HUMAN EXCESS Aesthetics of Post-Internet Electronic Music
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HUMAN EXCESS Aesthetics Of Post-Internet Electronic Music Anders Bach Pedersen IT-University, Copenhagen [email protected] ABSTRACT session in musical commentary.” [1] For Ferraro, a para- doxical aporia appears in the juxtaposition of hyperreal There exists a tenacious dichotomy between the ‘organic’ iterations of aliveness and lifelessness; organicness and and the ‘synthetic’ in electronic music. In spite of imme- the synthetic. It is the feeling of otherness and unity, ma- diate opposing qualities, they instill sensations of each nyness and oneness [4], that gives rise to an aesthetic other in practice: Acoustic sounds are subject to artificial commentary on the political economy of music because mimicry while algorithmic music can present an imitation of the associations the sounds of “neotenous plastics” [1] of human creativity. This presents a post-human aesthetic invoke. This paper discusses how some contemporary that questions if there are echoes of life in the machine. experimental electronic musics post-2010 seem to be This paper investigates how sonic aesthetics in the bor- moving towards the hyperreal – “[…] the generation by derlands between electronic avant-garde, pop and club models of a real without origin or reality” [5] – in both music have changed after 2010. I approach these aesthet- sonic materiality and cultural reference. From the 90’s ics through Brian Massumi’s notions of ‘semblance’ and IDM-moniker name change to Internet Dance Music [6] ‘animateness’ as abstract monikers to assist in the trac- and its offspring known as Electronic Dance Music ing of meta-aesthetic experiences of machine-life, genre, (EDM) turned commodity by the US music industry as a musical structure and the listening to known-unknown re-brand of the rave culture [7] to the recent ‘resurgence’ noise. The idea of a post-Internet society acts as frame- of the modular synthesizer [8], it is evident how nostalgia work for the intimate relation between pop and avant- feeds the political economy of electronic music [9]. garde in contemporary electronic music. This relation is Recent years have introduced a new type of experi- a result of a sonic contextualization of late-capitalist so- mentalism in electronic music club and dance scenes that ciety via the Internet. Finally I discuss how pop is the nods to music previously belonging to intellectuals, aca- noise in the avant-garde and how the human in a post- demics or more secluded sub-cultures. On this matter, Internet era presents itself through synthetic plasticity. media artist and composer Holly Herndon asks: “Now that experimental music is in the club, what does that 1. INTRODUCTION mean politically? […] Will we just hear weird sounds and then get drunk and dance, or are we now able to discuss On music community website Bandcamp.com artist the values that experimental music can conjure up in James Ferraro introduces his 2016 album “Human Story those scenarios as well?” [11] 3” [1] as follows: In this paper I discuss genre through three aesthetic movements in post-2010 electronic music: the techno- “a musing on hyper individualism and the marketability phile generative, vaporwave and new dance futurism. I of neotenous plastics We’ve seen the invention of the place these types of music collectively and artistically latte, yoga, cloud computing, we’ve seen our selves in a under a post-Internet categorization. The idea of post- plethora of unnatural places and commercial simulacra, Internet is treated through the definition provided by crisis and human achievement in perpetual twilight. Stefan Heidenreich [12] about art criticism after the ex- where will the 21st century human story go next?” (sic) tensive adaption of the Internet. Post-Internet has the ad- vantage of being open-ended: “[…] we belong to the in- On prior music releases, in particular 2011’s “Far ternet, knowing that the internet is over” in the same way Side Virtual” [2], Ferraro has regarded his “Rubbery plas- we acknowledge the post-digital: “We are digital, but it tic symphony for global warming” as a musical “PIXAR does not matter, because that is just what everybody is.” meme” [3]. But on “Human Story 3” he seems to actual- [Ibid.] Post-Internet is still a relatively new term and the ize the dialectic of post-Internet aesthetics: “Human Story music in this paper should not be confused with “Inter- 3 actualizes this dilemma scenario placing humans at the net-music” or “Net-Art”. crossroad of technological innovation and human dispos- I use Brian Massumi’s [4] notions of semblance and Copyright: © 2017 Anders Bach Pedersen. This is an open-access article animateness to frame and work together with phenome- dis- tributed under the terms of the Creative Commons nology and aesthetics [13]. A semblance is a potential Attribution License 3.0 Unported, which permits definition of the aesthetic effect by certain stimuli. It is a unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided lived abstraction, building on the Deluzian lineage of a the original author and source are credited. “real-but-abstract”, always present “in passing” [14]: As 466 2017 ICMC/EMW such semblance serves as a participatory thinking-feeling, ing that the synthesizer sounds unconventional despite its a potential definition of the aesthetic effect and through- conventional, keyboard-based design and the connota- out this paper it presents another dimension to the phe- tions that is associated with a company such as Behringer nomenology of perception. Animateness is an instantia- (mass production, commercial use, etc.). Nevertheless, tion of the dynamics and dichotomy between organic and Devine’s statement spurred heavy debate on social media synthetic, living and non-living on par with post-Internet communities of synthesizer hobbyists and professionals: sounds’ potential ability to signify an inherent meaning. The modular synthesizer community is one that Massumi uses animateness as a way of asserting the prides itself by regarding the instrument as a “blank can- move from Martha Graham’s modern dance to Merce vas” [Ibid.] for composition and the generation of sound. Cunningham’s contemporary dance. According to Mas- “Organic” and “unpredictable” are words that often ap- sumi, Cunningham “[…] strips metaphor and communi- pear when artists are asked to describe “the modular cation” [4] (138) excluding meaning that is not “[…] im- sound” [Ibid.]. Devine argues that the slight fluctuations mediately betrayed by action” [Ibid.] (139): An embodied and changes in the oscillating voltages bring life to this approach, the “[…] thinking-feeling of bodily gesture”. autonomous, generative instrument. The sounds emitted Ultimately, animateness is another way of conveying a are not musically structured in a traditional sense per se, semblance of life: “Embodied life: pure expression of the but the dialectic in electronic music composition is often body’s aliveness” [Ibid.] (141), where meaning is not set in a dynamic shifting between an arranging of musical conveyed or thought, but perceptually felt. Through post- events and the creation of sounds themselves. Is it then Internet musical examples these dynamics will be inves- possible to distinguish genre from sound? tigated with a primary focus on genre and method work- This resurgence of the modular synthesizer is still ing seamlessly together to create an animateness of the relatively recent to the general public [8]. The popular synthetic that questions our traditional conceptions of the Eurorack format’s online forum members post photos of aforementioned dichotomy in electronic music. their modular gear, racks and cables, usually compliment- ing each other for a sense of order, quantity of expensive 2. GENRE & SOUND modules or DIY-expertise [17]. Similarly there exists an abundance of fixed-camera videos showing a fully In his article “Genre is Obsolete”, Ray Brassier refers to patched lone modular synthesizer evolving textures, an “unformalizable surplus of sonic material” [15] in one rhythms or melodies on its own usually after the human of the musical examples of his text on the paradox of flick of a single switch [Ibid.]. This ‘gear-pron’-trend is noise as a genre. The music discussed here is that of the of interest as an aesthetic: An aesthetic not based on end- group To Live And Shave In L.A. and their track entitled result, finished composition or recording, but instead a “5 Seconds Off Your Ass”. This music is a cacophony of technophiliac praise of process through said photos and saturation, an ode to the harshness of sampled audio and especially through no-overdub recordings of an ‘impro- of the voice mimicking what Brassier calls the “senseless vising’ machine ‘coming to life’. In this sense technophil- eructations of glossolalia” [15]. It is important to note iac refers to one of Heidenreich’s categorizations of a that in the midst of an appraisal of the non-genre, Brassier post-Internet response to technologism [12]: That an art- stresses that this music should not confuse genre with work, or in this case generative electronic music, is being total negation of signification, but instead of “postmodern exhausted by the embrace of several media; the instru- polysemia” [Ibid.]. Brassier elaborates that the clear re- ment and the distribution of ideas. Thus, the focal point fusal to signify in the music of To Live And Shave In of the discussion is not a clearcut pro or con technolo- L.A. belongs to an uproar against structure and form gism, but rather a dissolving of technologism altogether. much alike the stochastic principles of music syntheses Electronic music is a procedural dialogue between and stochastic composition founded by Iannis Xenakis. In technological affordances [18] and artistic ideation that the case of “5 Seconds Off Your Ass”, and its focus on are intertwined and work on the same basis of the crea- the complete distortion and permeated vocal samples, the tive process.