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. In the world of modular synthesizers there is proper analogy is a “total materialization of linguistic ideologically no supremacy to musical expression over form” [Ibid.] as exemplified through Xenakis’ writings the technology producing the results [8]. In relation to on musical substance and structure. Although To Live this, Hannes Pasqualini argues that it is perhaps not the And Shave In L.A. does not belong musically to the post- instrument itself that has a distinct sound but rather “[…] Internet aesthetic outlined in this paper, Brassier’s discus- it fosters uses and applications which might as well pro- sion of genre does offer some direction in the following duce very specific and recognizable timbres and struc- discussion of the dialectic of post-Internet [12] and sonic tures” [16]: the sound of the instrument is the result of its materiality. affordances [18]. Still, an idea of technology empowerment seems to counteract the “blank canvas”- 2.1 On technologism & neural karaoke denouncing of modular synthesizers having a specific In a presentation-video of the Behringer DeepMind syn- sound: Just as Brassier [15] argues that “Generic noise is thesizer, electronic musician and sound designer Richard condemned to reiterate its abstract negation of genre ad Devine is heard demoing the machine, stating: “It sounds infinitum” (65), so is the case with new experimental very modular” [16]. The sounds heard from the synthe- modular synthesizer music. Granted, the modular com- sizer prior to this statement are cascading, resonant filter- munity’s technophilia is also a result of the sense of sweeps modulating rapidly. Devine might simply be stat- community and a type of collective conscience that on- line forums afford. This merely supports the point of HEARING THE SELF 467 technological infatuation being a primary component in a denly conjures up this aforementioned meta-aesthetic and narrative of a collective of individualistic electronic mu- the discussion of obsolescence shifts from genre to sound sic producers with boutique gear. as the end-results are more overpowered by technology If the gestalt of sound is bound by nothing, like with than empowered: Standard and non-standard sound syn- modular enthusiasts created from a “blank canvas”, it is thesis methodologies [13] seem outmoded as synthesized in affect bound by everything and the above reveals that vocals, flutes, drums or string instruments belong to an paradoxically there is an aesthetic surrounding “open- entirely different aesthetic category than the otherworldly ended” technology and music altogether. Even though sounds of e.g. Morton Subotnick [23] of the 70s or other “The results are not necessarily uninteresting” [15] this experimental releases using synthesis categorized as does present a dilemma towards a semblance of listening “non-standard” [13]. These plastic, seemingly conven- to electronic sound that demands what Tom Smith from tional sounds of General MIDI are in a sense ”standard”, the aforementioned To Live And Shave In L.A. calls a but they are still fundamentally alien and as zany [24] as “’PRE-aesthetic”: “[…] a negation of the errant supposi- the imminently unconventional [13]. This is an abstrac- tion that spiffed-up or newly hatched movements sup- tion that is arguably missing from the general discourse plant others fit for retirement [...] PRE? As in: all possi- of opposing acoustic and synthetic instruments and bilities extant, even the disastrous ones.” [Ibid.] This is a sounds, and the discussion of the overarching dichotomy distancing from what is phenomenologically perceivable of the organic and the synthetic. due to “[…] quandary concerning musical innovation.” [Ibid.]: A liberation of sound, so to speak, in line with the 2.2 On vaporwave & new dance futurism lectures of pioneering composer Edgard Varèse and sur- prisingly resemblant to the sublime awe of industrial pro- The notion of “genre as method” is taken from a short gress sensed in the texts by e.g. Varèse or Cage [13]. The article on Bandcamp.com about the music surrounding modular synthesizer is still a “young” instrument [16] for the vaporwave community [25], a fairly recent branch of many and the blank canvas-argument represents the pre- online art and culture appearing out of early 2010s mature evaluation of a technology we have yet to com- seapunk stylistics. Musically vaporwave encompasses a prehend. vast amount of musics, but is in general characterized by Previous research surrounding an algorithmically its “plunderphonic” chopping up, slowing down and rear- music producing agent has mostly been centered on mim- ranging of samples from 80s and 90s pop-culture span- icking human-behavior, e.g. an estimation of “natural ning from recordings of popular music and lounge jazz to creativity” [19] or musical functionalistic results to fit sounds from early versions of the Microsoft Windows OS tradition. There appears to be an uncanny feeling associ- and elevator or shopping mall muzak: “[…] what’s also ated with the experience of synthetic sounds that are emu- essential to it is the highly self-conscious, critical stance lating nature [13] – the same goes for the musicality of it takes to its source material. It remodels and repackages these agents. This is evident in the field of neural kar- it, adding implicit layers of social commentary.” [Ibid.] aoke [20]: A recent direction in music and artificial intel- Vaporwave captures “genre as method” through an exten- ligence research where an algorithm is trained in a con- sive array of subgenres being created and dismantled ventional musical genre and is then fed a photograph that every day, some gaining immediate support from creative it associates to certain musical variables of rhythm, har- artists, others a part of a constant descriptive renewal then mony, melody and English-languaged lyrics. The algo- vanishing into thin air in total “Internet plenitude” [26]. rithm ultimately generates a short, one-minute song. In Moving from the pioneering eccojams [25] to Mac- his “Culture Trip 1”, researcher Hang Chu [21] has pro- intosh Plus’ “Floral Shoppe” [27] and especially James vided the program with a picture of a seemingly sad boy Ferraro’s hyperreal “Far Side Virtual” [2], vaporwave has in a bunny outfit standing at a homely staircase. The lyr- segued through diverse commentary on late-capitalist ics are hauntingly precise mixed with obvious algorithmi- society since 2010. The effect is best exemplified through cal non-sense. The sounds of the synthesized voice and Jacques Attali’s points about atmosphere-music for accompanying piano and drums have the supposed func- commercial use and the intellectual/experimental in the tion of being secondary in the matter; neutral and fairly light of John Cage: “So-called learned music […] arrives anonymous made from standard General MIDI and Ap- at the negation of meaning announced by mass music.” plescript speech synthesis. But I will argue that these [9] Attali questions if Cage’s functionalistic musing on sounds do invoke an important semblance [4], a lived music “like furniture” in the long run is “[…] a strategy abstraction, of the artificial on the premise of music tra- for the radical destruction of usage in music, a politics of dition: The confines of traditional songwriting in neural the liquidation of meaning, opening the way for a subse- karaoke lay bare a meta-aesthetic. The same goes for a quent renaissance?” [Ibid.] (my italics). Vaporwave’s similar example in classical music by David Cope’s mu- aestheticization of muzak questions this in terms of sono- sic producing algorithm aptly named Emily Howell on rous perceptive association with commercial branding. the unsubtly entitled album “Breathless” [22]: The Furthermore, muzak hints at the same aesthetic as Gen- sounds usually associated with standard notation software eral MIDI and the standardized speech synthesis dis- (i.e. General MIDI) are given new aesthetic validity ex- cussed in section 2.1 in this paper. There is a very similar actly because of several emphases on their artificiality. societal commentary and questioning of animateness [4] Enter the phenomenological, paradoxical aporia: A (138-141) inherent in this music. byproduct of research in electronic music, sound synthe- The instruments and sounds on Ferraro’s “Far Side sis in particular, as the search for natural likeness sud- Virtual” [2] and “Human Story 3” [1] are undeniably 468 2017 ICMC/EMW synthetic and artificial, but this does not exclude them Pierre Schaeffer’s phenomenological reduction of sound from kinesthetic perception: It is not merely music for the and source [13] is paradoxical in the post-Internet age. political-minded to invoke thoughts of societal absurdity Another expression of aestheticization of late- or aesthetic irony or kitsch. Startup-sounds of Skype, capitalist society, plasticity and the synthetic is found in plastic strings from a TV-ad for real estate and shakily very recent ideations between pop and experimental elec- played rhythms inhabit the aesthetic pandemonium of tronic music mostly inspired by the dance and club iPhone 4 ringtones1. It is an experiment in sound on the scenes. Journalist Phillip Sherburne heralds this as a level of To Live And Shave In L.A. [15], but from the “new near-futurism” and states: “This new thing is not a viewpoint of the interplay between sound and technology. genre, exactly; call it a style, a sensibility, a veneer. It has Ferraro’s sonic experimentations are much less overtly to do with computers and digital sound and digital im- experimental because they mirror sounds we already agery. It has to do with representation and malleability” know from a phenomenological and cultural standpoint [29]. The aesthetic of this music draws some parallels to [13]. The dynamic between pop-culture and avant-garde both the more dissonantly chopped-and-screwed vapor- operates as a result of many levels of abstraction: The wave and Ferraro’s hyperrealism, and likewise took root line between the conventional and the unconventional is post-2010, but presents however a very different stylistic increasingly blurred through instrumental music that approach and confrontational sound altogether. This new comments on commercialism. Vaporwave is surely an near-futurism largely encompasses two directions: One is expression of nostalgia, not in so far as rehashing old a “neugothromanticism” [6] characterized by a sensation aesthetics but rather deconstructing the ‘sounds of genres of late-night-club-infused hyper-melancholia and noir past’ in aesthetic decay and grotesque obscurity. “digital maximalism” [Ibid.]. The other encompasses a The sound of an artificial replica is intrinsically po- bubblegum cuteness of “screwball antics” [29] either litical, not merely because of its pop-cultural, nostalgic or inhabiting a nightmarish absurdity or a total glossy utopia kitsch reference, but inherently political in the societal and might best be characterized as hyper-pop. Although economy and inseparability of man, music and technol- musically different, these two directions find common ogy in the 21st century. Here, the point is not only tech- ground in what journalist Simon Reynolds calls “[…] nologism’s [12] effect on the creative outcome, but of overloaded sensations of future-now dysphoria and dise- electronic sound as a representation, the ever-changing quilibrium”, a “digi-baroque” [6]. simulacra [5]. It constantly shifts between Baudrillard’s Interestingly, Reynolds [6] and Sherburne [29] “good appearance”, “the evil” and the “being-an- heavily disagree as to the immediate relevance and origi- appearance” [Ibid.], but never crosses over to full simula- nality of this “new dance futurism” or if it in fact should tion or pure simulacrum: These sounds lack the possibil- carry this name at all. Reynolds questions whether or not ity of what ambient electronic music offers as sonic im- the hyper-melancholic is more than but a rehashing of mersion because the abundance of technology in society 90’s IDM and cites music blogger Kid Shirt’s sequential is an aesthetic immersion that has already happened. This prose blog-post on the music of Krakkbot (a less known represents a plenitude of technology [26] culturally negat- producer of related music): ing meaning in whatever attempt to artistically mirror phenomenological immersion. This aligns with how “[…] fragmented / restless / self-interrupting / auto- James Ferraro describes his music and creative process as sabotaging / deliberately ‘broken’ – disruptive, rather a way of addressing how technology “works against us” than *errm* discoursive – music that reflects the jarring, in late-capitalist society: “[…] there’s a lot of duty in multi-channelled. Corporatized ADDH culture that de- human technology and how we are able to use certain mands our attention from every which way but forward at things, but the way it usually ends up being used is the same time.” (sic) [6] through ways that are less meaningful. It’s a double- edged sword, where our own technology, which is a Reynolds uses Kid Shirt to point out that the societal really beautiful thing, is used against us.” [28] Post- commentary in especially the hyper-melancholia of elec- humanism lurks in the corners of Ferraro’s aesthetic, but tronic music producer Arca exists in the pace and frag- the 21st century human being is riddled “un-virtuous with mented nature of the rhythmical arrangement of sounds: folly” [1] (my italics) and this is the paradigm of human There is often no gridded timekeeper, percussive ele- potential as Ferraro asks in the liner notes to “Human ments are scattered and blurred, even background tex- Story 3”: Will human achievement “[…] be restored via tures are broken, sporadically shattered in convoluting our successors artificial super intelligence” (sic) and con- spaces of grandeur or abyss. Albeit a different aesthetic, clusively states that “perhaps this is the human story” the artists of “screwball antic” PC Music mirror the same [Ibid.] (my italics). The folly of man and technology are societal tendency of “corporatized ADDH culture” [6] key aesthetic components of Ferraro’s hyperreal narra- brought on by technology, making full circle with James tive. Animateness in electronic music becomes a matter of Ferraro’s [1] sonic societal critique of human folly. The the phenomenologically known-unknown and the rela- gender-bending queer-goth appearance and sonority of tional qualities of experience [4] in virtual hyperreality on Arca and the HD aesthetic of PC Music’s Hannah Dia- the branches of Deleuze’s “real but abstract” [14] (4). mond act together in the digi-baroque as monikers for an appropriation of the digital as darkly kitsch and a disasso- ciation of pop through shameless association [26], “self- 1 ”Far Side Virtual” [2] was originally intended to be released as a consciously hypermodern” [6]. collection of ringtones [3]. HEARING THE SELF 469 The digi-baroque in music is rapidly evolving cavemen started banging their clubs together: to resemble through new iterations from e.g. Japanese artists like some kind of motion to bridge the exterior with the inte- toiret status [30] or Foodman [31]. Both these artists, rior; the throbbing of the veins with the beat of a branch. affiliated with the Orange Milk Records label, approach a Fluctuating and un-gridded rhythmic structures have future-now-dysphoria from yet another aesthetic angling always been part of the musical palette for experimental of ADDH culture and hyperrealism. Their neujuke- and electronic musicians from Morton Subotnick [23] to footwork-type “spastic digital sketches”, described as Foodman [31]. Composer Charles Wuorinen’s “Time’s such in the liner notes of toiret status’ “◎omaru◎” [30], Encomium” [32] works around a conceptualization of aligns with the ‘original’ hyper-pop culture of Japan and performance and rhythm as one of the first works ever Korea. Artist toiret status furthermore states on made for synthesized percussion. Wuorinen [32] states “◎omaru◎” that he “[…] understands that in 2016 any- that in “performed music”, rhythm is a qualitative and thing can be a hook, a two note melody, a phrase, a sam- accentual “matter” and that a composer uses qualitative ple, a sound or texture, and that the widening perception additions to specific events as a means to making music of hookiness means that abstract music comes alive in sound “coherent” (Ibid.). However, in electronic music, new contexts and dialogues with other popular musical he argues that these resources do not exist and he asks forms.” [Ibid.] The abstract music and hooks of toiret what could take its place: “In my view, only the precise status include flushing toilets, downpitched burping key- temporal control that, perhaps beyond anything else char- board-vocals and aggressively active drum-machine plas- acterizes the electronic medium. By composing with a ticity. Hyper-melancholia, hyper-pop and Ferraro’s take view to the proportions among absolute lengths of events on vaporwave become meta-commentaries on the sounds […] rather than to their relative “weights,” one’s attitude in and of society altogether: The utopian, dystopian, toward the meaning of musical events alters and (I be- euphoriac or dysphoriac is embedded in the materiality of lieve) begins to conform to the basic nature of the me- sound. dium […]” [32] (front cover) “Time’s Encomium” and Wuorinen’s liner notes of- fer a keen insight into the process of making and per- 3. RHYTHM & ANIMATENESS forming electronic music that is very applicable to the According to Baudrillard [5] unreality no longer resides concepts discussed in this paper. It tells us something in the dream or fantasy, but in “[…] the real's hallucina- about how the connection between man and technology tory resemblance to itself”. (145) The electronic musics adheres to the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of hitherto discussed all deal with how electronic sound “sound as sign” [10] – sound’s “[…] signification to us” seems to represent some kind of material variation [4] [14]. “Time’s Encomium” is a representation of the sem- (49-50) on and of itself, facing societal commentary or blance of humanity perishing in sound. This connects to introvert immersion in something’s likeness [Ibid.]. It is a how (post-) vaporwavers experiment on the premise of result of the potential of the aesthetic experience of sound their societal critique of historic decay like Ferraro on and music as the composition of musical events and of “Human Story 3” [1]. Or how the experimental now re- the sounds themselves is a constant process in the making sides in the club with no 4/4-techno kick drum to guide and the making-sense of listening. Throughout the post- our heartbeats. Instead, we experience frenetic, chopped- and-screwed textures of rhythmic brutality, an even internet aesthetic, rhythm seems to be at the focal point of st the artistic expression and the discussion of the aforemen- clearer “Archaic Revival” in the 21 century where “pop- tioned dichotomy, and there are some philosophical at- culture is culture” [33]. Post-Internet music aims at de- tributes to consider in the relational qualities of the like- constructing the already deconstructed simulacrum of ness of rhythm’s animateness: sound in an active semblance of listening.

3.1 Rhythm’s Encomium 4. CONCLUSION Pulse is the frequency of which events occur and reoccur: Post-2010 the dynamics of an inherent dichotomy be- A pulse can only happen if it happens again. The width of tween the organic and the synthetic pushed forward an the pulse, the duration and subsequent pause of some- experimental electronic music that focuses on popular thing’s happening [4], is comparatively dependent on the culture as a societal meta-commentary through both sonic consistency of the frequency of the event. Whether it is a disassociation and assimilation. It is an avant-pop, an constant or a variable, a pulse happens at the point of its experimentalism based on the negation of experimental- repetition, not before. In accordance with the idea of ani- ism. Genre is obsolete [15], but sound is everything. mateness, pulsation is a constant in every living organ- This paper investigates how seemingly different ism. Whether happening at a slower or faster rate this movements in post-Internet electronic music comments in oscillating cadence-function is immanent in the sustain- unity on the same dynamics in aesthetics and society. ing of basic life. Without the natural fluctuations and When genre is obsolete and all of our extrinsic sound- flow-disturbances in the rhythmically steady throbbing of references are completely disrupted and scattered by so- a heart this pulsation is artificially reproducible and com- ciety, the musical differences inside new movements such putable. As seen with the voltage rerouting of modular as ‘new near-futurism’ [29] or ‘vaporwave’ [25] are ren- synthesis these fluctuations are indeed autonomous in dered inert in the aesthetic judgment. Aesthetic assertion technology (within set parameters). The same goes for of post-Internet electronic music adds another level to musical performance, which is arguably why the first how its different sounds and musics are felt, how we react 470 2017 ICMC/EMW to the grotesquely weird. The reaction to weirdness ar- [13] A. B. Pedersen, “A Liberated Sonic Sublime,” guably creates yet another semblance of listening, a per- Proceedings of the 2016 SMC Conference, ception of the aestheticized experience of “technological Hamburg, 2016, pp. 396-401. innovation and human dispossession” [1]. This experience runs deep in the dichotomy between [14] B. Massumi, Parables for the Virtual, Duke the human and the machine, where the organic is no University Press, 2002. longer defined as a clear-cut negation of perceived in- [15] R. Brassier, “Genre is Obsolete,” Multitudes no. 28, animateness, but as a simulacrum [5]. Electronic sound 2007. becomes the reproductive medium of hyperreality [Ibid.] and the semblance of listening to it a kind of hyper- [16] H. Pasqualini, “The Modular Sound,” Horizontal human intuition: “[…] a life style.” [4] (51) This qualita- Pitch, 2016. tive relational economy between a sense of life or ani- [17] Muffwiggler, Post pics of your euro setup!, mateness and an experience of noise is not a straight line. This is the conundrum the organic presents in electronic Muffwiggler.com, 2016. music: It is somehow immediately superior to something [18] W. Gaver, “Technology Affordances,” Proceedings purely synthetic in terms of expressing a human charac- of CHI’91, New Orleans, 1991, pp. 79-84. teristic. I however believe that things inhabiting a ‘neo- tenouosly’ plastic, grittily zany or bubblegum quality in [19] A. K. Hoover & K. O. Stanley, NEAT Drummer: great detail express not only something intrinsically hu- Interactive Evolutionary Computation for Drum man, but an overflow of the human: Human excess. Pattern Generation, AMALTHEA, 2007. Acknowledgments [20] I. Sample, “It’s no Christmas No 1, but AI-generated song brings festive cheer to researchers”, The I wish to thank Hanne-Louise Johannesen from the IT- Guardian, 2016. University in Copenhagen, Denmark, Maggi Payne and John Bischoff from Mills College in Oakland, CA, for [21] H. Chu, Culture Trip 1, Video, Vimeo, 2016. guidance and inspiration in this inquiry. [22] D. Cope, Breathless, LP, Centaur Recrods, 2012. 5. REFERENCES [23] M. Subotnick, Silver Apples Of The Moon, LP, Digital Music Digital, 1968. [1] J. Ferraro, Human Story 3, LP, Self-released, 2016. [24] S. Ngai, Our Aesthetic Categories, Harvard [2] J. Ferraro, Far Side Virtual, LP, Hippos In Tanks, University Press, 2012. 2011. [25] S. Chandler, “Genre As Method: The Vaporwave [3] R. 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