A performative confrontation between hardware and software. Nick Collins vs. Nick Collins: hardware vs. Software, Old School vs. New School. One of the hightlights of the concert series organized as part of “Bifurcaciones Sonoras” (Aural Bifurcations) for Transitio MX 03.
I was able to attend most concerts that took place nightly at Fonoteca, during Transitio MX, except for the last night of Thursday the 8th. While there were many highlights, one that I found worth sharing on my blog is the performance of Nick vs. Nic. A playful sound hacking performance by Nick Collins (USA) vs. Nick Collins (England). The younger Collins (English) improvised in code, while the more seasoned Collins proved why he is one of the pioneers in circuit bending. The sound was appropriately distributed and mixed on left and right sides of the stage, allowing the audience to evaluate how software and hardware hacking can be complementary, thus creating a performative mashup: a meeting between the old school and the new school of experimental sound could not be better.
Here are some videos from the selection “Bifurcaciones Sonoras” (Aural Bifurcations), curated by Arcángel Constantini and Rodrigo Sigal for Transitio_MX 03.
Interactive Installation by Gerardo García de la Garza (Mexico), No Materia, 2009. Sound is produced according to the distance between the visitor and the object.
Peter Vogel (Germany), Circular Structure, 1979
It was quite an experience to finally view interactive works that are historically important. Vogel developed the objects displayed in the two videos in the late seventies. Questions on our relation to the object of art were a subject of intense debate during this period. The work is now a relevant work that demonstrates the clear link between art practice during the mid-second half of the twentieth century, and the early part of the twenty-first.
Peter Vogel (Germany), Self-Stimulating Closed Loop, 1979.
The pervasiveness of the screen in mobile media is pushing convergence development in two particular ways worth noting. The first, how image and text are increasingly treated the same by users, is actually a stepping stone to the second, which is how the convergence (combination) of all media is designed not only to provide the greatest access to as much information as possible, but also to negotiate which material is likely to be noticed first.
In relation to this, NPR recently released an iPhone widget that enables users to download a podcast or listen to live streaming. This particular widget is designed to complement multitasking, as NPR’s Digital SVP & GM Kinsey Wilson explains to Paid Content:
The small television in the kitchen comes to mind when reading Wilson’s explanation: people for the most part listen to the news while getting ready to leave for work in the early morning, or in the evening while preparing dinner. From time to time, when something of interest comes up, people are likely to look up and pay attention to the screen. In this case, the television is used as a radio with visual options. However, as it is obvious, the Television was not initially designed for this function.
We knew you could make great music on the iPhone. With instrument apps such as Smule’s Ocarina and Leaf Trombone. Still, while they’re cool and surprisingly rich mobile instruments, they’re not all that practical for creating, sampling, and recording musical compositions on the fly.
DopplerPad [iTunes Link] is a turntable-like instrument iPhone app built by one of the two creators of FourTrack [iTunes Link]. Unlike some other apps, this one doesn’t feature just one instrument – it has 37. It doesn’t just play notes; it lets you sample them, no matter where you are. And most of all, you can record and combine the beats to create your own electronic remix.
The millions of people that viewed on TV and online Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration may be surprised to learn that Yo Yo Ma and his quartet did not play live. They performed to a pre-recorded track. The argument for this maneuver is that the moment had to be perfect. The performance had to live up to the occasion and mistakes could not take place:
NPR intereviewed Yo Yo Ma, who was indifferent about the fact that he did not play live. He was quite comfortable with make-believe. The NPR correspondent did not question Yo Yo Ma’s performance for its artistic delivery. The discussion was more about the necessity for this type of simulacrum.
I wonder how far we have come since the days of Milli Vanilli, when the pop-duo saw an end to their careers because they lip-synced to pre-recorded tracks. It must be pointed out that Milli Vanilli did not actually sing at all, so in this sense Yo Yo Ma’s situation is quite different because, as he explained during the radio interview, the quartet had performed the composition the day before the Inaugural Ceremony. Regardless, the fact that, both, the New York Times as well as NPR appear to discuss Ma’s simulacrum with some comfort and amusement does expose the awareness by people and the media that recordings may be acceptable to use in special occasions. In the past, prior to the pervasiveness of recordings, rituals were bound to the immediacy of the moment. Now, rituals are bound to the ever more important perfect recording for posterity. It was more important in the name of history for the Inaugural to have a perfect performance, than to have a real performance.
The following text was published in December 2008 in Inter/activos II by Espacio Fundacion Telefonica, Buenos Aires. The publication was produced in support of a new media workshop and theory seminar by the same name which took place in 2006, organized by curator and writer Rodrigo Alonzo. The text revisits my definition of Remix that has already been introduced in prior writings, such as Turbulence: Remixes and Bonus Beats. This definition can also be found in the section Remix Defined. “The Bond of Repetition and Representation” links the theory of Noise by Jacques Attali to my overall argument that Remix has its roots in DJ Culture starting in the seventies. In the conclusion it revisits and extends my analysis of Yann Le Guenec’s project Le Catalogue.
Some things have changed since I first wrote this essay in 2006. I did not expect the print publication to take as long as it did, but now that it has finally been published, as opposed to updating the text, I have chosen to release it online as it was originally written. While some cultural trends may be quite different from 2006, the argument proposed is still relevant. This analysis is part of a much larger and extensive project and will be eventually released in its remixed form in the future.
The term remix, today, is used to describe various cultural elements, from mash-up software applications[1] to projective architecture.[2] No matter what form it takes, the remix is always allegorical, meaning that the object of contemplation depends on recognition of a pre-existing cultural code.[3] The audience is always expected to see within the object a trace of history.
To entertain the importance of Remix in culture at large, we must come to terms with it according to its historical development. This will enable us to understand the dialectics at play within Remix, which at the beginning of the twenty-first century is the ideological foundation for remix culture. As it will become clear in this essay, in order for remix culture to come about, certain dynamics had to be in place, and these were first explored in music, around the contention of representation and repetition. This essay will focus on defining remix in relation to these two terms, and then move on to examine its role in media and art.
Note: This text was originally published on Vague Terrain, Digital Dub Issue, August 08. It is reposted here with minor edits, and an additional quote by Bunne Lee, to clarify the history of dub in Jamaica.
Abstract: This text outlines the foundation of dub as a musical movement that found its way from Jamaica to other parts of the world, in particular NY and Bristol. Upon looking at history, it can be argued that dub and other musical genres that it has influenced have constantly thrived on the threshold of culture, feeding the center. In support of this argument the essay links the influence of dub to the theories of Homi Bhabha and Hardt & Negri. Dub is also linked to Remix as a discourse of global production.
Remix Theory has a new section called Music Playlist, in which you can listen to music I’ve selected from Last.fm. Please feel free to listen to my growing music selection, and to also send me feedback as well as suggestions.
Popular music has a long history of aural innovators, from Brian Wilson and his downward spiral to Phil Spector’s wall of sound. They are often romanticized as shadowy knob-twiddling visionaries who through mixing boards and miles of cable added new worlds to stereophonic sound. Reggae music, with an admittedly limited rhythm structure, has been propelled forward by it’s own pioneers, with Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Mad Professor holding top rank. In their own unique ways, both have created indelible catalogs of hit reggae albums, sonic experiments, and plenty of wicked bass heavy dub, traditionally the instrumental B-side or “version” of a popular song spliced and diced into a teeth-rattling art form all its own.
The two are from different generations and continents, yet both Professor and Perry walk the same twisted line. Both are passionate for electronics (Professor built his own mixing board as a teenager while Perry pushed four track recorders beyond comprehension), both built their own record company from the ground up (Ariwa / Black Ark), and both have produced music for a surprising range of artists including Massive Attack, U-Roy and the
Orb (Professor) to The Skatalites, The Clash and the Beastie Boys (Perry).
I recently saw No Country for Old Men, which I highly recommend, and when looking for reviews and critical analysis, I ran into No Country for Old Men/Creeper Remix in Ebaum’s World. The remix video takes the sound from one of the movie’s trailers and combines it with footage from Scooby Doo. The author/remixer, whose name does not appear in the post, explains that s/he found a resemblance between Scooby Doo’s Creeper and Javier Bardem’s character, Anton Chigurh.
No Country for Old Men/Creeper Remix exposes the importance of sound in film-making (or any other time based project), something which most viewers don’t think about once they become immersed in a film. For a remix such as this one to be successful, the viewers need to already be familiar with the film’s soundtrack; they need to recognize almost naturally Chigurh’s voice, just like they are also expected to know about Scooby Doo–at least in terms of popular culture. Scooby Doo’s footage, on the other hand, becomes supplemental, or subverted by the sound. Even if viewers don’t know about the Scooby Doo TV show and its characters, they are likely to see the Creeper’s resemblance to Bardem’s character–which is largely marked by the haircut. In this way the conventional roles of image and sound are reversed: the sound becomes the main point of reference, while the image supports the message carried by the sound. Filmmakers obviously know that there is a fine balance between image and sound to tell a good story, so this gesture is designed for popular consumption. In the end, that’s were most remixes are expected to find their audience.
