trans. Linda Asher. London, UK: Faber and Faber, 2007.
Wikipedia. "Utopia." 25 April 2011. Wikipedia. 25 April 2011
Hi Dianne.
ReplyDeleteI find it fascinating that there has been nothing truly revolutionary in a "new" sound in music in this last decade. I hear frequently on the radio, music reviewers saying they are waiting for this new sound to happen, a new sound in music that would effect people like the beetles did in the sixties, the way funk did in the 70's,the change that punk music effected society, the new wave influence on fashion of the 80's, and since dance music and drum and base changed people's lifestyles in the 90s. I think it is bizzar in this day in age with the power of the internet, there could be a revolutionary change in music, that could take hold on the world. Perhaps everything becomes diluted in the mash of information we can access 24 7. Perhaps we must except this is the era of the go back? Perhaps people are just too busy facebooking one another?
In my blog entry on 'Audio Poverty' I try to make a case for the most revolutionary (not sure if that really is the right word) movements taking place in music at the moment. The term 'Hypnagogic Pop' has been assigned to a certain kind of music being produced mainly in Los Angeles. In the hyperreal geographic and cultural landscape of L.A a kind of critique of music is going on within the music. Pop about pop. It seems that we reached a kind of post-post-post endpoint and perhaps certain levels of socio-economic apathy have been going on which have created an unusual climate to make music in. I think there is music being made that connotes a move towards this utopic vision that Diederichsen talks about but also agree with you that Utopia is a good place/no place. It something that is always strived towards but perhaps never completely experienced? To Marissa This 'hynagogic pop' movement and the music surrounding it is almost completely fuelled by the internet. the internet is a saving grace for musicians today to network, promote and distribute their music.
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteI was using the term "revolutionary" in the definition of "involving or causing a complete or dramatic change" : a revolutionary new drug.
I do not dispute that internet is an important and useful forum for musicians to promote their music. But I think you reiterated the point that I was trying to make by writing about the apathy of society today.