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Thanks for your thoughts Christoph and Ryan,
Ryan, Colin Stetson is exactly the kind of example I could make for someone who
succeeds at being a very unique and powerful performer, while finding the
potential in technology that is already (widely) available. Stetson crafts a
sensibility, a meeting between self and things, rather than showcasing a
technical mastery. The technology is not what's in focus of his innovation,
it's the relationship he enables between breath, voice, saxophone, microphones,
spatiality, etc. In so doing, he is able to deeply implicate the materiality of
various bodies into his music, which as a listener and audience member I find
very moving.
I should say that I'm not against all forms of innovation, of course, but as
someone who tends to work with the common or the trailing edge of technology,
I'm more interested in what presence can be created, sustained, experienced,
and expressed in cahoots with technology rather than explaining why my approach
is so terribly avant, or how I think I'm reshaping the genre or field. When
recently applying for a production grant, I realized that this pernicious focus
on 'innovation' has come to occupy the top spot of the granting criteria, and
in addition to valorizing new technical forms over interesting approaches or
concepts, as Christoph points out, it also suggests that as a sound artist my
body of artistic work should be evolving according to a particular (as I
understand it, linear) narrative, where each piece somehow exceeds or breaks
with the previous one/s, rather than be iterative, or express a deepening of a
particular approach.
The innovation bug is not limited to new fancy digital forms -- it's an issue
whether people are coding Supercollider or building modular synths. The DIY
scene is filled with people showing off new instruments at shows, but few
people continue play them for 20 years after they build them. Chicago sound
artist Eric Leonardson is a good example of someone working with self-made
instruments who really intimately knows and collaborates with his creation (the
Springboard).
best
Anna
________________________________
Anna Friz
radio * art * sound * research
free103point9.org transmission artist
steering member, Skálar Centre for Sound Art and Experimental Music
nicelittlestatic.com
________________________________
From: Ryan Alexander Diduck <lunarlo...@gmail.com>
To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 10:15:53 PM
Subject: [-empyre-] response to Anna Friz
Hi Anna, and everyone;
Yours is a great question. Some colleagues of mine, though, have found the
opposite -- where new technological innovations are frowned upon within more
traditional academic musical and artistic spheres -- and have difficultly
accessing grants and other kinds of committee-dependent resources. At the
moment, I am studying the cultural history of MIDI, and am often surprised when
I hear tell of digital instruments and tools viewed as somehow less legitimate
than 'pen and pencil' instruments. There are cases on either side of this
argument: artists doing profoundly status-quo work with "innovative"
technologies; and others expending what is possible with more traditional
instruments. An example from the latter camp that comes to mind is Colin
Stetson, the Montreal-based horn player who makes unexpected and incredible
noises with minimal technological intervention. Is Stetson's the kind of
innovation you're hoping to see more of?
Best, Ryan
--
@ryandiduck
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