MATTIN Praxis Unconstituted MATTIN Unconstituted Praxis

MATTIN MATTIN

UnconstitutedPraxis PraxisUnconstituted MATTIN MATTIN

UnconstitutedPraxis PraxisUnconstituted 'Noise & Capitalism - Exhibition as Concert' with Mattin is the first part of the project 'Scores' Unconstituted Praxis organised in collaboration by CAC Brétigny and Künstlherhaus Stuttgart. The second part with Beatrice Gibson: The Tiger's Mind will be presented from November 6th to December 31st in Stuttgart, Germany. www.kuenstlerhaus.de By Mattin 'Scores' is part of the project 'Thermostat, cooperations between 24 French and German art centres', With contributions by: an initiative from the Association of French centres d'art, d.c.a., and the Institut Français in Germany. addlimb, Billy Bao, Marcia Bassett, Loïc Blairon, Ray Brassier, Diego Chamy, Janine Eisenaecher, Barry Esson, The project is generously supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the French Ministry Ludwig Fischer, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Michel Henritzi, Anthony Iles, Alessandro Keegan, Alexander Locascio, of Culture and Communication, Culturesfrance Seijiro Murayama, Loty Negarti, Jérôme Noetinger, Andrij Orel & Roman Pishchalov, Acapulco Rodriguez, as well as by the Plenipotentiary for the Franco-German Cultural Relations. Benedict Seymour, Julien Skrobek, Taumaturgia and Dan Warburton. is initiated by Edited by: Anthony Iles

Cover Illustration: Epilogue by Howard Slater

Metal Machine Illustrations: Metal Machine Theory I-V, questions by Mattin answers by With support of Ray Brassier, commissioned and published 2010-2011 by the experimental music magazine Revue et Corrigée.

Drunkdriver concert photographs: Drunkdriver/Mattin live at Silent Bar, Queens 3 January 2009 Olivier Léonhardt, Président de la Communauté d'agglomération du Val d'Orge/ by Tina De Broux. President of the community of agglomeration Val d’Orge Patrick Bardon, Vice-Président de la Communauté d'agglomération du Val d'Orge/ Noise & Capitalism - exhibition as concert documentation: photographs by Steeve Beckouet. Vice-President in charge of in charge of cultural equipments Bernard Decaux, Maire de Brétigny-sur-Orge/ Mayor of Brétigny-sur-Orge Translations: Philippe Camo, Adjoint au Maire de Brétigny-sur-Orge, Chargé des actions artistiques Spanish translations by Taumaturgia et culturelles, des festivités et du jumelage / Deputy Mayor in charge of culture French translation by Ray Brassier and festivals Published by CAC Brétigny & Taumaturgia, A Coruña Pierre Bal-Blanc, Directeur du CAC Brétigny / Director Adjointe du directeur, chargée de production / Production Manager : Taumaturgia Delphine Goutes Avda. da Coruña 24 Commissaire du projet culturel, Responsable des publics / Culture Projects : 15670 O Burgo Julien Duc-Maugé A Coruña/Spain Médiation / Art Education : Pierre Simon [email protected] Directrice administrative et financière / Head of Administration: http://taumaturgia.com Sophie Mugnier Assistante administrative / Accounting: Isabelle Dinouard, Nadine Monferme CAC Brétigny Coordination / Coordination : Céline Semence Centre d'art contemporain de Brétigny Gardienne, Gardien Adjoint/ Attendants, Facility Espace Jules Verne, Rue Henri Douard Managers: Vania Pion, Angela Chennaf, Rachid Boubekeur 91220 Brétigny-sur-Orge/France Tel.: (33) 01 60 85 20 76 CAC Brétigny is a facility of the agglomeration community of Val d'Orge authorised by [email protected] the Ministery of Culture and Communication. It receives the support of the DRAC Ile-de-France, the http://www.cacbretigny.com/ Ile-de-France Region, the General Council of Essonne, the town of Brétigny and the agglomeration community of Val d'Orge. Design: VIER5 Le CAC Brétigny est équipement de la Communauté d'agglomération du Val d'Orge, labellisé par le Assistants: Gerrit Schweiger, Nils Ulsamer Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. Il reçoit le soutien de la DRAC Ile-de-France, de la Région Ile-de-France, du Conseil Général de l'Essonne, de la Ville de Brétigny Printing: VD Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany et de la Communauté d'agglomération du Val d'Orge. Anti-Copyright Do whatever you want with any of this material with or without crediting the source. Links to PDF download: http://www.tatumaturgia.com/unconstituted_praxis.pdf 2011 http://www.cacbretigny.com/unconstituted_praxis.pdf ISBN: 978-84-939591-1-1

This publication has been realised as part of the exhibition Noise & Capitalism - exhibition as concert CAC Brétigny, 1 September - 30 October 2010

Cette publication est réalisée dans le cadre de l'exposition Bruit et capitalisme, l'exposition comme concert CAC Brétigny, 1 Septembre - 30 Octobre 2010

Mattin in collaboration with Loïc Blairon, Ray Brassier, Emma Hedditch, Esther Ferrer, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Anthony Iles, Matthieu Saladin, Howard Slater, Jarrod Fowler, Taku Unami, Zibigniew Karkowski & Evil Moisture (Andy Bolus), Tim Goldie, Diego Chamy, Malin Arnell, Ilya Lipkin, Barry Esson, Aitor Izagirre, David Baumflek, Daniel Lichtman, Maija Timonen, Anne Duffau...

CAC BRETIGNY I’m destroyed, not dead cuz I’m destroyed Table of Contents Josetxo Anitua, ‘Reminder of a Precious Life’

Introduction Publisher’s Note by Taumaturgia Introduction by Alexander Locascio In memory of Jostetxo Anitua (1964-2008) Prologue to Unconstituted Praxis by Mattin

Texts Oh I Love Freedom, But What Is It? A Second Subterranean Ethics The Multitude is a Hindrance Going Fragile Becoming Bilbao The Re-animated Corpse of Basque Culture Improvising Gaztetxes Give It All, Zero For Rules! Anti-CCopyright Anti-Copyright Devour Your Limitations! Managerial Authorship Theses On Noise Noise vs. Conceptual Art Against Representation Idioms and Idiots

Interviews The Velvet Spectacle: an interview with Roman Pishchalov and Andrij Orel Towards Abject Music: an interview with Michel Henritzi A Single Decision: an interview with addlimb Why do you make records? a survey by Jérôme Noetinger You Cannot Survive Any of My Desires: Acapulco Rodriguez on Mattin & Billy Bao Fuck Separation: a conversation between Alessandro Keegan and Mattin Take Improvisation to the Streets: an interview with Dan Warburton

Reviews Diego Chamy on Taku Unami & Mattin at KuLe, Berlin, 05/11/2007 Benedict Seymour on Karin Schneider & Mattin at Transmission, Glasgow, 26/04/2008 Ludwig Fischer on Drunkdriver & Mattin at Silent Barn, Queens, 03/01/2009 Marcia Bassett on Mattin at No Fun Fest Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 16/05/2009 Julien Skrobek on Taku Unami & Mattin at Rigoletto, Paris, 14/12/2009 Janine Eisenaecher on Anthony Iles, Ilya Lipkin, Mattin and Howard Slater, Basso, Berlin, 21/01/2010 Loïc Blairon on Mattin at KYTN, Dundee 26/02/2010 Barry Esson on Emma Hedditch, Anthony Iles, Mattin and Howard Slater, liam Casey and Laurie Pitt at KYTN, 28/12/2010 Loty Negarti on Mattin at Guardetxea, Donostia, 08/07/2010

Appendix

Biographical Notes Discography Bibliography Index our own limits and those of Taumaturgia which said) to question the nature and parameters means of publication and languages of these Editorial Note have been devoured by the intensities that of improvisation: texts have made access to them somewhat underlie improvisation. Improvisation is not only an interaction between difficult. Here we collect them together for By Taumaturgia (Miguel Prado, Roberto Mallo, musicians and instruments, but a situation readers to facilitate access and make con- Raúl García) These intensities are the object of our inter- involving all the elements that constitute a nections between material which is not neces- est as publishers. We began to release albums concert, including the audience and the social sarily always easy or coherent. Readers can excited about subversive attributes of this and architectural space. explore the contradictions and problems them- At the beginning of 2007 we created the kind of music, but soon we realised that what selves, opening the texts to critical thinking in Taumaturgia project. It was initially conceived is crucial is the intention behind these prac- For this task and in this specific time, we con- a landscape in which today people seem preoc- as a record label exclusively devoted to tices. The sounds generated in an improvisation sider it indispensable to produce a book with cupied by simply confirming their own sense of experimental and improvised music. After some are a working tool, but have a double edge. a series of texts that are crucial for the aesthetics through refinement and innovation. months of work we contacted Mattin via e-mail They may soon be reified, qualified under the analysis of improvisation and noise. Both as a to prepare a concert of Josetxo Grieta in criteria of taste and virtuosity, and enter into an channel for generating theory; a tool to We have a subjective identification with this A Coruña. The concert was an incredible expe- aesthetic process that favours the domesti- understand more what it is we are doing when book's content. The texts were already there, rience (documented on Taumaturgia's second cation not only of the discourse but also the we are improvising, and a way to try to engage we only want to unite and share them. We want release), and since then we've shared many potential of improvisation as a form of praxis. with its force as a social practice. to distribute them through all the channels that conversations, experiences, concerts and a This book contains texts, interviews and respons- can activate thinking processes, encounters, great friendship. Mattin has influenced us a We do not need to enter into a cycle of end- es to performances in which Mattin has been practices and emancipation. We believe that lot. With his will to interpellate and question less record releases which are a catalogue of involved, made between 2002 and 2010. Prior this way is the only one to keep a text alive. everything, he made us constantly re-think fancy and trendy sounds. We need (as Mattin to this book's production the different nature, To question it and to be questioned by it. Tilbury in Berlin, so apparently Germany’s pivotal and what’s even worse, some within it work to breaking'. Such a response completely misses the Introduction role in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia or affirm this society in their own ways. By per- point; Mattin is calling into question the very its neo-mercantilist strategy of beggaring coun- petuating the lie of artistic 'genius', by evaluat- notion of 'innovation', of 'avant-garde'. By Alexander Locascio tries like Greece doesn’t play a role in Tilbury’s ing performances in terms of whether they are The logic of the 'avant-garde' is actually the I can’t repress a melancholy admiration for this considerations, but that doesn’t mean that he is 'strong' or 'successful', as if discussing a fucking logic of capitalist commodity production itself, as world: what effort is involved in producing so a hypocrite. It just points out that any strategy football game, or by conflating music and gas- Frederic Jameson astutely observed over much stagnation! – newer machines for constantly of non-compliance is ultimately incomplete, or to tronomy, as when some idiot inevitably writes that 25 years ago: more illusions of sound, increasingly perfect use an already clichéd phrase of Theodor Adorno: his 'mouth is watering' at the prospect of some imitations of that which we abhor. but isn’t the 'Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen' (Wrong forthcoming compact disc release, or by describ- What has happened is that aesthetic production playback of sound merely a symbol for sound? life cannot be lived rightly). ing a particular performance as 'sumptuous', as if today has become integrated into commodity when i hear the radio, i know that there isn’t an it’s a seven course meal in a luxury restaurant! production generally: the frantic economic orchestra sitting in this box. i don’t need any So raising such issues is necessary, but nonethe- urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more real horses on stage. one can also have imperialism less insufficient. Because it treats the reified Thus the prefigurative aspirations of Cardew or novel-seeming goods (from clothing to aeroplanes), vis-à-vis a bach cantata. – Ronald M. Schernikau, commodity society as something that circumscribes the Scratch Orchestra culminate in a star system at ever greater rates of turnover, now assigns _Die Tage in L._ and frames our activity, when in fact it also of living 'legends' or 'genius' improvisers (and an increasingly essential structural function and conditions and penetrates it. We are complicit in before someone accuses me of cowardice for not position to aesthetic innovation and experimen- When I heard what the title of this book was to the reification of our social activity in every naming names: Keith Rowe), a system of idolatry as tation. Such economic necessities then find be, I was delighted. Unconstituted Praxis. Not as waking moment. wretched and abject as anything one can recognition in the varied kinds of institutional a state of affairs currently existing, but as encounter in guitar player magazines. Improvised support available for the newer art, from a utopian projection. And that’s what Mattin takes as his point of music becomes cocktail music for the self-con- foundations and grants to museums and other departure. When I first met Mattin on a windy, gratulatory international middlebrow set, some forms of patronage.1 Because Mattin knows that existence in this world bitter winter’s day in Berlin, he was wearing nice aural wallpaper for relaxing at a Joseph is a constituted one; constituted by reified a black hooded sweatshirt with an imprint of a Beuys retrospective in Kassel or whatever the But it is not the case that Mattin engages in a social forms, social forms like value (as socially mohawked skull (from the band The Exploited) with fuck it is these people do. mere reversal of the creative genius role. He is necessary abstract labour time), the commodity the word 'Adorno' printed on top of it. I felt an not seeking to be applauded for his 'courage' or (as the receptacle of value), the state (which instant affinity with this man. Mattin picks up Mattin attacks everything worth hating in 'vision'. Quite the contrary; as an adherent of creates formally equal 'subjects'), and the various where the Frankfurt School left off. But whereas contemporary improvised, noise and 'experimental' the DIY ethos of punk, he is suggesting that any types of identity (of 'gender', 'race', 'nationality'). Adorno still wanted to reserve some privileged music: everything precious, contemplative, or of us could do this, and should. The dissolution of From birth our practice as human beings is pressed status for art and the artist, still wanted to non-committal. A Mattin performance is not likely the performer/audience dichotomy is one of his into and mediated by these forms. And to make grant art some special role as a guardian of to offer 'satisfaction' to its prospective audience; core intentions. Music has been largely liberated matters even worse, our own activity also recre- utopian aspirations long after the potential for the 'experimental' music fanboys are likely to be from its traditional role in society. It is no longer ates and consolidates those forms on a daily realising such aspirations in reality was exhausted, vexed not only by the sheer unpleasantness of confined to a ritual context, nor does it serve basis. Mattin goes further. He is uncompromising, because the performance itself, but also by its lack of merely as accompaniment for dancing. But it still he refuses to allow art to maintain that status. innovation, its refusal of novelty. exists as music; that is to say, as a reified sphere On the other hand, there are many who would Not that Mattin denies art any prefigurative of human activity cut off from daily praxis. exempt creative activity from this state of politics; it is just that he recognises that such Not that beauty is foreign to Mattin’s work. It’s Mattin’s intent, then, is to destroy the form affairs. Of course, nobody is so vulgar and naïve potential is still tainted by this society, by its just that the beauty inherent in his work refuses music, in order to liberate the non-alienated as to suggest that art stands outside of society very existence as 'art'. He does not offer a pes- to be aesthetic, refuses to form the pleasant potential within it. in a completely unmediated way, that would be simistic foreclosure of revolutionary possibility, background to our complicity in our own self-alien- blatantly dishonest and ludicrous. But to the but rather an awareness of its fragility. ation. It is a beauty as strange and disorienting His critique is not intended to encourage passivi- extent that the issue gets raised at all, then as anything we encounter in the world. ty and despair, but rather to clear the slate for usually it is on the terms of which trough to And Mattin's chosen field of work is one in which utopian aspirations. He still believes in the prefig- feed from, which foundation one is allowed to the concept of the creative performer still 'Mattin is just a provocateur, this sort of gesture urative potential of free music, while still engaging accept a grant from, the issues involved in accepting enjoys a certain sacred cow status. Improvised is nothing new', etc. No, he’s not a provocateur, in a ruthless criticism of its traps and dead state funds, or some moral reservations one music often gets a free pass precisely because but yes, that’s right, this gesture is not new. ends. The essays in this volume are interventions; might have about monstrosities perpetrated by it’s supposed at least to hint at some potential But it is contemporary, and it will remain contem- they are statements of intent, reflections on a specific private patron. for non-alienated and non-reified creativity. And porary as long as this society of generalised past practice, and suggestions for future certainly it does to some extent. Composition commodity production exists, because it speaks a possibility. Not that those aren’t important questions. They itself is nothing but reified improvisation, so there’s simple truth; a truth that its intended audience are fundamental. And facing them with integrity something to be said for trying to reclaim does not want to hear. It reminds us that all In that sense, as Mattin puts it in the essay is one of the tests involved in confirming one’s 'doing' from 'done', for trying to prevent 'praxis' 'art', insofar as it is allowed to retain its special 'A Second Subterranean Ethics': Destroy all Forms! humanity. That’s why I have such admiration for from petrifying into mere 'being'. status as 'art', is ultimately just complicity with John Tilbury’s refusal to play in the United States, this society. And as long as the audience refuses however inconsistent or ineffective it seems to But free improvised music still can’t ever to take its medicine, then the critique remains 1 Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of me. Of course, I’ve attended three concerts by completely transgress the forms of this society; current, even if it is not 'innovative' or 'ground- Late Capitalism, London & New York: Verso, 1990. pp.4-5. its negative forms by exercising minor for quite some time but at some point much antagonism: is there anything Prologue to Unconstituted politics at this prime site of the spec- enough is enough).It is not surprising more capitalist than a creative individual, tacle, the concert, where production and that both scenes are male dominated intuitively driven, self-obsessed and Praxis consumption are enacted at the level and give little indication of reflection constantly promoting himself/herself? of experience. What is passivity? on gender relations. The improvisers’ The boss of Foxconn Technologies or It’s like you look at this lemon and What is activity? Is the distinction obsession with their own instruments, Steve Jobs? what is it? You have to squeeze it or that clear? What would it require to and the noise musicians with their vis- There is a market for improvised and maybe destroy it or bang it against emancipate oneself from the situation ceral expressions and anti-intellectu- the wall or bang it against your head noise music. You tried to make a living and the roles that we accept when alism fall easily into the male carica- to understand it. I am not going to out of this, and then you complain we enter such a space? How are social ture formulated by Valerie Solanas in read a book about what is this fruit. about the market? These texts, in spaces produced in a given situation? her S.C.U.M Manifesto many years ago: It is the same thing that I do with different ways, deal with trying to What are the accepted conventions? the music. – Joke Lanz (Sudden Infant) in an understand these sets of relations. Can we challenge them? Can we change The male is completely egocentric, interview in The Wire (April 2009). But you are still getting money for them? Can we dare together by aban- trapped inside himself, incapable of what you do (even editing and ant- I feel like Joke with his lemon but doning old conventions? empathising or identifying with others, fucking this text), and it is very likely I relate this to more than just music. What first attracted me to improvisa- or love, friendship, affection or ten- that by publishing such a book there Rather than following established tion was the possibility for anything derness. He is a completely isolated will soon be invitations from academic modes of improvising or making noise, to become a part of the situation; the unit, incapable of rapport with anyone. and art institutions. I might soon be what if, instead of this lemon, we want social atmosphere, the inability to play His responses are entirely visceral, just as institutionalised as anybody to try to understand what the practices an instrument, unwanted sounds (like not cerebral; his intelligence is a mere else (if I am not already). of noise and improvisation might be? feedback and white noise)... . This gave tool in the services of his drives and All money is dirty, it is the shit Or rather, what would be even more me a sense of freedom, even if this needs; he is incapable of mental pas- squeezed from the circulation of our difficult, what if we try to use these quickly became a very questionable sion, mental interaction; he can’t labouring bodies. I thought that noise practices as a way to understand the form of freedom. After many years of relate to anything other than his own and improvisation were the stereo conditions that we are living in? engaging in the improvisation scene I physical sensations. arseholes of culture, and this was Or, to go even further, what if we want found out that even these unwanted their interest, that they are in an sounds could become just as aestheti- The more we think about it, the less to change these conditions through the antagonistic position with regards to cised and fetishised as in any other meaningful political engagement we can practices of noise and improvisation. other musics, with regards to enter- Is this possible? type of music making. Equally I found find in the established modes of making tainment. Yet they have become enter- I am constantly banging myself against that the players could become virtu- noise and improvisation. The kinds of tainment. In whatever situation you are the unspoken rules of noise and osos showing off their abilities and alienating effects these practices ini- in there is a framework that conditions improvisation, and the social relations refined taste deploying these sounds tially possessed are no longer producing and limits what you can do. produced by the concert situation. in self-indulgent exercises. an effect. Rather than trying to If this framework is the market, the For this I don’t need many musical My disappointment continued with the deconstruct and fuck around with the options might be many but the limita- instruments so much as I need tools; noise scene. What had seemed to be power relations produced in the room tions (such as having to survive blunt tools, theoretical tools, books, a practice exploring the extremes, the players seem quite happy to through the wage relation) are extremely friends to have conversations with... revealed itself, at a certain point, as reproduce them for self-promotion. complex to understand and even harder really anything that can help. I have a self-congratulatory, ego-maniacal and There is a false promise of freedom in to actually change. The practices of been exploring these social and power uncritical mode of expression. both noise and improvisation that noise and improvisation can be elusive relations in concert situations by The parameters of where this activity affords a certain sense of individual and unstable. It is because of these either giving my authority as per- happens seem to be already well agency in the name of creativity, but qualities that they may be able to former away (and thus realising that defined and rarely exceed the repro- this agency is often present only at exceed the framework in which they this is actually impossible), or by using duction of existing stereotypes and the level of personal taste. We are my authority to the maximum to test characteristics of what is supposed well aware of how creativity is increas- happen or at least temporarily ques- how much the audience and myself are to be noise. This includes ear splitting ingly inserted into the capitalist pro- tion it and expose its own contradictions willing to give or take. I adopt this volume, dissonance, shock effect, duction process as a means to develop and your relationship to them. But this power not just for my own sake or to aggressive often misogynist lyrics or new ways of producing value. Capitalism is not just going to happen by itself, arbitrarily produce social blockages. introverted-not-giving-a-fuck-atti- produces us as ‘free subjects’ in in order to have some effect we should Rather, I push this social practice into tudes.... (yes I have done some of those order to reproduce itself without get to know and analyse how the frameworks where these practices take We can appropriate the careful per- during the 2005 Paris suburb riots, A subtle recent moment of unconstitut- place are produced . ceptive and listening skills acquired saw cars burning and wanted to do ed praxis took place at CAC Brétigny BUT WHAT IF WE SURVIVE THROUGH THE through years of playing very quiet something without damaging someone during October of 2010. With some of WAGE RELATION PERFECTLY WELL PLAYING improvisation, and we can use these else’s property so he burnt his own the collaborators in this book we NOISE AND IMPROV? ISN’T THAT THE skills for purposes other than the car. What was before a normal situation staged a ‘concert’ using the material PROMISE OF ENTERTAINMENT/COMMERCIALI- production of abstract sounds. becomes something completely differ- conditions as our instruments (budget, SATION? WOULD THAT BE OK OR …? DOES We can appropriate the type of self- ent. This process is strange and dis- times, space...), lasting for a week during NOISE-PROV REALLY ATTACK WAGE RELA- empowerment and alienation that noise orienting but helps us to understand which we were discussing, eating, being TIONS? CAN IT DO SO SIMPLY THROUGH can produce, not to try to create some how normatively we are ideologically an audience, trying things out. At the NOT PAYING PEOPLE PROPERLY? IS MONEY sort of sublime experience, but to constructed or how we are paralysed very beginning we talked about how SIMPLY DIVISIVE/UNCLEAN? CAN WE question what the notion of experience or activated for purposes that we nobody from the neighbourhood visited IMPROVISE WITH MONEY AS OUR INSTRU- is really about. might not necessarily have chosen the art centre. So then we went to MENT? AS HOWARD SLATER DID ONCE? If previously, in improvisation, we tried ourselves. the college that is next door and CAN WE IMPROVISE WITHOUT MONEY – to play our instruments against the It is a praxis without a false sense of placed some chairs; we decided to be YES, BUT ONLY TEMPORARILY. WOULD WE grain, against the way they have been agency, without self-congratulation. their audience. The students were IMPROVISE AS SLAVES? PERHAPS, AT conceived and designed, what if from It is a praxis subsumed in alienation, curious and they started to chat with SOME POINT, WE WILL BE FORCED TO DO now on we don’t just deconstruct the not liberation. A form of play in which us. They understood the situation SO AT GUNPOINT. instruments but try to change the one does not know whether one is very quickly: ‘Ah this is an improvisation!’ During the past years I have been conditions that we are living in? having fun or not. It is social in the The next day we wanted to continue the trying to understand the contexts Can we use these material conditions sense that it questions what individual interaction but we did not know how. and frameworks that I have been part as instruments of improvisation in subjectivity is and how we are pro- The time was running out because they of. Therefore the main essays in this order to change them? If the material duced in a given situation. It can be a were going to go home so we decided book are loosely grouped into the conditions that we are living in are practice without usefulness, a specu- to bring the PA out into the square following themes: immersed in a capitalist logic, can we lative practice that does not produce that separates the art centre and Improvisation pervert this logic by improvising our- much except ourselves as broken sub- the high school. The Basque Country selves? jects. Meaningless, at least for the We gave the microphones away and the Copyright and Authorship What do I mean by ‘unconstituted praxis?’ time being, because you don’t under- students plugged in their phones and Noise It is a praxis without pragmatism, an stand yet what the meaning is – language MP3 players. They started to play with Representation and Idioms intervention without a foundation as noise producing a useless general the situation, and they were asking Estrangement and Idiocy (an-archic). There is no right or wrong intellect. Today, when our affects are us: ‘What are you doing?’ We said ‘We In the set of interviews published because there is no object and no more and more commodified, unconsti- don’t know’. For some time a strange here you can gain a more informal distance from which to judge it. One is tuted praxis is practical sensuous but rich atmosphere developed. insight into how some of these ideas not reflecting from an objective position activity in so far as it produces noise Something difficult to describe neither have developed through the years. outside of the situation but in a state in our nerves – a constant banging of one thing, nor the other. People were In the appendix you can read writings of immediacy – reflection is accelerat- the lemon and the head. It is above all doing things like dancing or singing for from many different people about ed and pushed to the level of feed- a process of desubjectification. In some time but slowly things faded into this sense it differentiates itself from concerts in which I have been involved. back. In this sense, an unconstituted what one expected, everybody got into traditions of humanist praxis with Overall it should be possible to get praxis is the opposite of escapism. their little corner, into their little group their foundation in the individual will some sense of how these ideas have This praxis is like jumping into the or into their comfort zone. Including or intention; such as in early Karl Marx, been employed differently in different void of the situation that you are in, us. Once again the reproduction of Antonio Labriola, Antonio Gramsci or concerts. where you will discover uncertainty in Michel Henry. stereotypes. But for some minutes the At the core of improvisation resides the certainty of where you are as if Since this is a praxis without prescrip- feeling of ungrounding the situation, of an opportunity that I still think is you were a nyctalopic idiot (one who tion, or score everyone present is being together without knowing where worth exploring; an extreme awareness sees in the dark)..1 Unconstituted responsible for what is going on. It is to go, and with no agenda or leader to of the potential for going against the praxis is the process of ungrounding a collective process of disorganisation; follow, was there. While this might be normalisation that occurs in any given oneself. A constant attempt which going fragile into our deep insecurities perceived as the worst kind of partic- situation, the production of alternative never quite arrives because one does together, scrambling the possibility ipatory art project, it proposed no social relations, and the exploration not know where one is going. It is like for reorganisation as individuals, dislo- individual authorship, nor manipulation, of basic political issues such as the the ‘reject’ move in jerkin (street cating ourselves and making it difficult because nobody knew where things were collective vs. the individual. dance from L.A.), or like the guy who, for us to execute power individually. going until we allowed the normalisation process to do its job. This state of me happy because to be honest I am relative tranquillity lasted only until tired of myself. Hopefully this is a way the next week, when the kids (like in of ungrounding myself, but of course many other French high schools) began it is also a clear example of managerial rioting and throwing badly made authorship. Molotov cocktails at the police in Many thanks to Lisa Rosendahl and Odita for constant support, Anthony protest of Sarkozy’s pension reform. Iles for spending so much time in fixing The police clearly knew how to deal these texts, editing and making sug- with them and they were prepared. A gestions, to Howard Slater for early few days later the the pension reform encouragement, inspiration, the proof law has been passed and it is school reading and for the letter/cover/epi- holidays. So writing from here every- logue and to John Wollaston for addi- thing is quiet. tional proofreading. Many thanks to My attitude to theory is like the kids people who contributed to this book throwing these not very successful and that have help me through the Molotov cocktails, or, once more, like years: Joke’s lemon: punk. One does not need Tom Roberts, Matthew Hyland, Xabier to know how to play the guitar to Erkizia, Blanca Oraa, Carlos Artiach, Bea actually play. It is the attitude that Artiach, Jaime Artiach, Emma Hedditch, matters but then also the act of questioning this attitude. Alberto Lopez, Tim Goldie, Zeigam Azizov, While reading the texts you will notice Rosy Parlane, Dion Workman, Dean Roberts, some serious overlaps, for example, Lucio Capece, Marcia Bassett, Margarida ‘Oh I love Freedom But What is it?’, is Garcia & Barry Weisblat, Daniel Löwenbrück, a reworked section from ‘A Second Joke Lanz, Ertz, MEM, Tim Barnes, Denis Subterranean Ethics’; ’Anti-CCopyright: Dubotsev, Loïc Blairon, Miguel Prado, Towards a Naked Culture’ is the seed Roberto Mallo, Raul Mallo, Josie Berry of ‘Anti-Copyright: Why Improvisation Slater, Loy Fankbonner, Dan Warburton, and Noise run Against the Idea of Emma Hedditch, Delphine, Julien, Pierre, Intellectual Property’; some parts of Dean Inkster, Héctor Rey, Aitor Izagirre, ‘Against Representation’ are included in Bruce Russell, Ray Brassier, David ‘Idioms and Idiots’. Similarly there are Baumflek, Ilya Lipkin, Jennifer Kennedy, several repetitions in the interviews. Scott Soriano, Ed Pinsent (The Sound In the spirit of improvisation and Projector), Iñigo Eguillor, Ben Watson, noise you are getting the whole rough Tony Herrington and The Wire, addlimb, version rather than an edited one. I Michel Henritzi, Jérôme Noetinger, Revue am sure you will be able to edit what- & Corrigée, Mute Magazine, Soliloquio, ever you need in your head. Richard Pinnell, Ursonate, Dan Warburton, I thought it was better to leave it Kevin Failure and Tina, Lorenzo Senni, this way, so one can see how similar Variant Rites, Anne Tallentire, Bulegoa, thoughts are reworked and developed. Binna Choi and Axel Wieder, Sarat Maharaj, Both my Spanish and English are pret- Irit Rogoff, Philip Best, Ulrich Krieger, ty rotten and I cannot write two sen- Joel Stern, Oren Ambarchi, Mikel Xedh, tences without the help of an editor. Alex Mendizabal, Arto Artian, Metabolik During all these years many many friends Hacklab, Keith Rowe, Mini, Periferike and have helped me to make these texts nameless others. readable and to develop these Finally thanks to Taumaturgia, thoughts. Many of these texts come out of long term conversations. These Pierre Bal-Blanc and CAC Brétigny for conversations blur who I am, and influence making this book possible. me to the point that I don’t know who is me and who is the other. This makes 1 See Idioms and Idiots destroy the hierarchies of value of art (I’ve got it! I understand it!) spiritual...) with the tangible, clearly OH I LOVE FREEDOM! that structure the physical act of Today ‘praxis’ is generally understood defined product, improvisation is use- making music. as the making of a specific work. less, because nothing in it functions BUT WHAT IS IT? When sounds are thrown in improvisation, It implies having an end, a deadline, outside its context. Improvisation this can call into question our temporal a limit to your potentiality. functions only in terms of the moment NOTE: This article, forming a more and spatial understanding of sound Improvisation, on the other hand, brings in which musicians are struggling to developed excerpt from a section of and its place in reality. The inner rules back the act of making as the main find common notions. This struggle is the longer essay, ‘A Second Subterranean that we bring to the performance as focus of artistic praxis. In fact the itself the aim. It is in trying to find Ethics’, was originally published in Mute listeners become redundant if musicians common meaning of praxis has changed a language within spectacle, in which Vol. 1 # 29, February, 2005. Available present a different way of playing. over the millennia. For the ancient musicians can for that time stop online: www.metamute.org/en/Oh-I-love- This moment, in which you realize that Greeks, notes Agamben, the sense of reproducing ready-made forms. In making freedom-But-what-is-it you had a ‘limiter’ on music, shakes praxis was different from that of an argot within the brutal and cold other notions and will bring fragility production. Pro-duction has its limits capitalist production, points of ref- Just as, in a game, the victory of to your understanding. Often the outside itself; praxis is self-contained erence start to disappear. one of the players is not (with inner rules or parameters that enclose and reaches its limits through action. The awareness that we are embedded respect to the game) an originary music are the same ones that contain Therefore it is not pro-ductive and within this system remains: it would be state to be restored, but only the other forces. If we understand politics it can bring itself into presence.1 ridiculous to think that we are not stake that doesn’t pre-exist the in terms of potential social relations, In improvisation, thought and action determined by it, but also ridiculous game but results from it, so pure we can see a politics in the exploratory are brought together in an unconsti- to think, by default, that everything violence – which is the name that element of improvisation. tuted praxis. By this I mean a praxis we do must contribute to its efficient Benjamin gives to human action which which is not finally constituted, not functioning. So it appears that the common notions neither founds not conserves law – complete, yet has no end outside are practical Ideas, in relation with is not an originary figure of human itself. Its effect depends on interaction: our power; unlike their order of exposi- action that at a certain moment is the participation of others, by listen- tion, which only concern ideas, their seized and inscribed in the juridical ing and/or making sound. ARGOT order of formation concern affects, order (just as for speaking man In improvisation the gestures made showing how the mind ‘can order its The age in which we are living, in fact, there is no pre-linguistic reality require a response in order for the affects and connect them together.’ is also the age in which, for the first which, at a certain moment, would fall dialogue to continue. But as the The common notions are an Art, the art time, it becomes possible for humans into language). – Giorgio Agamben, State other players cannot anticipate a of ethics itself: organizing good to experience their own linguistic of Exception concrete response, it is the ges- encounters, composing actual relations, essence – to experience, that is, not tures that continuously interrupt Once we understand that we are forming powers, experimenting. – some language content or some true and initiate the conversation. Unlike, embedded in contradictory social rela- Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy proposition, but the fact itself of tions, we can also see that the con- say, John Cage’s pieces, where the speaking. The experience in question tradictions themselves run deeper For Deleuze, the powers of a common conceptual instructions (as ‘end’) here does not have any objective than the law that pretends to notion are developed as it is put into determine the limits of the artificially content and cannot be formulated as organise them. – De Selby practice. Within a common notion, separated ‘chance’, improvisation fully a proposition referring to a state of subjectivities are formed; their ‘nature’ exposes each gesture to all others, Improvisation as pure praxis. You things or to a historical situation ... is developed by the common notion’s forcing the singular ‘concepts’ to this experience must be constructed cannot be outside of the game, future use. A common notion can only coexist. The gestures are never left but you don’t have to be subject as an experiment concerning the matter be a rule if it becomes a style: as, alone because even the silence has a itself of thought... .3 to the rules in order to play the for instance, when one musician’s traits meaning; there is no such thing as instrument. Sometimes, when musicians or gestures infect another’s. Unless neutrality in improvisation. Meaning is If we are conscious of how these sys- use instruments in unanticipated you are able to bastardize this style constantly produced and never iso- tems are able to cut off or actually ways, they can create moments of it will become another template in lated from its context. introduce our objects of desire, we convergence, communication. Exploring which rules can be applied. In that may be able to find ways to produce Politics is the exhibition of a mediali- the material aspect of the instru- case its political potential vanishes. moments of resistance. It would be ment without conceptual restrictions ty: it is the act of making a means difficult to aim for a perfect (i.e. finished) can allow for this. If the musician is visible as such. Politics is the sphere situation in which you think everything able to develop a personal approach neither of an end in itself nor of would be fantastic (What happens to music making, this does not happen UNCONSTITUTED means subordinated to an end; once you achieve it? You stop?). The in isolation, but collectively, among rather, it is the sphere of a pure situation emerges out of a practice: other musicians and listeners. PRAXIS mediality without end intended as the it is a modus operandi that you 2 Improvised music generates meaning field of a human thought. should be aiming at. Once the eyes of from the residue that marketed music Making products (or decisive endings) From the point of view of the ideology capital – whether market research or tries to exclude, not to be recycled makes parameters easy to identify, (long obsolete in capitalist thinking) the police – know what you are looking for future use, but momentarily to allowing you to appropriate the work that identifies value (economic, cultural, for, then you are easy to deal with. The concept of argot may be useful At the end of the process and non-musicians have as an analogy here, although music A SECOND I was interested in two been improvising for a very and language work in different registers. particular musicians for long time. But it was in the Argot, not being a proper language, SUBTERRANEAN whom the political potential ‘60s that some musicians is difficult to institutionalise. Argot of the music was immanent breaking away from jazz has the aspect of appropriating a ETHICS: to their practice rather and contemporary music language and making it personal (some- than stated before or were developing a kind times it is used in secret trading or AN EXPLORATION after the fact. of music that would counter other obscure business). In argot This essay consists of traditions and make playing readymade meaning is twisted to serve three parts: an intro- as free as possible. the purpose that the particular user OF THE POLITICAL duction to the way this Musicians, in trying to wants to give it at a specific moment. music has developed in break with conventional As improvised music is produced by AND ETHICAL Britain, an enquiry into models of playing, were the combination of the exploration of the instrument against its intended CONNOTATIONS potentiality and problems looking at their instru- purpose and a ‘personal’ way of of its development, and ments in a more material responding, produced collectively among an exploration of my way. They wanted to find musicians and hearers. Therefore the OF CONTEMPORARY experiences in Vienna ways through which to musical language that is created with the musicians Radu experiment with their serves only the communicability of that IMPROVISED MUSIC Malfatti and Hiaz (from creativity without the moment. It cannot be exported else- the group farmersmanual). restrictions of history. where. You can take ideas but you will NOTE: This final section takes Some examples: Keith Rowe also have to contextualize, in the Originally submitted as the form of diary entries, (part of the group AMM), sense that each element of the music a thesis for a Masters since I wanted to commu- inspired by Jackson is there to be activated by the consumer in Art and Theory at nicate my discoveries as Pollock’s action painting, (who, in the process, becomes a producer). Goldsmiths College, they happened: as a living started to play the guitar Decision-making is made more promi- London, 2003. process, thought in on a table and to play nent in the consumption of this music practise rather than as things on top (e.g. radio than is the case with other genres During the summer of a consolidation of the through the pick-ups); where stages of the process are more 2003 I spent some time music and its possibilities Derek Bailey explored clearly defined, i.e. composing, performing, in Vienna researching (a problem which I hope the guitar at the margins getting recognition, etc. Improvised improvised music. Having to show has affected the of notes dealing with a music scorns divisions of ‘aesthetic’ spent six years in playing and reception of strange harmonics and labour in order to crack packaged London involved in the improvised music in the UK). rough chord-playing. meanings: infiltrating, deforming and improvised music scene, Eddie Prévost brought a extending enclosed vocabularies of aware of how it has wine barrel to the perform- praxis. developed, I was inter- PART I ance space and, rather ested in finding musicians than inviting people to NOTES who were challenging the IMPROVISING drink from it, he started 1 Giorgio Agamben, The Man Without Content, approaches that I was drumming on it as if it Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. familiar with. In London AS A TERM: was a percussive instru- 2 Giorgio Agamben, Means Without End, Minneapolis: I saw how this music ment (I guess he emptied University of Minnesota Press, 2000. could get trapped within ATTEMPTING TO it out on the way). 3 Ibid. its own aesthetics. As you can imagine, when At the same time there BREAK WITH this music started to be had been a lot of dis- performed in public, it cussion about the politi- TRADITIONS provoked a variety of cal potential of this reactions and forced a music. My research in Improvisation, a term of redefinition of terms Vienna consisted of consequent importance, (the distinction of ‘noise’ interviewing musicians, began to be used as the over music). At the organisers and others loose name for a genre beginning there was not involved in the improvised of music in the ‘60s. It yet a network for this music scene there. is true that many musicians music to be presented on its own terms. As a conse- the interaction between run the danger of falling products. The musicians how fucked up the world quence AMM (whose members EFFERVESCENT improvising musicians is into stylistic rhetoric. – giving all their desires, is. But one might be able included both Keith Rowe a possible space for For Cardew, political passion and creative to bring out those cre- and Eddie Prévost) would TIMES EXCEEDING socio-political conscious- consciousness cannot be process – open them- ative elements that the share the bill with bands ness. It is up to the raised simply from micro selves to the responses fucked-up-ness of the such as Pink Floyd or POLITICS musicians to recognise gestures. You need to of other musicians in world normally suppresses. Cream.1 As time passed, this or not. have a global view, an such a way as to exceed And this is the reason the audience became more During the ‘60s agitation opinion about the exploita- understanding and assimi- for the title of this The meta-musician must specialised. Networks and was, apparently, in the tion that is taking place lation. These responses essay: ‘A Second put music aside or else promoters helped to atmosphere. Issues like throughout the world. cannot be isolated as a Subterranean Ethics’. be consumed by music. consolidate a terminology art and music were con- If you do not clearly one-off gesture. This ethics might emerge All meta-music’s aesthetic and classification for this stantly questioned in state and denounce this Therefore the responses once the improvisation priorities arise from the kind of music. relation to politics. within your practice you that follow are not just pushes the players into direct relationship of are not being political. This would impede the Any alteration in the individual, but are melted areas of intensity that player with materials, What I am interested in more direct impact that modes of music is always together with the vari- force them to question player with player and showing in this paper is this music could have followed by alteration in ous responses the situ- their modus operandi. players with audience. not the political con- on unfamiliar audiences. the most fundamental ation has provoked. The musicians are there A meta-aesthetic only sciousness that might It might be that the laws of the state.2 The performance space but they cannot apply terminology and the spe- emerges when performers be applicable to impro- can be the place in which, their well-rehearsed rit- cialised atmosphere that It is interesting to consider perceive their engagement vised music, but to bring dependent on degrees ualistic approach. Once this music developed this quotation from Plato with the socio-political articulation to the smaller of intensity, new sub- the performance reaches helped to suppress its in relation to the trajec- consequences of these gestures that emerge jectivities might arise. this point (of no way tory of the English avant- relationships.5 out of this practice. wider political potential. I call ‘subject’ the bearer back, even if you would This is the issue that garde composer, improviser The hidden, or impercep- Prévost has devoted his [le support] of a fidelity, wish for it), any gesture I would like to discuss in (part of AMM), and later tible, social aspects life to improvisation, the one who bears a which is not as fragile this thesis: the openness member of the Communist that can grow out of being part of the group process of truth. as the intensity of the of the music, that might Party, Cornelius Cardew. the interaction that the AMM for almost 40 years, The subject, therefore, performance is exposed have reached new audi- Cardew grew up with an ‘freedom’ of improvisa- running the Matchless in no way pre-exists the as a stylistic cliché. ences, gets overexposed interest in a politics for tion offers: what Recordings label, organising process. He is absolutely Surprise, and the necessity by having to deal with a which there was no room potential do these have, workshops, writing on non-existent in the sit- to react to this moment (recent) history. for activities that did or is there a ‘meaning the subject and so on. uation; before the event. simultaneously with the These musicians created not have an interest for of resistance’? By this His theory of the ‘Meta- We might say that the other musicians can pro- a scene, but in creating the industrial working I mean that in the practice class. In the introduction musicians’ states that process of truth induces duce a creative feed- it they also created its of improvisation (perhaps to his book, Stockhausen the practice of this a subject.6 back. But as I mentioned limitations. Because of because it is simple, serves Imperialism, Cardew kind of music cannot be before this surprise is this, it is difficult for primitive or straightfor- The players, by pushing wrote: limited to music. not an isolated event, it those musicians that fol- ward) there is a social each other to an ‘open comes from an awareness low to break completely In fact this whole pole- What I am questioning interaction, which has permission of possibilities’, of what has been done with their ancestors; mical attack, including here is whether Prévost, not yet found its full are forced to question before and how it can they are more likely to this book, takes place by defining the way potential in language. their expectations. As be disrupted. socio-political relation- follow their decon- outside the working And this is one of the different players can It is a constant chal- ships occur in improvisation, structive methods. I do class movement and is qualities that makes antagonise each other, lenge to the notions of is not in fact contributing not mean to depreciate therefore politically improvisation exceed, and in doing so find new cause and effect. 3 to the generation of a the creativity of the relatively insignificant. or at least resist, ways of dealing with the The ethics that I am style? new musicians. What I am Here we should make it commodification. performance outside talking about here are saying is that once clear that Cardew later So with this paper I am The intensive creative their familiar habits. not the sticker that improvisation became a stopped improvising and putting myself in the course of action in which Cardew mentioned that you carry as a nice genre it also became easily composing avant-garde impossible gap of trying the musicians are involved political consciousness human being, nor the pigeonholed: when certain music in order to write to articulate the politi- makes the improvising situ- does not arise from one ethics that you are stylistic approaches get popular liberation songs cal and ethical connota- ation a laboratory in which moment of inspiration. conscious of and you consolidated, others against capitalism.4 tions that occur in the audience is able to He may be right that behave according to. are put aside and thus, By contrast, Eddie improvisation, with the continually grasp results one is not going to They are the ethics hierarchies are created. Prévost recognises that awareness that this can but not consume them as realise in one second that emerge out of the collaboration with the copies were manufactured. cases the musician him- and impalpable – mere cians, what is going on). tion is not to have a other musicians. Another aspect that also self can be a slave to vibration of the tympanic I presume that the con- ‘politically correct’ ethos It is here that the reinforces the idea of his own trajectory. This membrane’. stant encountering of that everybody can join intensity of the situation strong individuality is the is something that I will Although written many differences must be in with, and there are gets to question anything multi-tasking way in which try to discuss later on: years ago, that is still exhausting. Miscellaneous no hierarchies. Another that tries to fence in musicians and promoters how style can work as probably a fairly accu- tastes, rather than problem is that in this its potentiality. have to work; in fact, a limiter of freedom and rate indication of the emerging into one final music a star system can In improvisation, to musicians are often pro- how working within a importance attached to product (here I am operate in a pretty collaborate is to work moters, record label run- very narrow space for form by those people thinking of a pop-rock much similar way as it together in order to ners, critics and so on. intervention can lead to concerned with composed group working together does in the mainstream. achieve nothing other The idea of the strong surpassing the clichés music. Even in those on a song and then As festivals of impro- than the dissolution of individual also gets rein- that this music often parts of contemporary delivering it in public) vised music have been egos into one another. forced at the beginning provokes. composition where the are continuously pre- established, there are This music does not sell of each performance, as earlier types of overall sented in juxtaposition some musicians who are many CDs. no one, at that moment, organisations no longer with each other. participating in many of knows who will start nor DESTROY ALL serve, a great deal of The constant encounter them and others that how. ingenuity is exercised of different personali- never participate. STRONG In the moment just before FORMS! finding something upon ties in a performance Trends are also impor- INDIVIDUALS a performance begins, which the music can be obviously dissolves the tant in this kind of his fingers poised, the Perhaps I have given the based. Myths, poems, idea of the author, giving music (not that this is meta-musician does not impression that there is political statements, the audience more so wrong but it can Improvising musicians know what to play. no forward planning, no ancient rituals, paintings, points of view to relate actually counter the were desperately trying He knows that he will play, overall structure, and mathematical systems; it to what is being done, idea of being open to to get away from music seems that any overall the risk of the unfamil- and has some reasonable no ‘form’. Adverse criticism as there has not been history by creating new pattern must be imposed iar). This might be a dif- expectation of what of free improvisation, any previous author’s ‘argots’ with the instru- to save music from its ficult field and it can might develop. But there pretty nearly the only overview on what is ment. Improvisation has kind available, almost endemic formlessness.8 easily be said that the is no certainty. Yet the being presented. been related to strong always aims itself at the musicians asked to par- moment the first note is In his book, Improvisation, This is precisely because individuals, as each of same two or three ticipate are the best negotiated then all else Derek Bailey tries to in improvisation the the musicians had to targets and the clear improvisers. But in will follow, seemingly out explain how this music production and the find his or her own path favourite of these is improvisation there is of control and at the challenges previous presentation occurs at within the instrument. ‘formlessness’. As the not just one way of same time inevitable. The notions of what music the same time. Everyone, It is not just the players criteria for assessing a doing things. In fact no meta-musician makes no can be from a western whether they are a part that need to be persua- piece of music, any piece other type of music false starts and plays perspective. As we can of the audience or a sive. Usually festival 7 of music, is usually making challenges the no wrong notes. see from this quotation, performer, is at the organisers, record inherited from the atti- notion of right or labels, and critics of This moment of uncer- tudes and prejudices improvisation has been same level in the recep- wrong as improvisation this music are very tainty in which any of handed down by the trying to escape any tion of the improvisa- does. Unfortunately we motivated in order to the players can break mandarins of European term that is not related tion. But I must admit have some EAI gourmet remain in this field of the silence prior to the straight music, this is to freedom. Once some- that I am suspicious of guardians ready to music, which is still very performance, in which no to be expected. Nowhere thing becomes formal and this amazing free flow- apply their implacable marginal. Those running language has determined is the concept of form easy to identify, it can ing amount of creativity taste on young impro- record labels are happy the first action, forces as an ideal set of pro- be appropriated by the trying to evade any visers, taking away any to cover expenses in the music to be always portions which transcends establishment (something categorisation. As a lis- political potential from order to keep putting at the border of what style and language that improvisation has tener of this kind of this practice. things out. The first has been done in the clung to with such ter- always tried to evade). music I have discovered Often in different time that I asked Eddie past and what you can rified tenacity as by It is true that the that you can find a places musicians develop Prévost of Matchless add or subtract from it. the advocates of musical abstraction of this diversity of approaches a certain style of playing Recordings the number But of course our know- composition. ´The necessi- music makes the audience (that are not necessar and so-called ‘schools’ of CDs he produced of ledge about the musician ty for design and bal- engage in the process ily compatible with each are created: London each release, I was very and his or her music can ance is nowhere more of participation (as they other) and they actually school, Berlin school, surprised to hear that work as a score for our imperative than in music, are working out, at the can become very narrow. Japanese school, Vienna just one thousand expectations. In some where all is so fleeting same time as the musi- This is fine if its inten- school, New Zealand school and so on. the specific styles that nators, which would mean a dialogue out of an They all have their par- have emerged out of this PART II to actually bring what OBEYING empty score (which actu- ticularities but not all music and ‘the radical they have from the past. ally makes more trans- are so clear. Other ways new-creative-self’ that CONSIDERING THE As I mentioned above, to WHAT? parent the social condi- of playing improvisation Prévost is talking about try to articulate the tion as there is no final can be very loud (‘noise’), is that the romantic PROBLEMS IN THE potential of this music Gilles Deleuze writes in responsibility attached very quiet (‘reduction- aura that can be wrapped might also be to con- Spinoza: to an author or score) ism’), fast and active around this kind of DEVELOPMENT strain the spectrum in Practical Philosophy: are showing that the which one can act. This (‘plinky-plonk’ or ‘salad music, is sometimes put In every society, Spinoza effects of their choices attempt is bound to music’ as Radu Malfatti forward to reinforce a OF IMPROVISED will show, it is a matter induce a responsibility. fail. This is similar to calls it), slow gradual specific understanding of obeying and nothing This responsibility (which what happens to improv changes, drone-like. of politics (and perhaps MUSIC IN LONDON else. This is why the actually gets its meaning isation once you try to At the moment we could as an example of social notions of fault, of diluted by the musicians’ see it as the final result. say that the Japanese understanding) and in merit and demerit, of interaction and their This would mean to con- school (which is quite others it is hidden and good and evil, are ex- subterranean under- textualise it and give it reductionist) sells more not so clear within the OH, I LOVE clusively social, having to standings), introduces a purpose – to think of CD’s than, let’s say, the aesthetic choices of do with obedience and further responsibility. it only in formal terms New Zealand one for the musicians (but then FREEDOM BUT disobedience. The best The musicians, in having (this was fine here or example (which is lo-fi perhaps there it occurs society, then, will be a past (time passing, WHAT IS IT? that worked there). and drone-like). more naturally, without one that exempts the sounds created/listened One of the biggest pretensions). But what power of thinking from to) are able to choose The meta-musician looks problems during the does happen is that the I) Being beyond ‘music’, the obligation to obey, the way they deal with for meaning, and for a course of this essay is freedom of this music it is noise. and takes care, in its the present according music with meaning, and thinking of improvisation to their decision-making. looks to invest as much creates its own limita- II) Being beyond ‘rules’, own interest, not to 11 in temporal terms. This decision-making tions. Exercising freedom it is free. subject thought to the meaning as possible in There is some potential rule of the state, which might simply reproduce the music. The intention in a certain way makes Free improvisation, as its in short, fast, disrup- only applies to actions. aesthetic choices from is to transcend all pre- it stylised and sterilised. name suggests, has a tive actions, but they As long as thought is the past, an act of con- relationship with freedom. will always be subject to vious experience of If improvisation does free, hence vital, nothing solidation rather than The sounds originated what happened before. music production and not become a method, an is compromised. discovery, unless it is music consumption. aim, a genre, if it is not in its practice have a This would be a nihilistic adapted to the nature The intention is making seen as a specialist relationship with noise. self-destructive ges- I am afraid that thought of the new improvisation, music, and listening to endeavour through If we follow the above ture rather than a long- is not free in the present which relies on careful it, as if for the first which virtuosity can quotation from Bruce term commitment to conditions. Capitalism, in listening and an aware- time.9 re-emerge, if it is seen Russell we might think finding alternative ways order to reproduce ness of the precedence as a continual accompa- that improvisation is by of dealing with the way itself, needs to produce of the music. This does As we can see in this niment to our everyday itself progressive. that we are determined workers and consumers. not mean that ready- quotation by Eddie lives in which meaning There is nothing implicit by power. How to recon- This is what has been made sounds are not Prévost, there is a and responses do not in improvisation; it is cile these two temporal called the ‘production of welcome, but that your necessity to break with always emerge instanta- what the musicians make perspectives and how to subjectivities’. With the choice gives them a reason any previous under- neously, if it is heard out of the performance sustain this emancipato- convergence of material to be there. standing of music. as that which contains that can have potential. ry transition is the and immaterial production The musicians and listen- The meta-musician is not the phases of its own If the musicians bring an purpose of this section capitalism has dissolved ers are giving a new just a player/composer/ construction and carries openness to creating of the essay. into people’s minds and context to them. listener at the same the emotions to which it common spaces or ways habits: a subtle infiltra- The production of com- time, he or she is a gave rise, then it can of understanding, it is tion blurring the dis- munication does not mean revolutionary and con- operate as a ‘practice more likely that the tinction between one’s just to talk better but sumer of the other of self-invention’ that improvisation can take own desires and capital- to struggle with getting players revolution. is spurred-on by nego- unexpected and inter- ist desires. How can the the most out of its Is this not too much to tiation between the esting paths. By common production of noises possibilities. In capitalism, ask of a human being? determined and the spaces I do not mean to disrupt the production communication means So what I want to say undetermined, between try to find the lowest of subjectivities? transaction of knowledge and information. by bringing together pleasure and displeasure.10 or more common denomi- Musicians, in constructing In improvisation what is chance associations.12 ed, in Cage’s music it no pre-linguistic reality sound and its place in actual relations, forming produced and distri- John Cage managed to would be anticipated. In which, at a certain reality. Later on I will powers, experimenting.14 buted are momentary open the parameters in improvisation it would be moment, would fall into explain how the trom- Deleuze describes the 13 gestures of sound; what which music was previ- listened and questioned language). bonist Radu Malfatti is way a common notion can they induce is a response. ously thought of. But and if someone thinks Once we understand pushing this notion to be put into practice in Capitalism works towards actually the chance that he can do some- that we are embedded the limit. The inner rules order to develop its own a directional interest pieces in Cage’s work thing with it, used. Usually within a system in which that we bring prior to powers. But the nature (reproduction of itself.) (e.g. Music of Changes) the performance spaces contradictory social rela- the performance as of the way in which sub- If it gets responses, are always subjected to can be extremely varied tions are played out, we listeners become ridicu- jectivities are developed it learns from them strict rules. The dif- and with different acoustic can also see that the lous once musicians man- with it is conditioned by in order to infiltrate ference with improvisa- properties. contradictions contain age to show a different its future use. It cannot further and produce tion is that the musi- In no other music are aspects that exceed way of playing. become a rule unless it better. Improvisation is cians are always exposed these qualities explored constrictions or law. This moment in which you becomes a style that antagonistic to this to its determination and as thoroughly. What I Improvisation as pure realise that you had a other musicians can be process, because while it response without having want to get at is that praxis: you cannot be ‘limiter’ on music disrupts infected with. And unless appeals to an audience’s rules to back them up. improvisation is able to outside of the game, but other notions and will you are able to bas- desires, it then invites a Improvisation challenges understand that it is you don’t have to be bring fragility to your tardise this style it will dialogue. Notions of good the notion of divisions. part of a bigger con- subjected to the rules understanding. become another template or bad get deformed Cage’s compositions have text, and is able to do in order to play the As in many cases those in which rules can be because their general the finality of showing something with it. The instrument, and create inner rules or parame- applied. In that case its meaning is not used in what is possible in music rules in John Cage’s pieces convergent moments of ters through which music political potential ceases: order to pursue an and our preconceptions seal the interaction of communication. This can can be enacted are the interest outside the of it. He might perhaps the musicians. ones that hold other The more the body be similar to when the politic, that individual of situation. Because not be in charge of the Improvisation recognises musicians use instru- notions. If we under- improvisation is not content of the form, that there is no division stand politics in terms individuals, develop its ments in ways that were own powers, the more aiming for finality, fixity but it is still a very between the conceptual not anticipated before. of their potential in becomes flexibility. strict way of defining approach and constant social relations, we can the real-imaginary Exploring, without con- complexity of social Flexibility in improvisation a spectrum of action. intervention within it. ceptual restrictions, the see that in the does not mean ‘free What improvisation does In improvisation, there is exploratory element of relationships as Spinoza material aspect of the conceives it is revealed flowing’, but instead is to show that there neither a concept to instrument achieves this. improvisation there is implies an ability to is not an outside to its save, nor a rule to be a politics involved. as a principle of mobili- In making and listening ty. Obedience itself (and accommodate difficult practice. There is a big applied. to the results, the By making the most of and uninspiring sounds. difference in hearing its interactions, the its correlative repre- Just as, in a game, the musician is able to develop In doing this, conven- a ‘chance’ piece by John musicians project their sentation, the ‘law’), as victory of one of the a personal approach to tional ways of listening Cage and an improvisa- subjectivities and they it is institutionalised by players is not (with music making. This is not are transformed for the tion. Even if the sound discover other people’s the State, religion and respect to the game) an done in isolation, but musicians to amplify might be similar, the receptions of it. morality, is not an originary state to be within the appreciation immutable given but the their scope of action. approach comes from a of other musicians and So it appears that the The general meaning of different angle. restored, but only the fulcrum of a continual stake that doesn’t pre- listeners. In having a common notions are transition. Or, more pre- these notions are In John Cage’s pieces positive reception for practical Ideas, in rela- appropriated for that there is a clear division, exist the game but cisely, since progress is results from it, so pure that which ‘Marketed tion with our power; never guaranteed, it is moment in which musicians the chances encoun- music’ tries to exclude, unlike their order of decide to play with them, tered within them are violence – which is the what is at stake in a name that Benjamin gives improvised music manages exposition, which only praxis (a struggle?) but then they are only the purpose of them. to give meaning to the concern ideas, their used for specific occa- They stop being chance. to human action which whose decisive moment is neither founds not con- residue without making order of formation con- the transformation of sions which you cannot In improvisation chances a statement nor a ques- cern affects, showing take away with you. remain the whole potential serves law – is not an the mode of communica- how the mind ‘can order 15 originary figure of tion that it needs to tion itself. Human freedom, though to be taken in to account its affects and connect human action that at a answer. not free will, amounts to or not. Let’s say that some When sounds are thrown them together.’ The certain moment is seized the power that one loud sound comes from in improvisation, this common notions are an and inscribed in the possesses actively to outside. While in more pushes the temporal- Art, the art of ethics juridical order (just as select one’s encounters general music it would be spatial understanding itself: organising good for speaking man there is rather than suffer a disturbance and exclud- that we have about encounters, composing would be the medium in coexist. The gestures functionality outside of or some true proposi- Argot, not being a proper UNCONSTITUTED which you make a specific are never left alone its own context, improvi- tion, but the fact itself language is difficult to work. It is to have an because even the silence sation cannot reproduce of speaking. The experi- institutionalise. It is a PRAXIS end; to have a deadline, has a meaning; there is ideologies concerning ence in question here good analogy to bring in a limit to your potentiality. no such thing as product as finality does not have any the concept of argot In an essay entitled Improvisation instead neutrality in improvisation. (‘reproduction of capi- objective content and here, even though music ‘Poiesis and Praxis’, brings back the act of Meaning is constantly tal’). The functionality in cannot be formulated as and language work in Giorgio Agamben explains making as the main focus produced and never iso- improvisation works for a proposition referring different registers, for how the terminology of of artistic praxis. lated from its context. the moment in which musi- to a state of things or argot has the aspect of praxis has been modified But praxis understood cians are struggling to to a historical situation. appropriating a language Politics is the exhibition and making it personal through time to eventu- by the Greeks had a find common notions. This It does not concern a of a mediality: it is the (sometimes it is used to ally direct itself towards different connotation to struggle is itself the aim. state but an event of act of making a means do secret trading, or finality. In ancient Greece, pro-duction. Pro-duction It is in trying to find language; it does not work was the lowest in has its limits outside visible as such. Politics obscure business). is the sphere neither of a language within the pertain to this or that rank of the terms: work, itself; praxis is self- Languages are the jargons an end in itself nor of spectacle in which musi- grammar but – so to praxis and poiesis. The contained and reaches cians can, for however speak to – the factum that hide the pure expe- slaves executed work in its limits through action. means subordinated to rience of language just an end; rather, it is the limited a time, stop loquendi as such. order to achieve some- Therefore art is not reproducing ready-made Therefore, this experi- as people are the more thing concrete. We live pro-ductive and it can sphere of a pure mediality or less successful mask without end intended as clichés. By making an ence must be constructed in a time in which this bring itself into presence. argot within brutal and as an experiment con- of the factum plurali- has been inverted, and In improvisation, thought the field of a human tatis. This is why our 16 cold capitalist produc- cerning the matter now any production has thought. task cannot possibly be and action are brought tion, one starts to itself of thought, that an end. either the construction together in an unconsti- Agamben suggests in an leave behind those rules is, the power of thought Agamben continues to tuted praxis. By this of these jargons into essay in his book, The of obedience that were (in Spinozan terms: explain that the Greek I mean a praxis which is grammars or the recodi- Coming Community: Notes produced in musicians. an experiment de potentia understanding of the not exterior to it, but fication of people into on Politics, that praxis Obedience, points of intellectus, sive de liber- making of an artwork did neither is it finally con- states identities. On the and political reflections reference, disappear as tate).17 not include a moment in stituted. It is in need contrary, it is only by operate today exclu- you construct the which the artwork would of other listeners to If we are conscious of breaking at any point sively within the dialec- object, not out of form be finished. Rather the actually obtain an how these systems are the nexus between the tics of proper and but with the awareness artwork would be effect; it needs interac- able to cut off or actu- existence of language, improper, which means that we are embedded process and by itself tion to fulfil its main ally introduce our grammar, people, and inclusion and exclusion. within this system. would come into essence; purpose. This is similar objects of desire, we can state that thought and And if we are able to It would be ridiculous to praxis will be equal to therefore it could not to Agamben’s use of the be able to find how to perform acts which are the tasks at hand. The be directed towards an concept of means without think that we are not produce moments of indifferent to this forms of this interrup- end or a limit. end. determined by it, but resistance to this aim. dialectics (therefore tion – during which the It is important to In improvisation the also to think that by It would be difficult to impossible to be cate- factum of language and acknowledge that the gestures made require default we cannot stop actually aim for a clear gorised and excluded), situation in which you the factum of community making of products (or a response in order for reproducing its negative think everything would come to light for an decisive endings) makes the dialogue to continue. we are able to posit connotations. be fantastic (What hap- instant – are manifold its parameters easy to But as the other play- a politics in which the pens once you achieve and change according to identify and this means ers cannot anticipate a notion of the common acquires its meaning it? You stop?). The situ- times and circumstances: that you are able to concrete response the ARGOT reactivation of a jargon, without being based on ation emerges out of a appropriate the work of gestures give birth to practice, a modus operandi trobar clus, a pure lan- concept of appropriation The age in which we are art (I’ve got it! I the conversation, and you should be aiming at. guage, minoritarian prac- and expropriation. If living, in fact, is also the understand it!). This also from there something Once the capitalist pro- tice of a grammatical improvisation is able to age in which, for the gives consumption develops. But as we men- ducers know what you are language, and so on. a clear-cut meaning. For tioned before, with work outside this dialectic first time, it becomes looking for it is easy for In any case, it is clear the Greeks, making art Cage’s pieces the con- and function as pure possible for humans to it to be dealt with. But that what is at stake was concerned with cre- cept works as an end; mediality then must be experience their own if there is nothing clearly here is not something ation: making something but in improvisation each able to show its political linguistic essence - to positioned, it cannot apply simply linguistic or literary out of nothing. Now we gesture can be as single potential. experience, that is, not recuperative responses but, above all, political can see that praxis concepts, forced to Because of the lack of some language content to it. and philosophical. Pure language for is the musicians who Kunsthalle. At the opening their activity. In fact (one might be in one’s attract an audience to Benjamin is irreducible to make the most out of it. members of farmersmanual they just released a room enjoying an orgy your event. But with the grammar or a particular The marginality of this started a performance DVD in which they docu- and having a break from boat they were able to language. But its purity music functions at two consisting of moving the ment all their perform- it to search out differ- do the opposite: is not that it comes out levels, one which exposes ball. The movement would ances in MP3 format. ent avenues of ecstasy). We could go wherever the idea of the spectacle trigger some loud Contrary to what people Another project of of nothing, it is still the people were [I could and the other, which sounds. The sound was would expect of a DVD theirs which I found language, but not sub- not stop laughing think- poses the question of generated through the of music, farmersmanual interesting, took place jected to particular ing of all these arty- how to live within it and network between farm- reverse our preconcep- at the Venice Biennale in rules. Its indetermination fuckers-object- yet be antagonistic to ersmanual’s computers. tions of its possibilities. 2001. They were invited makes it difficult to observers running away it. This approach had been It might be a product, but a week before they appropriate. from these Viennese- It can just fall into developed when some of but one that challenges were told that there As improvised music is freaks-boaty-noise-mak- a dead end, and we all the members of farmers- one´s notion of con- was no space. Hiaz (the produced by the combi- ers.] nation of the exploration know that it is difficult, manual left Vienna and sumerism. farmersmanual only member of famers- We were able to produce of the instrument if not impossible, to had to find ways to do not come from an manual who considers very loud volumes and against its intended make a child out of keep collaborating improvisation background, himself an artist) went the first people to call purpose and a personal sodomy. But there can together without shar- they are not subjected there and tried to find up the water police were way of responding to be a lot of pleasure in ing the same physical to any of the particular possibilities and spaces the Italian navy marine other musicians, the doing it. space. This led them to methods or ideologies for interaction. school next to the musical language that is explore the possibilities that we mentioned above, As Venice is full of Giardini, because they created serves only the PART III of networks. So they instead they push tech- canals and there was no had the impression that communicability of that started to use networks nologies without restric- space on dry land it some of their gunships moment. It cannot be as a sound source tion, focusing on differ- made sense to do some- had been stolen.19 DIARY FROM (through some programming ent aspects of what one thing on a boat. After exported elsewhere. You in Max/MSP). can do with them. a really intense process can take ideas but you VIENNA Their approach uses To listen to farmersman- of dealing with the owner will also you will also RADU MALFATTI improvisation as an ual as just formal music of the boat (every minute have to contextualise 29.8.03 operative system to dis- is missing its political asking for more money) them; in this way each (TROMBONIST) cover new ways of inter- potential. It is the way FM were able to have element of the music is An exhibition of great acting with technology. it is made which could their huge PA and their there to be activated Including silence in order importance opened It is interesting to see counter the standard- noise networks ready for by the consumer. By this to exclude stagnation, yesterday in Vienna that there is no such ised production of sub- improvisation. I mean that the deci- Radu Malfatti has been (Abstract Art Now at thing as a final stage jectivities. Some of the Here the concept of the sion-making is more concerned with the the Kunsthalle Wien), as of the work. In bringing projects of farmersman- audience and how to prominent in the process problems of style in you can imagine many networks, and communica- ual have included inviting present your work was improvisation. He criti- of the consumption of computers and much tion (which they are strangers to improvise completely challenged. cises those players with this music, as opposed pixellation were present. always working with, file with them through the Venice is a really quiet whom he started to play to in other genres in farmersmanual (all lower sharing and so on) there internet. The situation city (no vehicles) but with in the ‘60s and which each stage of the case, for internet use), is no specific point at becomes special, on the does not have any rules ‘70s for sounding the decision-making process a group of male individuals which you can say you one hand because they for the amount of noise same now as they did at is more clearly defined (transgressing defini- have a representation are using technology to you can make on a boat, that time. If this music and separate (i.e. com- tions, how can you of it. These days their encourage creative sub- so FM were free to push is about constant posing, presenting, get- define them? computer projects exceed what jectivities and on the their energy through renewal, reinvention and ting recognition). This programmers, musicians, the concert venues can other because their the speakers. It created breaking new grounds, music works like an elu- artists, researchers) accommodate. They bring openness invites one to a great deal of confu- you should do it con- sive liquidity in the from Vienna but based their networks, video be a listener, or even sion and some people stantly, not just once. hands of the musical in different cities and usually they perform producer. Its instant thought some weapons He is famous for giving grammar in order to (Berlin... .) have a project for three hours, in character is reinforced or fireworks were being ultra-silent performanc- keep reaching other there which questions which the audience is through the possibility used. During the opening es which many people he people’s ears. aspects of improvisation. not just asked to sit of intervention, you are of the Venice Biennale has played with find too As there is not much A huge metal-ball-struc- down and listen but to not constrained to main- there are so many much to take or boring. interest from a general ture was in one of the actually walk around and tain silence or a socially events and openings What is it about silence audience in this music it big rooms of the look at the work and respectful behaviour that is difficult to in an improvised context , that up to a certain know how to describe it. uneasily, stomachs, saliva, mance, rather than of the situation, point is fine (and at the (I guess here Eddie nervousness their dis- EDDIE PREVOST our most idiosyncratic rehearsing gestures for moment it suits the would bring one stick comfort). The only pos- elements. 40 years, than actually trend) but after a while and hit it; Radu would sibility is to leave the Criticising Radu’s approach There is a contradiction, questioning the whole people cannot cope with do nothing or breathe room, which obviously will to improvisation, in Wire then, when he criticises way the music is made it? and wait). I shall try to become a statement. issue 231, May 2003, others for sampling his (its cause and response) Do they find themselves explain what it is that What fascinates me Eddie Prévost said: ‘If sounds. and its structures. being cheated? (You can affects me about Radu’s about Radu is his radi- Radu Malfatti is the Pope He sees the music as It is true that Radu listen to silence at any playing. One aspect is calism (as in the second of the New Orthodoxy, hermetic. How can you Malfatti is the precur- time, I do not need to that he is pushing the definition that comes Keith Rowe is Christ.’ see this music as her- sor of a way of playing pay for that!). limits of minimalism (and out the dictionary of Prévost, as we mentioned metic when what it does which has inspired many The questions that this here it’s not a matter the word processor I am before, has been making is to appreciate the musicians, but it is also inclusion of silence raises of discussing John using to write this this kind of music for context it is made in? true that he is the one for me are: virtuosity Cage’s 4”33” as Radu text: ‘far-reaching, a long time. In fact he As Cage already proved, that takes the situation gets reduced as not comes from a different searching or thorough- could be considered part there is no silence, and the furthest. Other everybody can be angle). He is still inter- going’. Let me also give of a particular way of as I mention above musi- musicians in Vienna appre- active, the audience is ested in playing, but you the third definition: dealing with improvisa- cians in improvisation ciate very much his work more exposed and by also in extending the ‘favouring or making tion are able to appreciate and his attitude default more included fragile moment of noth- economical, political, or (temporally expansive, as and integrate aspects towards risk, but they within the performance, ingness with what the social changes of a opposed to the fast outside of the music do not easily get into the same goes for the context does. What sweeping or extreme playing of free jazz). production. I feel that it (it might become boring space and its acoustic happens in between is nature’). The fragile In consolidating this way in Eddie’s response if you listen to it 15 qualities. Everything listened to and appreci- moment of encountering of playing, perhaps there is a certain fear times). becomes fragile and ated, actually very close difference (and being intentionally, he is put- that his approach might Perhaps I have not lis- exposed. One criticism to real time field involved in producing it ting himself at the top be overcome by a per- tened to him that many that is levelled at this recordings. For example, with other musicians): of the hierarchies of haps more concise, dif- times, but the impres- music is that it is dog- Dach, a CD documenting a this is improvisation. But this way of playing (and ferent mode of listening sion that I have listen- matic (almost exclusive). performance by a trio in obviously not everybody defining improvisation – to and creating sounds. ing/not listening to him The work of Radu is the which Radu was involved: is trying to achieve the as the movement of He criticises this music is that it makes me opposite of the work of at the beginning it was same differences (some which he has been a question: Why activity? for being formal, but he Hiaz. Radu is concerned raining and you can hear are not even trying to pioneer of). In his criti- It is not silence for its comments on Keith with his own interests, the raindrops more achieve anything except cism of Radu Malfatti, own sake, it is an Rowe’s playing at the taste and history. Radu prominently than the filling their pockets and he suggests that understanding of the beginning of the article: believes in the idea of playing. What you get is their big tanks of ego silence must come out placement of the sounds constant self-renewal the context eating into, with the constant presen- of a catharsis, and Essentially what Keith and how they can pro- but this is different or actually taking over, tation of the one differ- that therefore there is (Rowe) does now is not duce tension and effect. from the idea of self- the ego of the players. ence that they have no possibility of inter- that far away from Unfortunately I could invention that Prévost Democracy suddenly achieved in their lives as action with other musi- what he did in 1966. not go, but Klaus Filip talks about. Radu is enters into the per- musicians). Here is where cians. What’s changed? The organised ‘chess & more interested in what formance situation dur- Radu does not fit, since For me the problem is world of music. music’ at the Rihz in is actually being pro- ing Radu’s ‘silences’ in what he has achieved this: How can you put And even if Keith Rowe’s Vienna and apparently duced rather than how the sense that every- with his constant ‘limiters’ upon a music radical approach stays the concert featuring it is produced (as body is at the same renewal is a very unmar- that calls itself free up to date, his way of Taku Sugimoto (Japanese Prévost or Hiaz would level of sound produc- ketable music (I am actu- improvisation? interaction has not quiet guitarist) and be). It is not a matter tion (the performer/ ally going to record with As we mentioned above, developed. How long can Radu was an amazing of making a product (as audience division disap- him in a proper studio, Eddie demands for an his Unorthodoxy and disintegration between he would be one of the pears momentarily), but which means money, and awareness of the socio- Radicalism last? the sounds of the few consuming it) but it is apparent that the what if he does not political implications of I think there is more clocks and the pieces rather, a question of, audience do not want play more in total that this music. But the way hermeticism present in moving and their as musicians, putting to deal with this (during 5 minutes in the period in which he is asking us the gesture of trying sounds’ implementation. oneself in a situation in the long silences that of 3 hours?). to do this is by trying to cover over the situ- It seems to me that in which you feel something Radu performs one to bring common denomi- ation, not opening up or Prévost’s work there is is happening but do not hears people squeaking CRITICISM BY nators to the perfor- getting the most out certain fear to be noticed or heard, my about sampling, Eddie heard about ‘open NOTES 12 Moira Gatens, ‘Through problem is this might criticises the idea of source’, but then he 1 In fact the first AMM record, a Spinozist Lens: Ethology, become an end in which processing or taking his really is missing a way in AMMMusic, was released by the Difference, Power’ in Paul Patton the music is contingent sounds from elsewhere. which information can be major label Elektra. (Ed.), Deleuze: A Critical Reader, on this. Or more prob- As if his sounds were treated. As he said, Oxford: Blackwall, 1997. p.166. lematically, that this the only ones put at with technology things 2 Plato, The Republic Book IV. music challenges the the right place at the get more mediated and 3 Cornelius Cardew, Stockhausen 13 Giorgio Agamben, Etat notions of what Prévost right moment, as if his we have two choices Serves Imperialism, London: d’Exception, Paris: Seuil, 2002. has been writing about sounds have character- here; we take the most Latimer New Dimensions, 1974. p.8. p.103. for so long. What is istics only applicable to out it, or we can react 4 A couple of years ago there 14 Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: contemporary about his hands and his long like John Zerzan: believe was a memorial concert for Practical Philosophy, San Radu’s approach is his history. It’s a long time in primitivism (and if we Francisco: City Lights Books, attentiveness to what now since the idea of live prior to language, Cardew (he was run over by a Eddie actually finds dull the author has been all the better). But Eddie car in 1979) at the Conway Hall 1988. p.119. sound (which in doing so dissolved into the text. is not really making a in Holborn. AMM played alongside 15 Étienne Balibar, Spinoza and exposes his hierarchies His recreation of decision that matches the revolutionary popular song- Politics, London: Verso, 1998. p.96. of sounds developed sounds might have been his original approach: writers. It was surprising to me 16 Giorgio Agamben, Means with- through the years): done with the idea of full of self-invention. that while AMM received from the out Ends, Minneapolis: University attention to that which self-inventiveness. Which as Radu suggested of Minnesota Press, 1996. p.116. usually goes unper- Nothing wrong in being actually should be self- audience an average response, ceived or thrown away. creative but what is inventions (and not be the popular songs produced so 17 Ibid., p.115. Radu brings another level ridiculous these days so profoundly frozen much euphoria (here I perhaps 18 Ibid., p.70. of radicalism to this is to try to preserve by the first one). should mention that I was prob- 19 Hiaz, in a talk ‘see with your music which Eddie is not oneself and one’s work Again another problem: ably the youngest person in the ears and listen with your eyes’, interested in. But we from use and transfor- his beautiful wine barrel, space and may people were close as part of a sound workshop should not think that mation by others. It is which he uses very to half of a century old). For me held at the center for contem- the amount of action all right for Eddie to interestingly, but there porary art (cca) Kitakyushu and its volume level produce sounds that is an aspect of this the popular songs sounded so restrains its respon- provoke thoughts and which again shows his dated and stank of nostalgia (Japan). 29th July – August 3th sibility. It can very reactions and events, fear of attention to while AMM somehow retained some 2002. Published in Substantials, easily be the contrary; even better if he pro- the context, the little contemporaneity. Kitakyushu: CCA, 2003. allowing more space to duces conversations motor which rotates a 5 Edwin Prévost, No Sound Is uncover that which is a about the sounds (how piece of plastic which Innocent, Essex: Copula Press, gesture (by this I mean beautiful it was!), but hits the barrel. The an already rehearsed what is not fine is to motor might be wound 1995. p.103. one) or actually a fragile actually make music with by him but obviously its 6 Alain Badiou, Ethics, An Essay moment of praxis in them. The placement and hitting is not done by on the Understanding of Evil, which you throw your- the use of them for him, is this as far as New York: Verso, 2000. p.23. selves and your past in sure are going to be his understanding of 7 Edwin Prévost, No Sound is order to get somewhere different to the ones the technological changes Innocent, p.115. you have not been, that Eddie gives, it is of time can go? 8 Derek Bailey, Improvisation, somewhere where you here, then, that Eddie have to respond differ- exposes his love of New York: Da Capo Press, ently to what you are form and his fetish for 1993. p.111. accustomed to. his own sounds. His ego 9 Edwin Prévost, No Sound is I have been playing trip about the music: Innocent, p.9. quite a lot with Eddie not everybody can do 10 Howard Slater, ‘Stammer and I respect him for this music if you do not Language’, available: his music, thoughts and have your sounds; you generosity but this are not allowed to borrow www.metamute.org/en/stammer_ language does not let him off from Eddie’s improvisa- 11 Bruce Russell, ‘Free Noise from my criticism. In his tional ethos. I am not Manifesto’, available at: Mute magazine article really sure if Eddie has www.corpushermeticum.com of the multitude can be easily It is a mistake, to understand the same time questioning how THE MULTITUDE IS recovered and used to serve this mass intellectuality as a set these desires are produced. It is certain interests: fitted into of functions: Computer technician, important to open new fissures in A HINDRANCE* political strategies or into trendy researchers, employees of the the conventional ways of playing, theoretical concepts. By trying cultural industry, etc... . By this finding new allies in this quest. In NOTE: to give maximum visibility to its expression we called them a quality this way, improvised music is capa- Originally published in Spanish with actions, the multitude can arrive and a distinctive sign of the full ble of opening different communi- Bruce Russell’s CD Los Desastres at a loss of control over its own power of social work of the post- cation possibilities where the de las Guerras on w.m.o/r. Bruce self-representation. But here we Fordist era, this means: The time important thing is not to reach recorded his guitar solos on the 13th are playing the game of the mass when information and communication agreements or produce finished of March 2004 in Christchurch, media, where, again, the constancy plays a role essential in every songs. Improvisation is not about New Zealand. In Spain that same day loses any effect. withdrawal of the production communication in the sense that there were very big demonstrations The multitude, being used by others process; in a few words: The time one is not trying to understand against the conservative party. to obtain an identity not desired in which language has been put to each other through the lowest by it; and here is where the work, in which it has become wage common denominators, but rather In late April 2004, Antonio Negri problem lies, in the inability of labour – ‘Freedom of language’ it is about exploring expression this multitude to take responsi- came to Madrid and spoke with a today means nothing more nor less in extreme and unique ways while lot of enthusiasm about 13-M1 as bility for its acts, to take the than the abolition of wage labour. realising the fragility and precari- a ‘Madrid Commune’, a clear example reins of its actions. ousness in our established modes of the concept of the ‘multitude’ The concept of the multitude is So, how can we find the freedom of of understanding each other. in action, a set of singularities giving way to a more constant language? This means that, as opposed to gathered at a crucial moment shape with characteristics with Improvised music is a quest for the multitude, one cannot be sub- without having to comply with any which many people today can iden- this freedom, because it’s practice sumed under established struc- acronym, party or specific identity. tify, which is the condition of the constantly moves around a lan- tures of communication such as This situation shows how easily precarious. If the ambivalence of guage that cannot be established, the 13th March example. the multitude can be redirected the multitude was less defined solidified or institutionalised. The key is changing the material for some particular purposes or and more fluid, the ambivalence of The concerts’ ephemeral nature, and conditions of the situation, of interests (in the case of 13-M, the precarious subject is her at the same time the necessity of the instruments that you are as a political strategy strongly life’s condition. In one moment of the presence of others (to play using, those marginalised and directed by the PRISA (Spanish time we are working and in the with and as an audience), can be sterilised by manufacturers of Media conglomerate who own El next we are trying to break the put into relation with the activity instruments and musicians who do Pais, and Cadena Ser Radio) who production line. This only leads one of political ‘actors’. not focus their business on giving were countering the PP’s informa- to think in a schizophrenic way: The performing arts, which do not free rein to their desires but tion, and in doing this they knowing that however forcefully lead to the creation of any fin- fulfil a function in the cultural directed votes towards the leader- you are resisting today, you can’t ished work, have indeed a strong assembly industry. ship of a particular political forget that one day, one month, or affinity with politics. Performing party, the PSOE. Yes, in these a year later you will return to In improvisation, it is the desire artists – dancers, play-actors, to counter the normalisation demonstrations there were lots work. musicians, and the like – need an of people and perhaps many ideas, How can you express your unique- process that moves the players, audience to show their virtuosity, the desire to ‘skip the rules’ as but without sufficient imagination ness in the most singular way whilst just as acting men need the pres- to make it capable of anything being in communication with others? Bruce Russell puts it. We have a ence of others before whom they dissatisfaction for what we have beyond conventional expressions. In the Appendix to the Spanish can appear; both need a publicly edition of the book A Grammar of in front of us and we want to act The ambivalence of the multitude, organised space for their ‘work’, the Multitude, Paolo Virno dis- with whatever means we have. as dangerous as it is powerful, and both depend upon others for can lead us to moments of fierce cusses how language has become These desires might have been the performance itself.2 resistance and also to the most the backbone of work, a tool of instilled by knowledge structures, reactionary conformism. By its work itself: This is why it is necessary to find but in the process of going against nature, the multitude finds itself new forms of language. In the case the grain of the instrument and confronted by problems of the In the contemporary work pro- of improvised music, experimenta- how it has been conceived, the sit- creation of constancy, this also cesses there are constellations full tion with your instrument and the uation and how it has been pro- goes against its way of being, of concepts that work by them- situation that you are in, reaches duced, and our position within it, because underpinning such a con- selves as productive ‘machines’, areas where previously stipulated established power structures can stancy would be the definition without a mechanical body, not rules are broken, gives way to the be left behind. New ones might of an identity. As we said, the power even a little electronic soul. seizure of your desires while at emerge but our perceptions are more acute more alert, and more sensitive so we might be able to GOING FRAGILE themselves in the face of the internalised deal with them quicker – without structures of judgement that govern our establishing spontaneity we can appreciation of music. These I would call nevertheless accelerate towards fragile moments. a constant notion of ‘politics by NOTE: During the summer of 2003 I had the the second’. This would be a politics in which First published in the book, Ulrike Müller opportunity to spend time in Vienna at every moment everything is at (Ed.), Work the Room: a handbook of researching the political connotations of stake and we are without fear of performance strategies, Berlin: b_books, improvised music. Not that I found a collapse, nor concerned with the 2006, as part of the CD, Going Fragile, direct relationship, but through conversa- safeguarding of secrets or tricks. by Mattin & Radu Malfatti published by tions, going to concerts and playing with NOTES Formed Records in San Francisco, 2006 other musicians, I became aware of some *‘La Multitudes son un estorbo’, and in the book, Anthony Iles & Mattin of the potentials and limitations that this is the Spanish title of a song (Eds.), Noise & Capitalism, San Sebastián: improvisation has in terms of political by Eskorbuto, a classic punk band Arteleku, 2009. agency within the space of music production. from Santurce, a workers’ area of For this text, I draw from the conversa- the suburbs of Bilbao. Of course it is not easy to get out of tions I had with the trombonist Radu your own material, and it can be painful; Malfatti as part of my research. While 1 Two days after the bomb attacks on the there is an insecurity aspect to it. This trains in Madrid (11 March 2004) many peo- Malfatti’s roots are in the chaotic-sound- actually is probably the most experimen- ple went into the streets of Madrid to ing improvised free jazz of the 1970s, he tal level. When do you think real innova- protest against the PP’s (Partido Popular, is currently more focused on ultra quiet tion and experimentation are happening? conservative party) media manipulation – and sparse playing. His approach to per- Probably when people are insecure, prob- declaring the Madrid attacks as being carried formance runs against the stagnation ably when people are in a situation very out by ETA rather than al-Qaeda. After a that might occur in sustained improvisa- campaign against ETA which helped them win new to them and when they are a bit tion. In his quest to avoid stagnation, a lot of conservative support, the PP dis- uncertain and afraid. That is where people Malfatti looks for those insecure situa- tracted public attention from the possibility have to push themselves. People are inno- tions that I mention above – situations that the bombs were direct retribitution vative when they are outside of their that can call into question the dominant for going to war in Iraq. It was a very warm shit, outside of the familiar and structures of music appreciation. intense weekend as the national elections comfortable I don’t know exactly what I How could you anticipate what you might were held on the 14th of March. want, but I do know exactly what I do not 2 Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: achieve if you do not know what you will want. – Conversation with Radu Malfatti eight exercises in political thought, New York: find on the way? To be open, receptive Penguin, 1968. Improvised music forces situations into and exposed to the dangers of making play where musicians push each other improvised music, means exposing your- into bringing different perspectives to self to unwanted situations that could their playing. Improvised music is not break the foundations of your own secu- progressive in itself, but it invites con- rity. As a player you will bring yourself stant experimentation. When players feel into situations that ask for total demand. too secure about their approaches, the No vision of what could happen is able to experimentation risks turning into bring light to that precise moment. Once Mannerism. What I would like to explore you are out, there is no way back; you here are the moments in which players cannot regret what you have done. You leave behind a safe zone and expose must engage in questioning your security, see it as a constriction. You are aware When Radu Malfatti talks about the breaks but it is up to the players to tear them and scared, as if you were in a dark cor- that some musicians have made from apart in order to find a way in. ridor. Now you are starting to realise that musical orthodoxy, he looks at the ways Opening new fields of permissibility means what you thought of as walls existed only that they have dealt with these breaks. to go fragile until we destroy the fears in your imagination. Some seek to consolidate or re-metabolise that hold us back. While your senses alert you to danger, the fragile moments they have encoun- you are also going to use them to deal tered; others simply return to the safety We are not talking here about changing with it. Keep going forward toward what of their previous practices. Only very few the labour conditions of a majority of you do not know, to what is questioning manage to keep searching for fragility; people, but, having an awareness that your knowledge and your use of it. Keep it requires musicians to make multiple culture, creativity and communication are pushing yourself, knowing that the other breaks from their own traditions. It’s easier becoming the tools of the ‘factory without players will be pushing you, replacing to develop coherence within one’s walls’, we need to be suspicious of ways traces of comfort. This is an unreliable practice: there is a fine line between in which cultural practices can be exploited moment, to which no stable definition can being persistent in pursuing a particular by capital. Because of this we must con- be applied. It is subject to all the particu- line of research, and getting comfortable stantly question our motives, our modus larities brought to this moment. The more within one’s methods. operandi and its relation to the conditions sensitive you are to them, the more you When something new happens, people do that we are embedded in, to avoid recu- can work with (or against) them. You are not like it. It’s as simple as that. There is peration by a system that is going to breaking away from previous restrictions nothing I can do about it. – Radu Malfatti produce ideological walls for us. To be that you have become attached to, creat- antagonistic to these conditions means ing a unique social space, a space that When something different and hard to danger and insecurity. To go through cannot be transported elsewhere. Now you place appears within the dichotomy of the them will mean commitment and an ele- are building different forms of collabora- new and the old of mainstream values, ment of what Benjamin described as the tion, scrapping previous modes of gener- attention cannot easily be drawn to it. ‘Destructive Character’: ating relations. While nobody might recognise the impor- tance of what you have done, you need The destructive character has the con- Something is happening here, but what is it? to keep your confidence. It is difficult to sciousness of historical man, whose deepest It is hard to say, but certainly there is be alone in working toward something emotion is an insuperable mistrust of the intensity to it. These moments are almost and yet not know where it will take you; course of things and a readiness at all impossible to articulate; they refuse something which threatens to destroy your times to recognize that everything can go pigeonholing, and evade easy representation. artistic trajectory, which you have worked wrong. Therefore the destructive character We are forced to question the material so hard to build up. Of course when one is reliability itself. The destructive character and social conditions that constitute the uses music, not as a tool for achieving sees nothing permanent. But for this very improvised moment – structures that usu- something else (recognition, status), but reason he sees ways everywhere. Where ally validate improvisation as an estab- in a more aggressively creative way, it is others encounter walls or mountains, lished musical genre. Otherwise we risk going to produce alienation. But what do there, too, he sees a way. But because he fetishising ‘the moment’ and avoid its you want to do as an improvised musician? sees a way everywhere, he has to clear implications. Work toward the lowest common denomi- things from it everywhere. Not always by When we talk about stagnation and pro- nator, making music which more people brute force; sometimes by the most gression there is just one instrument to can relate to? refined. No moment can know what the help us explain what we mean, and this Improvised music has the potential to disrupt next will bring. – Walter Benjamin, is time, history. - Radu Malfatti previous modes of musical production, ‘The Destructive Character’, 1931. was at the peak of its decadence. Leisure activities and so-called The way the local part of their BECOMING BILBAO The industrial city had once driven ‘cultural industries’ become most work is used is transposed to the the Basque economy; now people relevant in regenerating urban perspective of contemporary art. NOTE: were struggling to keep their centres. The distinction between As Jon Mikel Euba says to Peio First published under the name jobs. The city was marginal, people ‘art’, communication, ‘culture’, and Aguirre: 2 Paulus Snyder, MEM codex 2002. were emigrating and there was an ‘entertainment’ disappears. The American system of production Later the text was included in strong counter culture (strikes, If we use the metaphor of the of images is imposing a landscape Spanish in the book I edited Bilbao demonstrations, Punk rock, city as a text, we can see clearly onto the world, I try to do the Acabado: cultural practices or gaztetxes…). how Bilbao is becoming another same with a context that I know gentrification. Published by w.m.o/r This counter culture is now being example of a post-industrial city well and that I think is not com- in February 2005. recuperated by some of the city’s that makes many references to pletely exploited in an iconic way.3 young artists. This can lead to postmodernism. Are these refer- Becoming Bilbao is just what formerly subversive forms being ences formulated in a certain way Another aspect that Peio Aguirre declining cities wish for. Today’s stripped of their meaning. This is or is there a different way in draws upon is that the art that Bilbao is held up as an example of something that postmodernism has which Bilbao is becoming a post- is practised now in the Basque miraculous regeneration. In the been characterised by, but we industrial city, as opposed to, for country is not positioned on one Basque country now, art institu- should be careful not to fall into example, Birmingham? As Richard side or another with regards to tions are growing like mushrooms naivety. These artists’ works seem Peet says when we read the city the problem of Basque sovereignty; (Vitoria Artium, Bilbao Guggenheim…). to fall into what Frederic Jameson as a text we fall into an idealist it is supposedly not ideologically How is this regeneration influencing critiques as postmodernism, what interpretation that is detached political, but from my point of view contemporary art from Bilbao? he calls pastiche: history and past from the physical reality of things. it is dogmatic in its use of decon- Before the regeneration, when my events are flattened out and If Basque artists are taking ref- struction. The only uniqueness friends – foreigners to Bilbao – become an accumulation of emptied erences from the past in order to that we find here are the signs used to go to its old part, the out stylisations that can easily be put them into their own narratives (or subjects) that are being strongest memory that they would commodified and consumed without (here again we have to assess how played with and recontextualised. bring back home, would be the smell any struggle. The capitalist logic unique their own narratives are), How can artistic practice become of piss on the streets. Now that wins. how can they be subversive? The ‘minor’ if there is a certain para- has changed and tourists enjoy What happens if these forms are material or language that they are noia about being read as political; the polish and cleanliness that one used in a systematic way, knowing using is in a way fictitious. What I and an equal anxiety about being can find in other European cities. already the tricks that contempo- mean is that the aesthetic aspect closed-off to the debate within This is partly the result of the rary art uses while recuperating of the sign is never going to be the Basque Country? It seems Ria 2000 project of urban regen- Basque conflictual history? able to be recharged with the that even those artists that get eration in the city. Bilbao, a post- How could you distinguish unique same amount of agitation as it was close to the heat of the debate modern city, might well have been approaches from such familiar for the first time. With historical are still scared of getting burnt; created by the government’s strategies? hindsight we can see past events always returning to postmodernism desire to profit from the sense Work that would once have been as naïve, but at least they were to cool them down when they get of renewal swept in with the new presented in alternative spaces politically engaged; to reuse them too hot. It seems that they want millennium. such as gaztetxes (squatted cul- now, stripped of their context, is to evade the Basque cliché, but in History is a process of decay and tural centres) now has the chance a retreat from commitment. doing so they become unable to ruin – this is the quintessential to be presented in one of the Now, inevitably detached from the directly address the subject, perspective that emerges from multiple institutions. For example socio-cultural context in which always moving on the periphery of Bilbao’s fin-de-millennium. Were it Iñaki Garmendia has made a video these events took place, we are meaning without dealing with physical not for the spectacular ruins called Rock Radical Vasco in which not able to go back to the roots realities or social possibilities. of its metropolitan area of about he shows some young people of the city in order to apply an As Txomin Badiola puts it: a million people, Bilbao would be rehearsing in a punk rock bar, alternative practise in the light If there is something that char- a typical European provincial city this can bring the idea of young of its regeneration. And now that acterised these practices, it is that exudes bourgeois life style. people generating alternative, the Basque government is taking their ambiguity. I would like to But it is the aesthetics of self-sufficient culture, but this is Bilbao in to the future by importing understand this aspect in its the ‘tough city’ that sets Bilbao not the case when this video is postmodern practices from other more radical and transformative apart.1 seen (as I saw it) in a pre-selection places, the artist is required [sense], taking away from what it In the 1980’s in Bilbao there was stand for the Gure Artea Exhibition to respond to this by bringing a could be [as an] act of hiding but not a consciousness of being a (the equivalent of a Young British foreign perspective in order to the contrary: in [proposing this tough city; it just was. The city Artist prize). create new relationships or criteria. ambiguity as] the act of revelation.4 What is this positive view of the strategies; it is the establishment. This might well be the reason why Basque artists’ practice trying to The city planners and the gallery Basque artists don’t throw them- show us? That we know our position owners are happy to have a bit of selves completely into ‘becoming within the times in which we are this rough aesthetic to promote political’, they are afraid of being living? That we are able to deal a city in conflict while remaining read as part of the side that is culturally at the level of western critically detached from these always present in the Basque art discourse, and even add an conflicts. This way, the government everyday life, of becoming vulgar. exciting local factor in order to does not even need to translate sell ourselves through our exoticism? the work for export. They show We get caught between a rock and But what does this change in l ocal a need for Basque culture to be a hard place, which is not neces- terms? Is this locality exposed exported to Europe as character sarily a difficult situation; but it just to be seen through global istic of its origin without digging is important to escape from the eyes? In transporting this local in the places where it hurts. institutional landscape, otherwise factor into the deterritorialised It is a question of becoming that you are being absorbed into the language of contemporary art we includes the maximum of difference Basque government’s export of are forgetting the local; we are as a difference of intensity, the contemporary Basque culture. leaving it aside. As Deleuze says, in crossing of a barrier, a rising or order to become minor you should a falling, a bending or an erecting, NOTES refuse the major language (its an accent on the word.5 1 Joseba Zulaika ‘Postindustrial Bilbao: imperative expression). The reinvention of a new city’, in Basque In a way we can say that these The art produced in the Basque Cultural Studies Program Newsletter, no 57 country is neither refusing nor contemporary Basque artistic April.1998. questioning the current trends in practices are minor within the contemporary art practices, it is major language of contemporary 2 Joseba Zulaika, Ibid. just making a subtle dialect out art practice, but I think there is 3 Peio Aguirre, ‘Basque Report’, available at of it, which is not of practical or not an awareness of ‘becoming www.artszin.net/basque_report.html intellectual use in the everyday minor’. Rather, there is the demand 4 Peio Aguirre, ibid. that exists for the juicy sub- life of the Basques. There is 5 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, ‘What is jects of minority cultures and skepticism about trying to draw a Minor Literature’, in Kafka: Towards a Minor terrorism to be included in the critique into everyday debate, as Literature, Minnesota: University of it is always filtered through the art institution. Here we can reverse the question: Minnesota Press, 1986. p. 20. institution. could this artist do something What happens here is that the else, produce artefacts whose counter-culture does not function origin cannot be traced? at all levels, when it is always What I am arguing here is that alternating between the under- ‘Basqueness’ is inscribed without ground and the institution in the possibility to escape totally order to avoid sinking into norma- from it – partly because its tivity or anonymity. Could it be Basqueness is profitable, and possible to produce what Deleuze partly because it is impossible to defines as ‘becoming’? These become completely detached from artists cannot become ‘strangers Basque identity. in their own language’ simply So, how can this be judged from because they are trying to adapt a political perspective? One of the to the predominant strategies of most important things in becoming contemporary art. The minor ele- minor is to always be political. ments of Basque social conflicts In the Basque Country there is are used in their work and a strong movement of resistance exported to a contemporary art in politics, actions, demos, talks... . audience hungry for material to They are taking place all the time, feed the discourses around identity usually just on the left. politics. However it is not them- This is something that you can selves who are producing these easily get saturated in. The variety of approaches are broad: from Alex Mendizabal’s constant questioning of what music is; and THE RE-ANIMATED CORPSE OF BASQUE CULTURE Arakis’ personal questioning of gender (apart from making electronic music, s/he is an international renowned curator dealing with feminism and queer theory); to the industrial soundscapes of Tzesne and his young and very enthusiastic friend Oier Iruretagoiena (who, apart from being a musician runs the Webzine NOTE: Sototik, a radio programme and a Net label) is mind blowing. Other examples of the Basque multitude are Originally published in The Wire issue 276, February 2007 as part of the Global Ear section. Pilar Baizan, characterised by her double life as Miss Toll (Electroclash) and Baseline (old school power electronics); the classically-trained cellist Maite Arroitajauregi; ‘el palo’ (‘the stick’) player Iñigo Telletxea; Ondamendia (‘catastrophe’ in Basque) is a recent work by the multidisciplinary artist Oier Etxeberria Löty Negarti and his pranks and anti-virtuosism (he also runs Hamaika, the most refreshing noise and Improv questioning the general health of Basque culture. Ondamendia is a collection of parodies of Basque iconic label that I have encountered recently); the broken glamour of Baba Llaga, and the surprising re-birth of images in the format of postcards accompanied by a 20 minute-long 3” CD of concrète music called C14. Cancer Moon singer Josetxo Anitua as the beast of improvisation in Josetxo Grieta. The name comes from carbon 14, a radioactive isotope of carbon that is used to measure the age of an object in archaeological research. The title is also an ironic reference to the ancestry of Basque culture It is not by chance that so many musicians are emerging from the Basque Country right now. For several (Euskara, the Basque language, is the oldest living language in Europe). C14 combines fragments of typical years a handful of committed people have worked hard to develop a fertile ground for experimentation. Basque folk sounds made by txistularis (flute players), bertsolaris (poetry improvisers) and some classic Xabier Erkizia of Audiolab is not only one of the most talented musicians that I have ever met, but also an songwriters from the Basque Country such as Mikel Laboa and Benito Lertxundi. These fragments are activator, someone who is constantly injecting questions and developing projects where the participants sometimes processed and mixed with other sounds more related to contemporary life such as advertise- have to take an active role. At Arteleku, he has developed Audiolab, a laboratory for the development of ments and cash machines. Running alongside this is an underlying narrative of an autopsy performed on experimental music via workshops, talks, presentations and concerts. It is also a studio where people are a body. ‘It seems dead’, you hear the doctors comment, ‘but sometimes it seems to re-animate.’ welcome to explore the universe of sound. Another project that Erkizia is part of, together with Dimitris Kariofilis, is [UN]COMMON SOUNDS, a theoretical and practical research into the international experimental According to Etxeberria, this pseudo-zombie is a metaphor for the actual status of Basque culture. music community. Kariofilis has also recently released a CD of tracks by young Basque artists on his label In an informal conversation at the end of last year he commented: ‘Because the Basque culture is such Antifrost. a minority, it really needs to rely strongly on itself. Unfortunately, this means that it often lacks criticism.’ As many readers will be aware, the Basque Country has particular sociopolitical problems stemming from And then there is the Ertz collective. Founded by Erkizia in 2000, it has organised a festival in the small the impossibility of being able to decide whether or not to be a sovereign nation due to its geopolitical loca- but beautiful town of Bera for the last seven years. Thanks to Ertz and the Musica Ex Machina (MEM) festival tion across northern Spain and southwestern France. in Bilbao, people have been able to see performances by many of the most interesting current international artists. While Ertz is mainly concerned with sound art, MEM is trying to bring back the image of Bilbao as an These problems are often misused by the media to serve the agenda of different political parties which, industrial city in cultural terms and focusing on the rougher side of things as it presents international to varying extents, emphasise cultural authenticity as the unalloyed voice of the people. Understandably, noise artists alongside emerging local talent. MEM has helped to invigorate the city’s underground culture musicians in this part of the world are therefore reluctant to be over-simplified in such a way. At the govern- through organising noise concerts in different venues such as a sixth-floor metal workshop in the neigh- mental institutions run by the PNV (the Basque Nationalist Party, which has been in power for the last 25 bourhood of San Francisco and at Bilborock, a church dedicated to the preaching of rock ‘n’ roll. Another years), the purity of the Basque folk tradition and its historical construction remains unquestioned. However, interesting place is the Matadero of Azkoitia, a squatted ex-slaughter house that has been organising works such as C14 bring new possibilities of dealing with one’s own heritage. Humour, imagination and concerts for many years. This is also the territory of the legendary cult band Akauzazte, an obsessed, conceptual rigour make this work an interesting platform for discussion about the notion of Basqueness. dense and obscure experimental rock band singing in Basque who, on a good day, can beat any other such act, even though they are not so well known outside the Basque Country. Furthermore, Akauzazte, Tzesne Last summer, a meeting called MRB | AMM was organised at Arteleku, a contemporary art centre in Donostia/ and the Ertz collective have just started a new DIY distributor and Net based shop called Arto Artian, where San Sebastián, by Audiolab and myself where people involved with experimental music had the opportunity you will be able to find the works from many of these talented and challenging artists. So even if former to spend three days talking about what we are doing and how it relates to such a specific context. Among Akauzazte member Oier Etxeberria thinks that Basque culture needs some serious revitalisation, it seems many discussions, one about the problems of generating a scene stood out: how to avoid generalisations, obvious to me that it is already getting some potent electric shocks in the form of experimental music. simplifications and the dichotomy of who’s in and who isn’t. This is something that we really know in the Basque Country as we are often forced to define ourselves either as Basque or Spanish. Contrary to this, if Ondamendia and many works by the mentioned artists are available at www.artoartian.org there is something characteristic about the musicians now working in the Basque Country, it is their diversity. Further information: www.ertza.net; www.musicaexmachina.com mental point of view; situations scraps over territory and access, Improvisation and squatting share IMPROVISING that help us to develop new the same scission between every- an attitude when it becomes the strategies. day life and political activity, the time to question conventional ways GAZTETXES same identity paranoia. In addition, of inhabiting places or the for the luckiest, the luxury of relationship between instrument By Mattin & Loty Negarti There is no future (R.I.P.)* fleeing periodically from their local and/or places. In gaztetxes there poverty by introducing it some- used to be more freedom of Squat the present (A.V.C.)** NOTE: where else, where it is still exotic. behaviour in terms of sexuality, Distributed in the Summer of 2009 We do not impute these weaknesses morality, political thought, etc. as a flyer for a series of inter- to the squat form. We neither Squatting is the strengthening ventions in Gaztetxes (squatted In this constellation of occupied deny nor desert it. We say that of present time in overdetermined cultural centres in the Basque spaces in which, despite its limits, squatting will only make sense places, an improvisation with our region). First written in Spanish. it is possible to experiment with again for us provided that we bodies in which the future is forms of collective aggregation clarify the basis of the sharing we always uncertain and unstable and outside of control, we have known enter into. In the squat like any- what joins us together is the In what way does improvisation an increase of power. We have where else, the collective creation responsibility of the moment, the need to learn from squatting to organised ourselves for elemen- of a strategy is the only alterna- here and now. create and live in the most auto- tary survival – skipping, theft, tive to falling back on an identity, nomous and free social collective work, common meals, either through integration into environment? sharing of skills, of equipment, of society or withdrawing into the In Euskal Herria there is a very loving inclinations – and we have ghetto. – L’Appel (Call) strong tradition of squatting and found forms of political expression self-management with social aims – How can being squatted by impro- - concerts, leaflets, demos, direct the gaztetxes. In the history of vised music affect the organisa- actions, sabotage. Then, little by What kind of relationships can be the gaztetxes movement there was tion of gaztetxes? little, we have seen our surrounds established between squatting and always a strong connection with turn into a milieu and from a milieu improvised music? In squats there punk, a tradition that still exists into a scene. We have seen the is a tendency to generate self- today. Punk gave a strengthening, What would happen if squatters enactment of a moral code replace determination and self-management. bravery and bad temper to these began to play improvised music and the working out of a strategy. We When playing improvisation there is first kicks when squatters began improvising musicians began to take have seen norms solidify, reputations an intention of playing instruments to open spaces. Punk was much steps towards self-management? built, ideas begin to function, and in a strongly personal way, rejecting more than only music: it was a everything become so predictable. the obligation of its history and social scene that included differ- The collective adventure has trying to establish a self-determined ent aspects like radio stations, How can we violate the roles and turned into a dull cohabitation. kind of music and a relationship pamphlets, music, literature, politics, identities that are adopted and A hostile tolerance has grasped all between musicians. So it is possible etc. ... but the strength of music adhered to even in alternative the relations. We adapted. And in to produce subjectivity beyond the has been, and still is especially scenes? the end what was believed to be a logic of the market, getting sub- important. counter-world amounted to noth- jectivity from the production of ing but a reflection of the pre- objectivity, that is, from the material We invite you to produce unre- vailing world: the same games of conditions in which it happens (there Concerning gaztetxes, punk has peatable and unique situations that personal valorisation as regards is a concrete space with specific been key to the focus of a lot of collapse the idea of squatter/ theft, fights, political correction, material problems; if a stage is used energy and creativity. musician/audience as well as talking/ or radicalism – the same sordid or not, fixing bathrooms, assembling a People needed to look for places meeting/concert from an experi- liberalism in affective life, the same bar or a kitchen, etc...). in which they could practice. Many gaztetxes began being rehears- possible that anybody can join in ‘collective making of a strategy’ in Euskal Herria, but also to pro- al rooms and many squatters were with the improvisation at any time to transform the space as it is duce situations that help us to born from this necessity. Musicians or leave it when he/she wants. experienced by those present. understand what squatting can be became squatters. Punk songs are strongly tied up when connected to improvisation Nowadays there are a lot of people with certain structures like riffs, and vice versa. What kind of rela- To play punk it is necessary to improvising in Euskal Herria and on chorus, intros, refrains, melodies, tionships can exist between these compose songs and have a place to many occasions improvised concerts etc. The practice of improvisation two practices and in which ways practice. The energy has been are organised in gaztetxes. But is open to any element that can they can complement each other in shown not only in the first mani- seldom has the relationship been appear in the right situation where a social and cultural experience as festations of squatting, but also kept in mind between this musical the improvisers are. This opening powerful as the gaztetxes’ one. in concrete and everyday actions practice, its connotations, impact makes it possible, for example, to to maintain the possibility of or possibilities and these special have a conversation while playing making music. In gaztetxes, among kind of spaces. With this experi- instruments. Improvisers interact Dates: other things, people organised ment we want to expand and and listen amongst themselves - August 24, Txorimalo Gaztetxea presentation, themselves to follow through the explore what improvisation could unlike, for example, a punk guitarist Algorta 7pm planning of concerts with every- become in relation to squatting. who only interacts with other musi- - August 25, Udondoko Gaztetxea, Udondo thing this implies from the social Experiment: we want to collapse cians or even only with himself. Enparantza 18. Leioa 7pm point of view. formats of talking, conversation, meeting and concert to produce - August 27, Matadeixe, Azkoitia 7pm But nowadays punk rock is on the Although punk tries to break with - August 28, La kaxita, Irun 7pm a social space that is as open as way to death because of a con- the notions of virtuosity and possible. Words, gestures, noise, stant reproduction of clichés and ‘good playing’, in its ‘rock’ version, Everybody Welcome! silence... . Questioning the usual stereotypes caused by a progres- it is still necessary to have an barriers between squatters, musi- sive self-exhaustion exercise. instrument and play it. Improvisation Sometimes gaztetxes have been contacted in cians and audiences. We are not There are ‘manuals’ about how to tries to break with the features advance and people know that we are coming. trying to define this experiment in make good punk rock, implicit rules and conventional hierarchies of In other cases when we couldn’t contact anyone a specific manner (everyday situa- adopted after years of practice musical quality. But improvisation we will simply appear with no announcement. tion, performance or concert), we and social experience. The ‘solidifi- also has its conventions. There is We are still looking for more dates, if you can want to create a unique and unre- cation of rules’ was established still a division between a musician help, please call us. peatable situation for those people with the practice out of which and the audience at concerts: [Mattin [at] mattin.org / aizmad [at] gabone.info] who are going to participate in it. many spaces were born. How does usually musicians are respected for We don’t need to hide behind this standardisation of music their musical abilities and talent. *R.I.P. 80’s punk band from Mondragon associated expectations. It’s about trying to affect the rest of the activities When an improvisation begins, it with RRV (Rock Radical Vasco) deal with the relationship with the in these spaces? Isn’t it a new may not be known who is definitely **Asociación de Victimas del Capitalismo (Association environment from a different point institution inside of the spaces inside and who is definitely outside of Victims of Capitalism) of view, with neither roles nor that is doing almost everything in the ‘concert’, and this converts the established hierarchies (e.g. musi- an ‘extremely predictable’ way? relationship between participants into something political and public. cians are active agents and the Moreover, in improvisation the As Jean-Luc Guionnet says, every audience is a passive being). We will musical production and its presen- time we improvise we have a new talk, play and connect with our- tation take place at the same time. opportunity of building a temporary selves in many ways, not to be one There is no pre-made structure small society and deciding which thing nor another, mostly in a way like ‘a song’ that mediates between kind will be: anarchic, democratic, in which practice shows us its the proper musicians or between totalitarian, aristocratic, etc... possibilities. With this experiment musicians and audience in a fore- it is in our hands. Improvisation as we want to understand better not seeable way. Because of this, it is social experience begins with the only the gaztetxes actual situation the value of the computer? Does it really matter whether it was a PC or a Mac? GIVE IT ALL, ZERO FOR RULES! Or is it just a case of: ‘think different’ pay the same?

NOTE: Things are developing very fast in the world of free software, and what in the This article was originally published on metamute.org March, 2005. past would have been a PC running windows can now be a powerful sound tool www.metamute.org/en/Give-It-All-Zero-For-Rules running GNU/Linux. The development of software has been decisive in the way computer music has been developed. A classic question among computer musi- cians is, what software do you use? In some cases there would not be the need WHY FREE SOFTWARE IN FREE MUSIC? to ask, as the sounds would be easily identifiable with certain software; just the same as a guitar pedal or an amplifier. Although there were many computer Arriving from the position of playing improvised music, I am interested in try- musicians who would just press the space bar to play a sound file (and I have ing to question how a musician is supposed to interact with his instrument; in nothing against this), new software would bring the possibility of processing my case a computer. In other words, what I want to do is to play the instrument sound in real time, not just sound files but instruments, environment sounds, against the grain and to expose the way a computer constructs you as a user. even errors (the already mentioned pastiched glitches). This now means that musicians using computers have more possibilities at their disposal to impro- In order to do this I use various rudimentary tactics such as playing just the vise in live performances. The computer musician finds herself not in the studio, hard drive, bowing the case of the computer or using the plastic box as a reso- but in a situation. nance box. I direct my attention towards the things the computer demands from the user as much as the things it can do for you; the need for constant Much music software is still proprietary, made by companies whose primary attention to the screen, the need to turn the machine on, etc. For me it is concern is to increase their sales. Making the software appear as close to hard- important not to make hierarchies between the sounds that the materiality of ware as possible can momentarily distract the user from its virtual quality, the computer would produce, over those which could be produced with software. making him pay for his weightless gear. Regardless of this commercial relation- Playing this way makes the computer an electroacoustic device in itself, inter- ship, my key question here would be: how does this software condition the user? rupting the ideologies behind music software. Improvisation makes implicit a constant search of making sounds or reusing found sounds always with an I used a lot of cracked commercial software for many years when working with emphasis on that very process in production. What you find, you have to give sound and I always got a couple of feelings out of it. One feeling was that you a use, and to use this to serve your own needs without having to change your get these fancy programs with these fancy user interfaces, but at the end the own approach to music making. As we will see later on, much of music soft- more they have created this environment that’s very easy for you to use, the ware does exactly the opposite, that is, allows the musician to produce easily more they’ve actually determined the kind of work you can make with it. If you a genre of music. look at a program like Ableton Live which is used by probably about eighty per- cent of people making sound and performing out live these days, it seems like The machine that I was hitting was a G3 Powerbook, the same machine that it’s good for a very few things, it’s good for working with loops, putting effects musicians like Kaffe Mathews, Tujiko Noriko, Merzbow, Pita, Fennesz, Hiaz (farm- on these loops and sequencing them, but it pushes you in one creative direc- ersmanual), Zibigniew Karkowski and many more use, or have used, in the past. tion, it pushes you into making a certain kind of music, really it pushes you At a point in the late nineties it became the new icon of electronic music. towards German techno more than anything else. – Derek Holzer Artiness, coolness, glitchiness and Mac were all in the same pack. As with rock music, it all seemed all to be a matter of style. The Mac, an icon signifying There is free software available that can do the job of very expensive propri- artistic production could become a substitution for the lack of performance etary software, like Ardour (a multichannel digital audio workstation), Jack that usually computer players offer. Now, there are emerging artists like Jason (audio server), Jackrack (effects), Ladspa (plugins), Rezound (graphical audio Forrest who are showing us the possibility of hyper performance in front of the file editor), but for performing live, the most useful is likely to be PD (aka Pure computer. His performances do not produce anything new, but instead, import Data), a ‘real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and an image from another genre of music (i.e. disco and rock). The spectacle keeps graphical processing’. PD gives you the freedom to construct your own instru- making you produce cultural overdose. The more obviously you give, the more ments and give them any parameters you want. It can also do much more than obviously you get recognition. that, but you would have to develop your programming and mathematical skills, as numbers are extremely important. If you want to get into the theory see I smashed a G4 laptop computer one time. – Jason Forrest (aka Donna Summer) Miller Puckette’s Theory and Techniques of Electronic Music.

The destruction of iconic musical hardware feeds into two processes of myth There have been a lot of interesting new situations developing from people making, that of both the performer and the commodity-instrument. It is an using free software that question the whole idea of the presentation of a intensification of the moment that diverts our attention from the performance performance. During a tour in USA in 2003, Dion Workman and Julien Ottavi of music production, a diversion elsewhere into the image of the intense rock- produced long performances in which they would arrive at the venue to soundcheck, star giving you all possible clichés at once for just the price of a one-man- start playing straight from the soundcheck during the arrival of the audience and computer-band. In staging the brand does the performer want to demonstrate continue for as long as the people from the venue would let them (sometimes performances lasted six hours). They played using PD patches programmed with Furthermore, the project will also promote and demonstrate the use of open source soft- the possibility of doing random automatisation. Julien Ottavi is part of the Apo ware through the performances/events. OpenLab currently is preparing its first performance 33 collective in Nantes. They organise many events and workshops that range event, which will take place on the 1st of April at the Foundry. Since the start of OpenLab from teaching Pure Data, to philosophy, political activism and art, but always at the end of 2004, many members have quickly become friends and meets regularly. OpenLab with a relation to audio and its social connotations. CIA, an installation that I was also very happy to take part in the PureData Bigband event in Köln in February 2005. have seen by them consisted of many wires attached to computers running PD. We hope to have many friends and all share our resources to make great things happen. The audience would go into the space, would hit any of these wires, and this www.pawfal.org/openlab/ would provoke a reaction in the computers from which they would start to gen- erate lots of sounds and combinations of sounds. Thanks to complex mecha- Goto10 nisms of automatisms from PD patches the audience could improvise with the space but not in such a clear way as call and response. Goto10 was founded in 2003 by Aymeric Mansoux and Thomas Vriet in Poitiers, France. At this time the primary goal of this non-profit organization was to support and produce Openmute organised a Pure Data workshop in London on the 13th and 14th of local live alternative electronic music events. It was a gamble to see if there was an audi- Dec. 2004. The workshop was run by Aymeric Mansoux and Derek Holzer. It was ence for such events in Poitiers. It turned out that not only was there a large enough an introduction to how to use PD, along with externals such as GEM, PDP and audience, they were asking for more. Thus oto10 quickly started to set up workshops and PiDiP for a more visual orientation. It introduced briefly the many and various exhibitions and started looking for partners in some of the rare local institutions that try possibilities that PD offers. The audience was diverse, coming from the visual to support digital art and media hacktivism. Today the goto10 team is made up of people liv- arts, as well as music production and the free software movement. One exam- ing in different places around Europe and is part of a network of similar young non profit ple of a group combining all three of these approaches is the recently formed London-based group OpenLab (see below). The poster advertising the PD work- organizations sharing the same vision about free software and arts. While the original shop had an emphasis on VJing. This might have been the reason why it was structure is still based in France, and prepares at least one event each month, goto10 is difficult to focus in on the most interesting aspects of what PD offers from my now most of all a collective name under which highly skilled artists and hackers work togeth- point of view (sound production and live performance), but as an introduction er in numerous places in Europe. You may see them in workshops, performances, software this was helpful. credits or as producer of unusual events. The current projects of goto10 rank from linux live CD-ROMs to a series of connected performances. The new website (online in April) is PD is a program which lets you do pretty much everything and it is up to you meant to provide documentation on alternative free software and new-media-whatever cook- what direction to take. It is true that at the beginning it is an intimidating inter- books. Last but not least, in June goto10 will launch gosub, its free media weblabel. face to work with, but this kind of introduction helps you to get a clear picture www.goto10.org/ on how to start your first steps. In free software as in improvisation the restrictions are not as clearly defined as in other genres of music or propri- etary software in which you are supposed to follow and obey certain histories, Umatic.nl certain codes, certain legal rights. Free software activates you as a user as you Umatic.nl is an arts group based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Derek Holzer and Sara Kolster are often confronted with an immense amount of possibilities. What I am won- represent the Free Open Source Software area of this group by giving lectures, perform- dering is whether the new opportunities that free software offers could repre- ances and workshops involving the use of FOSS tools for audiovisual synthesis. In their sent in the music the same radical effect that they have on the user, and ‘resonanCITY’ performance, Holzer and Kolster employ Pure Data, PDP and GEM to manipulate extend this through its presentation. Free software is helping to bring into question field recordings, photographic or video images and found objects gathered in the various how the producer wishes to distribute their work. With the availability of licences locations where they have travelled, creating an improvisational audiovisual journey. Both from Creative-commons greater than that of frozen items in Western supermar- are also active in educating artists about the importance of free software, and in developing kets, a question of conflict emerges: anti-copyright or pro-copyleft? end-user audiovisual applications within the Pure Data environment. This text is anti-copyright www.umatic.nl/info_derek.html www.umatic.nl/info_sara.html Dion Workman: www.sigmaeditions.com/sigma_dion workman.html Julien Ottavi: www.sigmaeditions.com/sigma_julien%20ottavi.html Apo33: www.apo33.org For a good explanation of PD and the use of free software in music and sound production: SOME GROUPS WORKING WITH PURE DATA *Stay Free* Martin Howse www.yourmachines.org/stay_free.html OpenLab Pure Data Community Site This project provides a meeting place for London based artists who use and develop open www.pure-data.iem.at/ source software as their creative tool. As a result, the project will attempt to organize Miller Puckette´s own page and Pure Data downloads performances, events, meetings in London for the participants to share and exchange ideas. www.crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/ work, but for the attention, hits or ANTI-CCOPYRIGHT: logos that you can achieve (examples: Google and Firefox). CC: a new progres- TOWARDS A NAKED sive-image-logo within the fucked-up world in which we are living. CULTURE Lessig equates CC with Free Software, adapting it to the field of intellectual NOTE: property. But both the origins and March 2006. First published in Spanish the ends of Free Software and CC are in the magazine SOLïLOQUïO (Basque very different. The strategic use of Country). the law which the Free Software Foundation carried out with the GPL These times we are living in, culture is (a license that makes possible the one of the biggest tools of cognitive development system of free software capitalism.1 and the operating system GNU/Linux Is there any possibility of generating among other things) is sensible when a culture antagonistic to the capital- used in practical and technological ist means of production? A difficult terms. But here we are talking about question, since today capital’s recovery culture, artistic creation, noise making of culture is surprisingly efficient. (my case) or whatever you want to call What can we do then to attack the it. It’s about using creativity to basis that sustain today’s culture? experiment and try to find new per- To do away with intellectual property? spectives and alternatives to what It could be a possibility, but how? this reality offers us. About breaking Creative Commons (CC) aren’t the hierarchies and established power answer. structures. About fucking categorisa- A free culture, that is what Lawrence tions and reductionist stances that Lessig, father of CC, advocates; licenses treat our identity as bargaining chip for every taste and ideology. What is in political and economic terms. I don’t the price of this freedom? Among mean to say that Free Software pro- other things it is a logo, an ideological grammers don’t share this stance, but imprint that, even though apparently whilst Free Software programs have to open, is still based on copyright, on work in the end, culture doesn’t have law. CC are fashionable, a fashion as to fulfil a specific function, it doesn’t yet undefined and of which we don’t have to have an end. know what direction it will take. The What I want to discuss is the prob- only thing that is clear is that we can lematic whereby creative distribution see more and more CC logos. And in the must always pass through an accredi- context of culture this means free tations and licenses funnel. Are we promotion. That’s the very answer going to act as policemen and watch Lawrence Lessig gave to a musician who what other people do with our work asked him why he should use CC. As a and if they break this or that aspect concept, I very much agree with of the license we are using? Or, what Copyleft but it is not enough on cul- could be worse; let the CC do this ture’s terms. Even though it takes policing for us. advantage of the law strategically, in Lessig answered the critique about the end it has to deal with the how Creative Commons and the extended bureaucratic aspects that juridical use of their copyleft licenses weren’t language requires. CC make the trans- generating a community, but a set of lations into juridical language for us, disconnected users. The lawyer said but something else is happening at the that Creative Commons is working on a same time: an attention economy in new technology that will be put into which you don’t have to pay for this practice in their popular digital licenses. With this technology, according to a long history (legendary anarchist NOTES Lessing, the sense of community will be publications and the Situationist 1 ‘”Cognitive Capitalism” wants to be the political better developed because authors will International), has an attitude of and critical inversion of the sociological labels of be able to track the use that others disobedience and antagonism towards ”information society” and ”society of knowledge”. make of their contents and this system intellectual property. All this without The centrality of knowledge as productive will bring about the contact and com- entering into details of what it is or resource, as a strategic zone of any developmental munication among them, although it isn’t possible to do with the material. would seem to us, at this point, rather Also, there’s not a corporation (as is policy, has set aside the conflictive and violent than a communitarian tool, a tool for the case with CC), company, foundation, matrix by which knowledge is object of appropria- control.2 or NGO behind it. I think that each tion and plunder. Patents over free software and And what can we do if someone violates person is responsible to decide what over life, the reinforcement of the copyright our rights? A clear example of how big s/he does with what is offered to him legislation and the ceaseless prosecution of the corporations violate the intellectual or her, and if somebody wants to try so called ”intellectual piracy”, are just the surface property laws is what happened to and make money out of my work, I wish marks of a conflict that will accompany us for Minor Threat, an emblematic band from him luck! the next decades. A conflict over the right (and the DIY movement. Nike plagiarised the Walter Benjamin, in his important essay the necessity) for ideas and knowledge to be the cover of their classic first record ‘Critique of Violence’, states that (with a classic copyright), and Minor there are two kinds of violence: mythical admitted product of collective creation, and not Threat could do nothing against one violence (that founds and preserves the a private object, subject to restriction and of the world’s best law firms. the law) and another naked or divine exclusive of a handful of corporations and Let’s remember that this juridical violence (which neither founds nor states that operate without political control structure is the same one that keeps preserves law, it simply destroys it). from populations.’ Quotation from Capitalismo capitalism existing, reproducing com- The second one is of revolutionary Cognitivo: propiedad intelectual y creación colectiva. fortably and, at the same time, gives character because it cannot be assimi- Madrid: Traficantes de sueños, 2004. leeches like the SGAE so much power.3 lated nor used by established struc- 2 Platoniq, ‘Copyfight or Copylight? Liberate or What if this happens to you? Maybe tures. This violence is pure ‘mediality’ lead culture?’, Zehar #57. some CC activist can help you, especially in the sense that it’s not external to if he sees that it’s possible to win itself and doesn’t have an end outside Available: www.platoniq.net/press/Copylight.html and get publicity. But, what happens if of itself. (Translation modified). 3 SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores y Editores) they can’t help you? Either you’ll have If mythical violence is lawmaking, divine to pay a lawyer with the specific knowl- violence is law-destroying; if the is the main collecting society for songwriters, edge and experience with CC or, if you former sets boundaries, the latter composers and music publishers in Spain. don’t have money, you’ll have to use a boundlessly destroys them; if mythical 4 Walter Benjamin, ‘Critique of Violence’, Selected state-appointed lawyer that probably violence brings at once guilt and ret- Writings Vol. 1, Boston: Belknap/Harvard 1999, p. 297. won’t be informed in the latest issues ribution, divine power only expiates; if 5 Ibid., p. 295. regarding intellectual property. You’ll the former threatens the latter probably lose. strikes; if the former is bloody, the What to do in terms of explanatory latter is lethal without spilling blood.4 notes that get rid of copyright in a text or record? By putting our works in the law’s A very good one is that which I found hands we’re strengthening the law and on a record from Atenas 1000+1 TiLt label it’s power at the same time. Relying on www.geocities.com/tiltrecordings/home.htm the fully hierarchical structures that support it, guaranteeing its continuity. COPYING THIS CD BREAKS THE LAW, SO What are laws doing but categorising IF YOU DO IT YOU KILL TWO BIRDS WITH our lives regarding bad or good ONE STONE. behaviour, for the sake of a society I’m still using the classic Anti-Copyright. that we haven’t necessarily chosen? It’s not that I want to make a fetish Lawmaking is powermaking, and, to that out of it and use it like it was anoth- extent, an immediate manifestation of er license or logo (like our beloved violence. Justice is the principle of all Xabier Erkizia said, it can become another divine end making, power the principle fashion). Anti-Copyright, besides having of all mythical lawmaking.5 should we start to develop our own The relations between musicians are tation not as merely subordinate to ANTI-COPYRIGHT: WHY platforms outside of the ideological directly dialogical: i.e. Their music is the action of improvisation but instead framework that lets them behave this not mediated through any external as a collaborator, applying the same way? I will argue that the practice mechanism e.g. A score.2 kind of exploratory approach that IMPROVISATION AND of improvisation in itself questions ones uses in improvisation to all the the foundations upon which intellectual Often in improvisation one finds an processes of production (recording, NOISE RUN AGAINST property is based, such as: authorship, attitude towards recording as one distributing, different ways of net- rights, restrictions, property, and of merely documenting the creative working...). Never taking anything for THE IDEA OF INTELLEC- the division between production and process at a specific moment (as for granted, we should question the laws consumption. Improvisation and noise example is often the case with the that try to define notions of author- distribution, with their hardcore do it record label Emanem). Placing a stereo ship, freedoms and the values of what TUAL PROPERTY yourself (DIY) aesthetics, indicate microphone in the room, the players we produce. One brings his or her alternatives to the mainstream means play, the sounds get recorded and subjectivity into the material, recre- of production and distribution of then released, with as little intervention ating it and redefining it for one’s in the process as possible. I find this NOTE: music. Both practices are intertwined needs. The division between making and and share many things in common, but approach problematic. It is a fallacy listening to music would disappear Previously published in the book Noise I am taking their obvious characteristics that one can capture the moment if the notion of authorship was not & Capitalism. Written October 2008. as a way of showing that within these through audio recording – that the there. But because the author must types of music-making, there is recording can really represent that protect her cultural production, a Property is theft already an existing critical attitude ‘creative process’. We all know that need arises to make clear cut bound- – Proudhon towards copyright that should be the moment is gone forever, that the aries between production and con- deepened and developed consciously. recording can never reproduce all the sumption. If improvisation is an explo- Intellectual property is shit specifics of the situation, the room, ration of freedom and the limitations – Billy Bao the feeling of the players, their his- of that freedom then it should always tory and backgrounds, the conditions, problematise clear cut notions of No other type of music-making contra- RECORDING THE MOMENT reasons and interests for producing producer and consumer, of making and dicts itself through its recording like such a recording. Peggy Phelan, an consuming. This would be a situation in improvisation does. In improvisation one always tries to important feminist scholar in the field which the notion of authorship is In this essay I intend to explain cer- understand and play with the specific of performance studies, has discussed constantly put into question as it is tain aspects inherent within the practice characteristics of the situation. the problematics of documenting per- these ‘authors’ who categorise our of improvisation and noise that counter The relationship between the instru- formance through writing. In the last freedom. The framework of improvisation the idea of intellectual property prac- ment, the other players, the space chapter of her book Unmarked: the is wider than just the moment in which tically and conceptually. While many and audience (if there is one) becomes politics of performance, she says: the musicians are playing with each musicians would probably argue in intensified through a mutual under- other. As the specific conditions of favour of getting rid of any notion standing that everything is at stake Performance’s only life is in the present. where they are playing such as the of authorship, and sharing their at every moment. Power structures Performance cannot be saved, recorded, room, the type of audience and their recordings, there is often a lack of can be changed at any point because documented, or otherwise participate expectations, and the way they make discussion about this aspect of musical the future of this practice is unwritten. in the circulation or representations money, all effect the amount of time practice. Almost all the people that The social relations being produced are of representations: Once it does so, it that they practice, obviously all this I know are downloading music, but people questioned as the music develops. becomes something other than per- and more affects their playing. rarely talk of the consequences. Some If successful, improvisation runs formance. To the degree that per- Therefore if we change the conditions people tell me it is very utopian or against its own dogmatism. This is done formance is enters the economy of of our production we would also change naïve to think that one can get rid through developing agency and reproduction it betrays and lessens the way we play. of copyright and intellectual property, responsibility towards the present the promise of its own ontology. but to a certain extent it is already among the people involved by ques- Performance’s being, like the ontology Warning – Copyright subsists in all happening in practice. Most of the of subjectivity proposed here, Matchless Recordings. All rights of the tioning established norms of behaviour. 3 music that is heard in the world is In this sense we could say that becomes itself through disappearance. producer and the owner of the likely to be from downloads using recorded work reserved. Unauthorised improvisation is the ultimate site-specific Phelan argues that writing about different peer to peer (P2P) networks form of performance. There is no out- copying, public performance, broadcasting, such as Soulseek, Amule or Bittorrent, performance should be performative. hiring or rental of this recording side to improvisation, no end, it is akin By writing about performance one is or one-click hosting pay websites such to what Walter Benjamin calls ‘pure prohibited. In the UK apply for public as Rapidshare. Because of its rigid and transforming the work discursively performance licences to: PPL. 1 Upper mediality’ or ‘pure violence’ which is giving a new perspective which breaks 4 bureaucratic structure, the law is human action that neither founds nor James Street, London W1R 3HG. always left behind by the questions with its previous one. It is important conserves the law. ‘Pure means’ as to understand that you can never Matchless recordings is the label of posed by new technologies. revolutionary violence. How can we Eddie Prévost, member of the radical But, apparently, it is only a matter of capture a moment, and therefore must translate this kind of activity into never attempt to make a universal and innovative improvisation group AMM time before the law catches up. Right now the making of a record, an object? which started in 1965. All the records repressive measures aided by tech- truth that represents the moment. How can a performance that is so It’s only through understanding this of AMM released on Matchless recordings nologies of surveillance and control specific then be put forward into some- have this or a similar copyright warning. are already being developed without disappearance that one can bring to thing that could be heard, read or seen life different qualities that might feel There is a huge contradiction in finding our consent by the most powerful at any time by anybody in the future? this copyright note on an improvised governments under the pressure of similar but nonetheless raise new 1 How can this activity in time be brought perspectives. One should have an record, a music that questions so corporations (ACTA being a good example). to an end? Made into something that I asked Eddie about his use of copy- Should we allow them to do this or active and creative attitude towards can be consumed again and again? documentation; understanding documen- right, he told me that it was because of practical reasons. PRS/MCPS Alliance is not based upon developing common and ‘70s, in which the politics might be a great number of people. There is no (the home of the world’s best song- denominators for some communication seen today as oppressive and all too doubt that the original idea is good writers, composers and music publishers!) to happen among the players, but clear cut, propagandistic and carrying and it helps to create many new has a deal with the BBC, so the BBC rather a matter of developing the an overly defined message. What are connections and contacts. But at what will always pay a certain amount for freedom of individual expression. In the elements that constitute the cost? First giving publicity to the copyright.5 If the BBC would play some this sense I find the noise scene even means of production in the specific company itself. Many contemporary uncopyrighted AMM recordings on the less academic than the improvisation case of CDs? Authorship, market, dis- artists use the MySpace website as radio, then it would be allocated to an scene. The noise scene is founded tribution... I remember having a conver- their prime website, even before your unattributable copyright section which upon people organising concerts in all sation about copyright with the name there is already a brand with a will then be shared by percentage with kinds of places, releasing music in any experimental electronic musician Dimitris very clear ideology behind it. Whatever the members of PRS/MCPS. So, the kind of medium and finding, along the Kariofilis (artist name Ilios, who also progressive music you make you will already rich, ‘best songwriters and way, different means of distribution. runs the label Antifrost focussing on have tattooed upon your forehead composers’, would basically get richer. This allows for many collaborations to experimental electronic works). Dion the name of a company which has very While this is an understandable and occur. In this scene the DIY ethos is Workman and myself released a duo CD close alliances with conservative ideol- strategic use of copyright from part of its survival. If nobody gives on his label in 2004, and we attached ogy (Rupert Murdoch the owner of Eddie’s side, there is no doubt that a fuck, at least you do. People have an Anti-Copyright statement. When MySpace and News Corp., which also this use also implies the same conser- been self-organising themselves by asking me about the reasons behind contains Fox, and through all his media vative attitude inherent in copyright organising concerts wherever possible the copyright note, Dimitris suggested empire supported the 2003 war in which the music itself supersedes. and more. This self-organisation, which that by not putting any note he him- Iraq). In terms of use, at least partly By being part of the copyright system, constantly makes people change roles; self was more radical than we were, due to the interface of the website, one reinforces the whole structure from player to organiser, from critic, because not even caring about it at there is rarely anything more than that underpins the star/celebrity to distributor, helps people understand all was more of a ‘Fuck Off’ to the simple self-promotion and a great lack system.6 How can it be possible for each others roles. An example of this system. But if you do not care, some- of discussion. The MySpace system also recordings in the so-called ‘free’ is Daniel Löwenbrück, who for the last body is going to care for you especially uses proprietary software (as improvisation genre to restrict the 15 years has run the label and mail if there is some profit involved. opposed to free software, I will explain possibilities of what you can do with order outfit Tochnit Aleph. By default, thanks to the Berne later on). MySpace websites are often this material? What are the limitations He has just opened the record shop Convention, whatever you do is copy- very heavy for the computer, and of that word ‘free’ for the person Rumpsty Pumsti (Kreuzberg, Berlin), he right, so you will still be under the they usually use very poor compres- who is listening to the record? You performs under the name Raionbashi legal framework.8 By including an Anti- sion of the audio tracks they host. are free to pay for the record, you and he has organised concerts for Copyright statement as part of the It has some similarities with a big are free to listen to it, to enjoy it, some of the most radical artists in release we were purposely not adopt- record label but with the difference but not to be creative with it, to use Berlin. Both in the improvised and ing the language of the law (as the that the big company is in the end it to, give it to your friends, to make noise scene the question of authorship Creative Commons licences do) but making without any need to bother listening music out of it, to download it, to is completely interrelated to that of obvious the fact that one is, in practice, to see whether what you are doing is copy it, to make money out of something the producer. totally free to use the recording in good or bad, it just takes advantage for which you had to pay? I perceive any way one wants to. This rhetorical of your need for promotion: your the sounds on records as an extension gesture – which makes it obvious that creativity is their publicity with the of the sounds that you put into MEANS OF PRODUCTION we do not support the ideology behind added possibility of being exposed to space, in the concert. The improvisation copyright – has a long history, from their censorship: among the musicians does not happen The best political tendency is wrong the Situationist International to MySpace.com reserves the right, in its at that precise place or moment where if it does not demonstrate the atti- Woody Guthrie and many punk and the record is played, but people can tude with which it is to be followed.7 sole discretion, to reject, refuse to anarchist publications. Taking control post or remove any posting (including apprehend it as material for thinking over what you have to hand, we and or working with. The music is not a Walter Benjamin, in his 1934 text private messages) by you, or to ‘The Author as Producer’, discusses other people are free to do whatever restrict, suspend, or terminate your pure representation of the individual one might imagine with this material. playing of which the only possessor how the political tendency of the work access to all or any part of the is the musician. Think of the people of art, cannot be justified solely by An author who has carefully thought MySpace Services at any time, for any that you are playing with, of all your being just ‘politically correct’. Instead, about the conditions of production or no reason, with or without prior influences and all the comments made its politics should be demonstrated in today [...] will never be concerned with notice, and without liability. its relationship to technique and of by friends. By thinking the situation the products alone, but always, at the This statement makes very clear the through in this way we can open up equal importance is the matter of how same time, with the means of production. the writer positions himself/herself amount of control that you have in the framework of an improvised concert In other words, his products must using MySpace. You might own the in both time and space. within the means of production. possess an organising function While the practices of improvisation rights of the music that you put on besides and before their character Myspace (this was not the case until and noise are often very progressive as finished works.9 NOISE DISTRIBUTION regarding their content, technique and 2006), but you do not have any control relationship to the means of production More and more we have the possibility over the future of the infrastruc- While in improvisation there is a sense – generating alternative, self-organ- to do our distribution without the ture that you are promoting yourself of craft within one’s own instrument ised, and open structures for music need of big record companies. A good on. The statement makes a clear dif- and in being able to interact with making, presentation and distribution – (or bad example) of this could be ferentiation and division, at the end other musicians, in noise this disap- these days there is little discussion MySpace. One can produce a song and of the day, the future of your music pears to the extent of anti-virtuosity of their politics. People might want to upload it to the internet straight distribution might be decided by a becoming a virtue. A nihilist approach distance themselves from the political away, without the need of a label, corporation which behaves according to improvisation in which the interaction discussions characteristic of the ‘60s then send the information about it to to their interests and not yours. You surrender control over your other things, on philosophical discus- Could we see this as an act of progress premise was that everybody has property future and the future of your music. sions such as the freedom of the or of recuperation? The law is always in himself or herself, that everything individual and the development of new behind with peoples’ activities, and what in the state of nature is still held in What matters, therefore, is the exem- technologies. The invention of the once might have been seen dangerous common and was given by god in order plary character of production, which is printer was crucial for the developing for society later on becomes perceived to be made into property. If you add able, first, to induce other producers the idea of the author. Once people as an enrichment of the general cul- your own labour to something that is to produce, and, second, to put an could reproduce books, leaflets, images ture. The transgressive character of in the commons then you make it your improved apparatus at their disposal. and were able to distribute these in a work gets assigned to an ‘author’ then property, since otherwise if it remains And this apparatus is better, the more very different places, the connection classified, categorised and marketed. in the commons it will be neglected, consumers it is able to turn into pro- with the printed commodity’s locality it will be left to rot. Marx criticised ducers – that is, readers or spectators Writing is not the vehicle for the Locke’s notion that one could have 10 was lost. It is at this point that the author’s expression of his/her emotions into collaborators. notion of the author as some sort of exclusive control over the goods origi- or ideas, since writing isn’t meant to nated through his/her labour as part Breaking clear cut divisions between genius, who had some transcendental communicate from author to reader, producers and consumers, in order not qualities that went beyond the repro- of bourgeois ideology. Marx maintains but rather writing is the circulation that the social relations of production to reproduce the hierarchical struc- ducible object that you had in your of language itself, regardless of the tures that puts limitations on our hands and gave value beyond the are what produces the goods. It seems individual existence of author or reader: that Locke had in mind rival goods creativity. The underground noise tape reproducibility of the book at hand. ‘it is primarily concerned with creating circuit in the 1980s is a good example This conferred a special value upon when he developed his theory (if one an opening where the writing subject consumes it, others can’t). What happens of how people were sharing their music. the individual as creator, even if culture 13 endlessly disappears.’ to non-rival goods like ideas? George You would send some tapes to some has been always about reappropriating somebody else ideas and using them in Opening up new ideas and works, is the Bernard Shaw famously said that if you of the people interested in the same and I have an apple and we exchange music in other parts of the world, and different and playful ways. issue here, not self-promotion and In the 1960s with the arrival of post- egoistic acceptance by a passive audience. apples, you would only have one apple people would rework the material, and but if you and I have an idea and we it would be considered more of an structuralism, thinkers like Roland Once you put work out there, it is no longer yours, it should be considered exchanged them, we will each have two honour than a matter to get angry Barthes and Michel Foucault began to ideas. So, how is it possible to treat about. What could be a more creative criticise the notion of the author and to be in the public domain and people should do with it whatever their imagi- ideas as if they were apples i.e. to attitude towards somebody’s work its authoritative power. For Foucault, make them into commodities? It is only than making a work out it? the idea of the author developed as a nation drives them to. And that is not some bullshit piracy discourse, this is through copyright that it is possible MySpace does not encourage this type way of controlling the press through to produce scarcity out of ideas and of activity, because the latter’s col- censorship and it was a way of finding the way people have behaved through- out history. Once written, the author this of course can produce serious laborative character disturbs the out who did what in order to then benefits for some but not all: foundations of their ideology which is punish them. As one cannot punish stops having control over the text. aligned with simple proprietorship and ideas or texts, the (often nominal) The text has its own discourse and The core copyright industries are exploitation. author became responsible for his/her power and we should not limit it to serious business: the top three ideas and text, by which in this an authoritarian voice. Language itself exports of the US for instance are process they became his/her property. has its own potential and to make it movies music and software. In 2001 AUTHORSHIP By establishing legal structures like solely the property of the author the value of the Copyright industries Copyright, the classification of trans- might dilute its power. While many people stood at $535 billion and exports How has the idea of authorship developed gressive work and its authors was made have argued that responsibility is a form the same accounted for $88-97 through history? easier, the works themselves became very important question with regard billion, while that of chemicals were part of the canon of our culture. to what somebody does, and how he or $74.6 and automobiles were $56.52. The author is a modern figure, a Through its institutionalisation the she must have responsibility to that It is only within this context of the product of our society insofar as, transgression was no longer in need which what she or he says, that global political economy of the media emerging from the Middle Ages with of being prohibited but instead became responsibility should be extended to industry that we can even begin to English empiricism, French rationalism and accepted. the distribution of what they do. understand the ramifications of the personal faith of the Reformation, licensing in copyright law.14 it discovered the prestige of the indi- But it was at the moment when a system vidual, of, as it is more nobly put, the of ownership and strict copyright INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ‘human person’. It is thus logical that rules were established (toward the ALTERNATIVES in literature it should be this posi- end of the eighteenth and beginning In order to trace the notion of intel- tivism, the epitome and culmination of of the nineteenth century) that the lectual property historically we have Again technology is posing interesting capitalist ideology, which has attached transgressive properties always to look at the idea of property prop- questions regarding intellectual property. the greatest importance to the ‘person’ intrinsic to the act of writing became agated by the English philosopher John Today with the help of the internet, of the author.11 the forceful imperative of literature. Locke, a key contributor to liberal audio-visual material can be reproduced It is as if the author, at the moment theory (a defender of individual freedom, at no cost except for that of a It is very important to understand he was accepted into the social order his ideas became very important for internet connection and hard drive that the idea of the author was not of property which governs our culture, the American Constitution). Locke can space. There are licences that try to always there – think of stories, folk was compensating for his new status be identified as the creator or main adapt copyright or at least play with tales, epics and tragedies that were by reviving the older bipolar field of theorist of the idea of property. it in order to make legal the new passing through people without the discourse in a systematic practice of He suggests that an individual, by the possibilities for reproduction. Many of need of pointing out a person respon- transgression and by restoring the application of his/her labour, produces these licences come out of the sible as the originator. The idea of danger of writing which, on another private property for their exclusive Copyleft movement. The concept of authorship has been constructed side, had been conferred the benefits use. As Sabine Nuss puts it, ‘he who Copyleft comes from a play of words throughout history, depending among of property.12 plucks the apple shall keep it’. Locke’s of Richard Stallman as a way of opening up the notion of Free Software and the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore Just enough to live but not enough or some bureaucratic organisation his GPL licence (General Public Licence) suggests that the CC are the gentrifi- to acquire the means of production. that divides people according to class to a broader cultural spectrum. cation of copyright, making it look nice As we have seen before, in the impro- relation? Richard Stallman started the Free and trendy but operating according to vised and noise scene, people create How would this division take place? Software Movement and created the the same principals (in fact Lawrence means of production within minimum Would this not mean to fix people GPL licence as a way of countering Lessig is a great defender of Copyright, possibilities. Exceeding the just according to their own situation which in proprietary software. While proprietary and also of the free market, so the subsistence, making a living in any way many cases might already be precarious? softwares were about restricting your notion of freedom gets a bit confused we can – creative survival. The distribution of this kind of music use, the GPL licences gives you four here). As with gentrification what The purpose of property is to ensure is not based in getting profit out it. freedoms: the CC has done is to appropriate a a propertyless class exists to produce Whilst there might be few people making 0--Users should be allowed to run the movement that was posing interesting the wealth enjoyed by a propertied some money out it, I would say that software for any purpose. and cutting edge questions reforming class. Property is no friend of labour. most of the musicians, labels and con- 1--Users should be able to closely its content until no rough elements This is not to say that individual cert organisers interest behind what examine and study the software and remain. Looking back it seems rather workers cannot become property own- they do is to get the work across in should be able to freely modify and like a trend where many people got ers, but rather that to do so means small, self-organised and informal net- improve it to fill their needs better. interested and put so many CC logos to escape their class. Individual success works. Two important aspects that can 2--Users should be able to give copies on their work and media output, but stories do not change the general characterise the practice of noise and of the software to other people to now one questions the ideology behind case. As Gerald Cohen quipped, ‘I want improvisation are its anti-academicism whom the software will be useful. those logos. This might be one of the to rise with my class, not above my and its DIY aesthetics (if you do not reasons why the discussion around 16 care about what you do nobody else 3--Users should be able to improve Copyleft has decreased (three years class!’ will). Improvisation and noise usually the software and freely distribute ago in Spain and Italy it briefly became Do people in experimental scenes these try to question the parameters in their improvements to the broader very popular to have alternative days identify themselves within this which one can act, using instruments public so that they, as a whole, benefit. symposiums about copyleft and this class division? With precarious jobs in unconventional ways, finding venues In the GPL licence you always need brief moment even produced certain in different kinds of conditions one for playing in strange and difficult to reproduce the GPL, so one cannot celebrities). constantly has to negotiate one’s spaces adapting to these particularities close the code. Thanks to this licence As copyleft does not allow the extraction relationship to capitalism and having and finding different methods of dis- Linux, was developed. Many people tend of rent for the right to copy, and enough time to express oneself. This tribution. We could say that this is an to confuse ‘Free Software’ with ‘Open what owners of property want is not does not mean that class division has enclosed way of working, without much Source’ but they each contain different something that will challenge the pro- disappeared by any means, but I would relevance outside its context. ideological positions. Open source was perty regime, but rather to create think that most of the musicians are One could criticise its lack of mobilisation a term developed by Bruce Perens and more categories and subcategories so in situations where the class division towards something bigger, but on the Eric Raymond at a Netscape navigator that practices like filesharing and is blurry and problematic, probably other hand it creates exactly the kind conference in 1998 as a strategic remixing can exist with the property earning money somewhere else and then of network that Kleiner’s critique term to appear more attractive to regime. In other words, copyjustright. making their music in their free time. does not apply to, it is just too small. the market – the word Free, unless as A more flexible version of copyright People might also be dubious about Improvisation and noise are informal in in ‘free market’, is not such a cool that can adapt to modern uses but class identification, as previous genera- their operation, they are practices thing for the development of capitalism. still ultimately embody and protect the tions have suffered from clear cut that adapt, play against or at least The word free contains two meanings: logic of control. The most prominent and crude class categorisation (again take into account the specific con- ‘free as in speech’ and ‘free as in example of this is the so-called see Eddie Prévost text in this volume). ditions of their own production. The beer’. Richard Stallman only refers Creative Commons and it’s myriad of A question arises? Should we see what question remains, how to earn a living free software to ‘free as in speech’. ‘just right’ licenses. ‘Some rights we do as work? I would suggest that doing what one wants to do? This So a politically correct term to gather reserved’, the motto of the site says the making of improvised music has problem actually opens up many questions, the whole movement has become FLOSS it all.15 more to do with situationist notions such as why this music does not (Free, Libre, Open, Source, Software- Dmytri Kleiner, in his text ‘Copyfarleft of play (ludic desire and instability) produce enough value for me to make Libre in Spanish meaning only ‘free as and Copyjustright’, suggests a new than work (more fixed in its produc- a living? Should it? But we should be in speech’). One of the main alternative method for distribution which would tivity). In conversations with Keith careful not to fall into a similar situation licence systems to follow the help artists to make a living from Rowe (ex-AMM) and Philip Best (ex- to the one that produces Prévost’s Copyleft movement, developed by the their work. His argument is based on Whitehouse, Consumer Electronics), two argument for using copyright, namely a lawyer Lawrence Lessig, are the making a distinction between those who of the most innovative bands to come pragmatic attitude towards an economic Creative Commons licences (CC). These own the means of production, make out of England, they agree that one and legal system which could easily licences give you the opportunity to profit out of the use and distribution should not make a living out of making compromise questions posed by music decide what kind of licence you want of the material and on the other hand this kind of music because the music is production itself. This would cut the to apply to your work. The diversity those who are not making any profit compromised. Another question would potential effect of the discursive of CC licences is very wide, from the out of the use and distribution of be how they and other musicians earn radicality of the music, which would very restrictive (close to copyright) their own material. Those who make their living. mean to see this type of music-making to the public domain (not owned or profit should pay for using this material. Kleiner’s argument does not work for in formal terms rather than as a pro- controlled by anybody, public property The rest should be able to use it for the kind of music that we are talking gressive and experimental mode of for anybody to use). While Copyleft free. To defend his argument he cites about it. This music has only very production that could be extended to functions more like a concept, backed David Ricardo’s ‘The Iron Law of small repercussions in the mainstream different areas (distribution, recording, by a whole movement, CC are trying to Wages’, which states that the workers media and few companies or corpora- social relations...). Please do not get me take advantage of that movement in can only earn from their wages enough tions are making any profit out of it. wrong, I do not want to appear as a order to get users to use their money to survive and reproduce them- And even if they do, would it be bet- liberal communist. Even if Olivier licences. Lawrence Liang founder of selves ‘to perpetuate their race’. ter to be protected by a legal system Malnuits’ first of the 10 command- ments for liberal communists is ‘to give cannot be fixed into definitions or It is possible to connect Benjamin’s as sharing with good intentions and everything away for free (free categorisations that fall into the notion of pure means and Guy distribution of knowledge. Records access, no copyright...) just charge bureaucratic apparatus of the law and Debord’s unitary revolutionary praxis, stored in private houses are not for the additional services, which will this is precisely because it does not a theory and practice which attempted doing much for the rest of the world make you rich’, the liberal communists produce an end. Benjamin explains at to abolish all separations (between art apart from giving the person who owns still believe that it’s possible to make length how in order to perpetuate and politics, leisure and work...), in the them a good feeling. Instead, a file a more just world out of capitalism, itself the law needs violence. If vio- sense that it is not a matter of con- on the internet can be listened to which frankly I do not believe. lence is not constantly performed, solidating structures (then it would and/or downloaded by different people The acceptance of the capitalist basis law would cease to exist. In this sense produce an end), but instead a total at the same time in many parts of the (our creativity as work) and the legal the law produces what Benjamin calls intensification of life where everything world. Isn’t the process of misusing framework means the perpetuation mythical violence, which is law and power is at stake at this revolutionary also a creative process which poses of our constant desire to find a nice making – a violence that strengthens moment without the desire to look new questions that were not there niche in this fucked up world. the state. I find very interesting the anywhere else or to achieve something before? In improvisation we constantly We should be working to enable (which last line of the Benjamin quote above concrete. There is no doubt that make errors, we use them and in fact to a certain extent is already happening in which he mentions how parliaments liberation hurts, it cannot be a smooth we learn from them. The radical char- through the filesharing and free had degraded into a ‘woeful spectacle’. process, breaking stereotypes is acter of the work itself which might software movement) the foundations The intentions behind forming them might difficult and disturbing especially if be difficult, its recuperation, or its of the capitalist system to be have been revolutionary, but the you are alone, and you might have the content might exceed the limitations establishment of bureaucratic functions feeling that what you are doing is of the decontextualisation. Ready to questioned and at some points bypassed. ridiculous – or even senseless? destroy whatever parameters that This does not mean that capitalism is over time lets them and the people using them ‘fall into decay’. Relying But there is no deviancy in the use of comes in its way in a similar vein to going to be easily abolished, but it other peoples’ material, ideas are not the intensity in which it was produced. shows different alternatives and differ- purely on parliamentary structures to base their arguments, the politicians people, you cannot hurt ideas and No half licences which try to help peo- ent ways of thinking that could quickly knowledge, you can only discuss and ple not to make profit, we are aware be recuperated by capitalism if we do not stop developing a sense for responsi- bility and urgency, instead reducing work with them. People are scared, that we are in capitalism, but we do develop a sense of our own agency. they are so protective about their not want to make it more nice and any revolutionary power through the individual work, but this is only soft, we want to abolish it. That this constant creation of boundaries and because they have internalised the might be difficult, or we might not BEYOND THE LAW: limits to popular power. logic of authorship. Now we take it as actually be able to do it, does not If mythical violence is law-making, divine natural the idea that whatever we mean we do not want a better life PURE MEDIALITY violence is law-destroying; if the former could possess already has a value, and under this system. sets boundaries, the latter boundlessly we do not want to diminish this value We are above all obligated to note or question the foundations on which Is any non-violent resolution of conflict destroys them; if mythical violence possible? Without doubt. The relation- that a totally non-violent resolution brings at once guilt and retribution, this value is based. I recently heard of conflicts can never lead to a legal a story about the contemporary ships of private persons are full of divine power only expiates; if the former examples of this. Non-violent agree- contract. For the latter, however threatens, the latter strikes; if the artist Paul Chan giving a lecture to MA art students at Columbia University. ment is possible wherever a civilized peacefully it may have been entered former is bloody, the latter is lethal outlook allows the use of unalloyed into by the parties, leads finally to 18 When one student asked him about a without spilling blood. case in which Chan was accused of pla- means of agreement. Legal and illegal possible violence. It confers on both means of every kind that are all the parties the right to take recourse The clear separation of ideas as pro- giarising the work of a student of his, he admitted that when he was under same violent may be confronted with to violence in some form against the perty cannot but only develop this non-violent ones as unalloyed means. other, should he break the agreement. type of mythical violence, in which one pressure for a deadline and he did not have ideas, he just took the idea of Courtesy, sympathy, peaceableness, Not only that; like the outcome, the is always protective about the ficti- trust, and whatever else might here origin of every contract also points tious boundaries established by the one of his students. Later, some of the students refused to have a be mentioned are their subjective towards violence. It need not be law, of what is one’s idea and what is preconditions.19 directly present in it as law-making not. This type of thinking benefits one-to-one tutorials with him because violence, but is represented in it insofar only capitalists and people in power. of his plagiarism. For me, the problem As Richard Prelinger (from the Prelinger as the power that guarantees a legal If you protest using their tools, such is not his pragmatic and uncritical use Archives and archive.org) said to me contract is in turn of violent origin as their legal system, they know what of somebody else’s idea, but the way in conversation: artist, writers, film- even if violence is not introduced into you want and it becomes easy for these MA artists thinks about them- makers, musicians, academics and the the contract itself. When the con- them to give it to you and to shut selves, the distribution of their ideas, type of people who are producing sciousness of the latent presence of what they think art production is, and stuff have not sat down to think all you up. A quick and superficial fix how they are so market-oriented. together what kind of conditions we violence in a legal institution disappears, that momentarily makes happy the the institution falls into decay. In our I use the anti-copyright term when want for our work. Surely discussions people underneath. But fundamentally I make records as rhetorical state- would arise. I get the impression that time, parliaments provide an example of nothing has really changed and of this. They offer the familiar, woeful ment that does not refer to the lan- the discussion on intellectual property course this system will continue to guage of copyright to let people know is based on a certain philosophy and spectacle because they have not produce misery and frustration. Pure remained conscious of the revolutionary that to copy is not only fine, but abstract notions about the individual means, another term by which Benjamin encouraged. But what we really need and its relation to cultural production. forces to which they owe their names revolutionary violence, is about existence.17 to do is to use our creativity in Thanks to the law these notions pure mediality, in the sense that we order to find different ways of become solidified as universal truths Walter Benjamin, in his famous essay are responsible for what we are doing distribution. We have to change the (at least for the time being especially ‘Critique of Violence’, talks of a revo- without having a structure outside signification of copying, or as Stewart if profit can be produced out of it). lutionary violence that does not have of what we do (such as the law) that Hall might put it, a class struggle of But how will people look at this type an outside to itself. Divine or pure defines whether what we are doing is signification over the term ‘copy’ – of production in the future? violence is revolutionary because it right or wrong. copying not as piracy or stealing, but Of course, we do not know. However, what we can do is to develop platforms NOTES 11 Sabine Nuss, ‘Digital Property’, for discussion. If we do not, somebody 1 The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) www.osdir.com/ml/culture.internet.rekombinant/ is going to take advantage of us. In a conference in Berlin, held as part of is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement that 2005-08/msg00012.html the project ‘Oil of the 21st Century’, would impose strict enforcement of intellectual 12 Michel Foucault, ‘What is an Author’, in Charles Lawrence Liang gave an interesting property rights related to Internet activity and Harrison and Paul Wood (eds.), Art in Theory 1900 example regarding intellectual property. – 2000 An Anthology of Changing Ideas, London: Imagine you have three things: my pen, trade in information-based goods. my poem, my friend. See www.jamie.com/2008/05/23/we-must-act-now- Blackwell, 2007. While Copyright makes you think against-acta/ 13 Roland Barthes, ‘Death of the Author’, in Ibid., of your poem as if it was your pen p.139. (something you use and then throw 2 Eddie Prévost, ‘Free Improvisation in Music and away), Liang suggested that we should Capitalism: resisting authority and the cults of 14 Lawrence Liang, Copyright, Cultural Production instead think of the poem as a friend, scientism and celebrity’ in Anthony Iles & Mattin and Open Content Licensing, to whom you have responsibility and www.pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/pubsfolder/liangessay/view you care about it. This is a lovely (eds.) Noise & Capitalism, San Sebastian: Arteleku, metaphor that takes on intellectual 2009 and James Saunders (ed.), The Ashgate 15 Dmytri Kleiner, ‘Copyfarleft and Copyjustright’ property in an affective way rather Research Companion to Experimental Music, available at: www.metamute.org/en/Copyfarleft- than as a cold legal system. and-Copyjustright But we should not forget that to Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009. make a poem one needs passion and 3 Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: the politics of 16 Ibid. must struggle with language to come performance, London: Routledge, 1993. p.146. 17 Walter Benjamin, ‘Critique of Violence’ in up with something special. There is 4 Copyright Warning, printed on the back of most Reflections. pp.287-288. violence in the making of a poem, a creative violence that tries to break Matchless Recordings releases. This one is taken 18 Ibid., p.297. away from stereotypes and dead from Eddie Prévost solo CD entelechy. 19 Ibid., p.289. forms, which wants to open up a dif- 5 Statement found on their website: ferent way of understanding language, a torturing of language that cuts www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk both ways, you try to torture it while 6 See Eddie Prévost’s essay ‘Free Improvisation in turn it tortures you. Let’s think in Music and Capitalism: resisting authority and the through Benjamin’s notion of ‘The Author as Producer’: if we can extend cults of scientism and celebrity’. this creative violence to change the 7 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Author as Producer’ in conditions of production and issues trans. Edmund Jephcott, Reflections, New York: of intellectual property in ways which neither founds nor preserves the law, Schocken Books, 2007. p.223. then we would be talking about what 8 From Wikipedia.org: ‘Under the Convention, copy- Benjamin calls pure means or revolu- rights for creative works are automatically in tionary violence. Notions of intellectual property are going to be the issue force upon their creation without being asserted of the future, and if we do not find or declared. An author need not “register” or ways of challenging the structures “apply for” a copyright in countries adhering to that are being developed we are going to be pretty fucked. the Convention. As soon as a work is “fixed”, that I don’t think that to put the anti- is, written or recorded on some physical medium, copyright mark in whatever you its author is automatically entitled to all copy- produce is by any means enough. As I have tried to explain; the radical rights in the work and to any derivative works, and exploratory character of improvi- unless and until the author explicitly disclaims sation should be directed not only to them or until the copyright expires. Foreign the making of music but in changing authors are given the same rights and privileges the conditions in which the music is produced. to copyrighted material as domestic authors Today these conditions are at least in any country that signed the Convention.’ partially set by the discourses of 9 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Author as Producer’ in intellectual property, copyright and authorship. These notions should be trans. Anna Bostock, Understanding Brecht, challenged and perverted the same way London: Verso, 1983; written as a lecture for improvisers pervert their instruments the Institute for the Study of Fascism, in Paris, to create new sounds, so we can create new conditions that suit our necessi- April 1934. p.98. This quote is taken from the ties, interests and desires. website: www.kurator.org/wiki/main/read/Introduction I do not want to compromise nor police 10 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Author as Producer’ in what is no longer ‘my’ music. – Billy Bao Reflections. p. 233. DEVOUR YOUR LIMITATIONS!

NOTE: ‘stoppages’. In an improvised concert situation, one throws a sound without First published accompanying my track contribution to the Below The Radar Series II, knowing what other people will do with it. One of course is aware of the people The Wire website 2009 (www.thewire.co.uk). that one is playing with but basically one is open to anything. Why should it be In any given situation your scope of action is determined by specific contextual different when one makes a record? restrictions. These restrictions are very likely to be historically produced, serving certain interests. As somebody who works with noise and improvisation and often makes records (more often than not collectively) I find myself wondering Somebody mentioned the word plagiarism but this is nothing but a capitalist fallacy. what are the conceptual and ideological limitations regarding making records? As the Comte de Lautréamont said, plagiarism is necessary. Whenever one person This can not be answered without dealing with issues of intellectual property takes something and uses it in another context, there is always a level of cre- and what this implies: authorship, clear delimitation of what is the work and what ativity going on. I do not want to make hierarchies between different levels of is not, and the separation between producer and consumer. creativity. I have invented nothing. All I have done is take from somewhere else, Intellectual property has grown hand in hand with capitalism as a way of com- and to think of this as theft is simply police-logic, which basically is what the modifying the intangible, the indefinable, the elusive... as a way of taming culture notion of authorship does. in order to frame it, make it stable and to be able to give it a value. Any clas- Noise is the asshole of culture where everything is possible, it is about lack sification or categorisation works as a way of achieving mastery and social con- of respect, not only of previous ways of music making, but also lack of respect trol. But when I think of improvisation I think of it as elusive liquidity; in both regarding the context that you are working with and the different ways that Marcel Duchamp and Henri Bergson’s lingo, as a matter of ‘passages’ rather than this context might try to normalise or tame the potential of this practice. Everything that circulates falls under the Katja Diefenbach points out some of the audience, the managerial artist appropri- MANAGERIAL AUTHORSHIP: unity of the count, while inversely, only problems of romanticising living labour by ates the audiences’ general intellect by what lets itself be counted in this way can incorporating not only our creative capacity giving them the feeling of possessing a APPROPRIATING LIVING circulate. Moreover, this is the norm that but by also making it intrinsically political. certain subjective agency (living labour illuminates a paradox few have pointed Thus, an effect of the political can danger- that is yet to be objectified). However, LABOUR out: in the hour of generalized circulation ously consist of subordinating revolt and beyond this appearance of agency, the and the phantasm of instantaneous cultural dream to the economic primacy of effective artist’s framing of the situation generates communication, laws and regulations for- doing. The organisation which we are able surplus value for his/herself – in the form NOTE: bidding the circulation of persons are being to give to ourselves would have to do of cultural capital etc. – which far exceeds Commissioned by Binna Choi and Axel Wieder multiplied everywhere.1 both: coordinate and keep a distance to the benefit to the audience. for Casco Issues 12, Utrecht. June 2011. the process of a radical break; it would In an early proto-example of this managerial Marx’s concept of living labour goes have to reject the romantic tradition, by authorship, when David Tudor performed against the idea of countability and gener- When working with noise and improvisation not equating the political with the living John Cage’s 4’33’’ for the first time on the alised circulation. By living labour, Marx in the context of concert and performance and a common to be produced.2 29 August 1952 at a concert recital in situations, I am interested in the division meant our potential for creativity; that labour capacity which is not yet tamed, Nevertheless we can agree with Paulo Virno Woodstock, New York, all the sounds pro- of labour between performer and audience. when he argues that Marx was wrong to duced in the room were proclaimed equally Historically, this division presupposed a measured and framed by capitalism. Living labour is that subjective ‘flame’ which capital, see the general intellect as fixed capital, valid as music. Nevertheless, most of the relation between these two positions in since now increasingly humans are becoming audience did not realise they were making terms of active and passive. In contempo- in order to accumulate surplus labour, seeks to objectify through exchange. the machines themselves, the general intel- music. By having control over the concep- rary capitalism, this division is problema- lect is not fixed capital but living labour tual discourse underpinning the project, tised through the recuperation of leisure However, from today’s perspective it has become clear that capitalism’s ever expanding before it is objectified. The general intellect the managerial artist can make sure that time and the valorisation of what seems is not value itself but the potential to pro- everything can be incorporated into their to be unproductive labour. Mirroring this drive has found multiple ways of framing what Marx understood as living labour. duce value: work, in a manner that can only be valu- expansive tendency in capitalism, more Within the post-Fordist condition, centered They are not units of measure; they con- able in such a specific way under the ban- and more artists are using audience inter- around a regime of creativity and flexibili- stitute the immeasurable presupposition ner of his or her own artistic career. action as material for their work, blurring 3 ty, this expansion can be better under- of heterogeneous effective possibilities. This does not mean that the audience gets the boundaries between producer and con- stood in relation to another Marxist concept: As human creativity is more variable and nothing out of it, of course one can learn sumer. This way of working, where the the general intellect. heterogeneous than a machine, the framing a lot through participating in these types artist appropriates intellectual contributions In his Fragment on machines Marx discusses of it and the production of value through it of situations but contrary to the liberating made by others but where the interaction how, with the development of technology, is more complex. The manager appropri- appearance of these events the division of is still framed under the artist’s own name, workers would increasingly have access to ates life processes that he or she might labour between artist and audience remains has a strong relationship to the logic of more time to develop and educate them- not be able to evaluate immediately, but unchanged. management, as it has developed from the selves through expanded leisure time. when the potential of our living labour is Today we see artists like Anton Vidokle division of labour into an organisational Since machines would produce the work realised he or she knows how to define, and Tino Sehgal working according to a theory of business. In this text I will that was previously done by the workers, measure and market it. managerial logic, albeit in very different explore, through an examination of Karl the workers would gain the time to generate ways from each other. During 2008-2009, Marx’s concepts of living labour and the social knowledge, referred to by Marx as Vidokle produced Night School, a tempo- general intellect, a way of working used THE MANAGERIAL ARTIST the ‘general intellect’. This general intellect rary school at The New Museum in New by artists that I propose is a form of becomes sedimented in the machines I have absolutely nothing against appro- York. The project involved artists, writers, managerial authorship. owned by capitalists as fixed capital. priation or plagiarism, especially if it helps curators and diverse audiences. By fixed capital Marx meant the capital us to counter notions of authorship, copy- Presentations, lectures and workshops were MANAGERIAL LOGIC, that is not in circulation, that which is con- right and individual creativity. As the held by people like Martha Rosler, Maria stantly present in the form of means of Comte de Lautréamont wrote: ‘Plagiarism is Lind, Liam Gillick, Tirdad Zolghadr, Paul LIVING LABOUR AND production such as tools, land, buildings necessary. Progress demands it.’4 But there Chan, Natasha Sadr Haghighian and Raqs and vehicles. There has been a lot of dis- are different types of appropriation. Media Collective. Later on in Museum as THE GENERAL INTELLECT cussion around the notion of the general Appropriation of works of art and music Hub: Six Degrees a group show at the New intellect, mostly coming from the so called can help to transgress established notions Museum, Vidokle presented an installation Management guru Peter Drucker identified two autonomia or post-autonomia thinkers like of originality, ontological conceptions of called Night School, 2008-09.5 The installa- characteristics of management: innovation Antonio Negri, Paolo Virno, Christian Marazzi, the artwork and what it means to be an tion included a monitor, a DVD player, and and marketing. Innovation does not neces- Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi and Maurizo Lazzarato. artist. In other words, it can help to chal- a book case with DVDs documenting lectures sarily need to come from the manager, but For the autonomist, the general intellect lenge notions of quality, taste, craft and and workshops that had happened at the he or she is the one who must make sure has some of the qualities of living labour; individualised production. Nonetheless, the night school. Suddenly, through its that it can be marketed. As we can see with it is self-reflexive, affective, cooperative, key form of appropriation is that which the documentation, all the content produced by intellectual property, an innovation needs to communicative and creative. For them, these capitalist exacts upon the worker by the various presenters and audiences dur- be framed in order to be marketed and given qualities can also be applied to politics, appropriating his or her labour capacity. ing the presentations and workshops held a value. In capitalism, value can only be and can therefore produce self-organisation In some instances, the two forms of in the name of education became Anton assigned to that which is measurable or antagonistic to capital. appropriation are combined: in the name Vidokle’s artwork. To what extent can one countable. As Alain Badiou has said of today’s Responding to this line of thought in her of the critique of authorship, and as a way appropriate someone else’s activities? configuration of the world as a global market: text, ‘Living Labour, Form-Giving Fire’, of questioning the passive condition of the For what reasons? What does it produce? In the work This Progress by Tino Sehgal, society of the spectacle, has turned into The ‘flame of living labour’ necessitates instead, constantly reproducing the distance staged at the ICA in London in 2006, one YouTube and social-networking sites on the capitalist material conditions for its between our actions and our control over entered the gallery to be confronted by a which we can all make a spectacle of realisation (technological, artistic context, the conditions of the context that we little girl asking you to reply to the question ourselves.6 musical context), but by reproducing capital inhabit. Liberation does not come from this ‘what do you think is progress?’. Related in the act of reproducing itself, this living type of realisation process, but from a We have to be clear about the relations put questions were then put to you by different labour alienates itself from its product. to work within the production of the mana- distorted self-realisation process that goes people of increasing age as you walked gerial artwork, as well as on the social net- As long as we persist in our condition as against our own conditions and even our through a succession of exhibition rooms. works. What for us, as audiences, seems to audience, we will reproduce the division of subjectivity itself, producing instead an Placing the spectator in a tightly constructed be the expression of living labour labour in which it is the artist and not us, anti-self. The anti-self destroys its own situation in which little room was left for becomes, for the managerial artist produc- in the last instance, who has the final deci- position by nullifying the attributes of transformative interaction, Sehgal instead tive labour. The conceptual framing works sion of how the overall activity might be accumulation that shape our subjectivity gave you the feeling of being part of an as the means of production: the audience/ represented. today, such as confidence, contacts, assembly line of knowledge production. worker is distanced from the bigger picture – This instrumentalisation is produced by the recognition, and attention. Being no one, Contrary to Vidokle’s practice, Sehgal does the knowledge, connections and conditions artist applying the managerial logic of being nowhere, being nobody, definitely not allow his work to be documented, plac- that allow the work to happen and the dis- framing. not an artist, certainly not an audience, ing the emphasis instead on the moment tribution of its effects. The maintenance of What is left of our own subjective agency producing nothing that separates us from of experience. This means that unique and this distance reproduces relations as they if our experiences have been appropriated our objective conditions, having nothing individual experiences are not only pro- stand, the audience is reproduced as audi- by capitalism at the most sophisticated to exchange because there is nothing to duced by the work but, more importantly, ence at one remove from the means of the level? Where are the capacities of our living count that someone else can frame. they produce the work. Taking Comte de artwork’s production. labour today? What creative act can Lautrémont’s quote about plagiarism to a While it is true that as an audience we may exceed this commodification of experi- new level. This Progress shows us how the be able to express our living labour ence? It seems too optimistic to invest NOISE AND THE DESTRUCTION general intellect can be used artistically: capacity (not yet objectified and certainly faith in living labour, while the current flow OF MANAGERIAL LOGIC real life process as constituent content of not remunerated), at the same time we are of capital is creating already new flexible the artwork. also productive labour. We are producing regimes of subjectivation and an accumu- the work of another artist and we are pro- Noise exacerbates the rift between knowing This management of peoples’ creativity, lative future for those who are able to ducing ourselves – depending on living and feeling by splitting experience, forcing ideas, personal tastes and lives, is similar invest in these new kinds of creative capital, labour capacity – as an innovative audi- conception against sensation. Some recent to the operations we see happening within while the rest are sinking into oblivion. ence, which also means achieving the philosophers have evinced an interest in social networks, where people express What for one feels like a unique moment valorisation of the artist and the institution subjectless experiences; I am rather more themselves through the use of tools like is, for another, a link in the chain of a Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, creating in which the artwork is taking place and interested in experience-less subjects. the funding behind it. Marx explains what speculative post-Fordist assembly line, Another name for this would be ‘nemocen- hits for network sites. Guy Debord’s dream where every little interaction can add and worst nightmare has become true: he means by ‘productive labour’: trism’ (a term coined by neurophilosopher ‘something’. Whatever this something might Thomas Metzinger): the objectification of spectators are emancipating themselves a relation that has sprung up historically be will be decoded in the future and if experience would generate self-less sub- from their passive condition, but at the and stamps the labourer as the direct means more value can be extracted all the better, jects that understand themselves to be price of feeling empowered by a system of creating surplus-value. To be a produc- but it already has fulfilled the first purpose: no-one and no-where. This casts an interesting that produces, on the one hand, the feeling tive labourer is, therefore, not a piece of to keep the ball of innovation and activity new light on the possibility of a ‘communist’ of self-agency and on the other hand that 7 luck, but a misfortune. rolling through exchanging ideas, knowledge 9 productive power which appears to be living subjectivity. In order for this to occur, a division of and experiences. labour: as if one were in a hamster wheel There is a growing emphasis in contempo- labour is necessary. By being productive Unless this accumulative chain is disrupted, which is just pushing capitalism forward. rary capitalism on individual experiences labour we are also producing surplus the surplus labour will be continuously At some point, under all the layers of dif- in production and consumption. In a given labour. In the Grundrisse Marx explained reproduced, and in doing so also our own ferent networks, somebody is converting context, when we experience our living how this surplus labour under capitalism constant penury. Experience has been these activities into exchange value. In a labour being realised, the potential of our is constantly split in two8: commodified, and it seems impossible to brilliant paper titled ‘Forking Free Sofware’, subjectivity, of our intellectual and affec- combat this fact with ideology, not with delivered at the Make Art Festival in tive capacity, we feel empowered, we feel 1 – The objective conditions that can allow discourse, nor by self-aggrandising our Poitiers last December, Simon Yuill that we can and that we are a constituent for a new realisation of labour for its own potential living labour. Instead what seems explained how the free software community part of the context that we are in. We don’t self-preservation and self-reproduction. more urgent is to create situations for was being recuperated by a neoliberal have an overview from outside, we are inside. ourselves that challenge the very notion of logic. Yuill quoted Charles Leadbeater, 2 – Living labour in the realisation process is production, and the way our subjectivities are British futurologist, management consult- As we said before, this feeling of self- estranged from itself as it is reproducing ant, and one-time adviser to the Tony Blair produced. There is no return to a generic empowerment is used by capitalism in its the conditions that makes it alien. Surplus government: essence of self or a pure subjectivity. creation of a framework where a valorisa- labour reproduces the conditions for the We seem to be in irreversible times, tion of whatever activity that occurs within The avant-garde imagined that spectator- future extraction of surplus labour. disturbed and damaged forever, pushing can be realised at different points and ship would give way to participation per- By constantly recreating the conditions for ourselves further in our own alienation, as moments. While we gain unique experi- mitting people to become more social and the accumulation of surplus labour we not if we were walking blindly within the con- ences, momentarily feeling happy about collaborative, egalitarian and engaged with only recreate the conditions of our self- ceptual parameters of the managerial ourselves, a capitalist logic expands one another, to borrow and share ideas ... preservation but also the self-preservation logic, thinking that we are going towards deeper and deeper into our subjectivity. Mass participation, Debord’s antidote to the of capital. our own individual liberation, but we are, In his text, ‘Genre is Obsolete’, Ray Brassier has pointed out how the com- 3 Paolo Virno, The General Intellect, modification of experience has not only www.generation-online.org/p/fpvirno10.htm THESES ON NOISE happened at the ideological level but at 4 It is interesting to note that even if Guy 10 the neurophysiological level. Therefore the Debord used to cite this quote, he terminated NOTE: production of aesthetic experiences does his relationship with Henri Lefebvre and accused First published in the catalogue of 6. This is not to say that Noise under not seem to be enough for us to challenge him of plagiarising the text ‘Thesis on the Paris the exhibition Arsenal: artists exploring capitalism can be an autonomous activity. and understand our contemporary condi- Commune’ which Debord co-wrote with Attila tion. Noise does not work well at the level the potential of sound as a weapon But if neither language nor bombs help Kotanyi and Raoul Vaneigem. of either aesthetics or experience, in fact 5 www.museumashub.org/node/48 curated by Ellen Mara De Wachter, you to destroy our reality, Noise helps its qualities radically challenge both of 6 From Simon Yuill’s public talk at the Festival. Alma Enterprises, London. us to get rid of our anxiety. these notions. Rather than trying to reconcile knowing and feeling, noise can help us to 7 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political It was later published as part of my Economy, London: Penguin Classics, p.644. dissociate the notion of living labour from CD Proletarian of Noise, hibari music 7. It is more important to fuck the subjectivity in a way that exceeds the logic 8 Karl Marx, Grundrisse, translated Martin November 2006 Tokyo. minds of the audience than to fuck of framing, by either being too much, too Nicolaus, London: Penguin Books, 1973, p.454. complex, too dense and difficult to decode 9 Ray Brassier, Against Aesthetics of Noise, your ears – and vice versa. or too chaotic to be measured. One cannot www.ny-web.be/transitzone/against-aesthetics-noise.html 1. What the fuck is Noise? have mastery over it, it is a kind of useless 10 Ray Brassier, ‘Genre is Obsolete’ in Anthony Precisely because of its indeterminacy 8. The identity process that occurs general intellect that suspends values of Iles & Mattin (eds.), Noise & Capitalism, noise is the most sensuous human judgement such as good or bad or right or as people are making Noise must be Donostia/San Sebastián: Audiolab-Arteleku, 2009: activity / practice. To try to fix it or wrong. To think of it in moral or ethical constantly rejected. To be a ‘Noisician’ www.arteleku.net/audiolab/noise_capitalism.pdf to make it a genre is as fucked up as terms seems ridiculous. Noise with its is even more pathetic than to be a epistemic violence, counters the division believing in democracy. ‘musician’. between activity and passivity. By making us aware of our impossibility to decipher 2. If you make noise it is likely that it, noise alienates us. We all are no-one in 9. Factory workers in the previous front of it. We cannot find reaffirmation of somebody else is going to hear you, centuries have indirectly been the our accepted positions (either as audience this means Noise is a social activity. or performer). most sustained and brutal players of Unfortunately in practice, noise has become Noise. Recognition of our past should 3. The capacity to make Noise is avail- just another musical genre and many people always be present. could predict what a noise concert might able to all, but its revolutionary be like. In noise concerts the performer/ potential comes from those who want 10. Economic exploitation still occurs, audience division is reproduced as it is to disturb the commodification of elsewhere and players rarely deal with it. even if now the production of Noise Rather than trying to perpetuate noise as Noise – as M.A.N point out in their does not produce an object. The musical genre, I would like to think through website: www.mothersagainstnoise.us. how noise as it carries qualities such as process of Noise making has in itself chaos, density, saturation, precision, intel- 4. To say ‘this is good Noise’ or ‘that become the object of financial and ligibility ... can be executed in order to dis- symbolic market value. mantle the frameworks that so often shape is bad Noise’ is to miss the point. the way we behave and how we relate to each other. Perhaps by putting ourselves 5. Noise without meaning nor finality is 11. The old conception of noise was through the grinder of noise we may revolutionary as long as it does not to believe in freedom, the new concep- destroy our internalised managerial logic. support anything or anybody. tion of Noise is to achieve freedom. NOTES 1 Alain Badiou, Ray Brassier (Trans). Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. p.10. 2 Katja Diefenbach, ‘Living Labour, Form-Giving Fire’, in Gal Kim (Ed). Post-Fordism and its Discontents, Berlin: B_books, b_books, Maastricht: JVE, Ljubljana: Peace Institut, 2011. NOISE VERSUS Rumour is elusive and can be used if it helps us 10. In conceptual art the else says, to try to another contain elements unstable, impossible to to stop reproducing the artist frames all the grasp the totality of of noise. count, it can be defined stereotypes that we con- activity that occurs in meaning in a given commu- CONCEPTUAL ART as noise. Noise exceeds stantly make when we the moment of the art- nication/sentence is, 16. Two of the most NOTE: the logic of calculability. improvise or when we make work’s presentation. according to Luce Irigaray, interesting conceptual art An earlier version of this noise. These elements The concept of ‘piece’ is something characteristi- pieces in my opinion, contain text is available: 5. If we take on Theodor might help you to go fur- antagonistic to noise, as cally masculine. Learning a great deal of noise while www.thewatchfulear.com/?p=3642 Adorno’s claim that there ther from what you would one cannot totalise all from Irigaray, we need to they also question the A version of this text is a strong connection do with your own intu- the noise and say, ‘this understand each other limits of art. was published in Spanish between the forces of itions, repetitive inten- is mine’. Even when we from the perspective of a) Graciela Carnvale, Lock in URSONATE #0 Madrid, production and art, we tions and emotions. The make very loud noise, noise, an anarchic per- Piece (1968) April 2010. can see how conceptual incorporation of concepts there are always elements spective without founda- ‘I have taken a group of art and the dematerialisa- in noise and improvisation escaping us. When we tions, without structuring people prisoners. tion of the art object might help us to develop speak of John Cage’s or categorising constantly The piece starts here and coincides with the end of unexpected ways of play- 4’33”, we are not listening what somebody else is they are the actors’ NOISE VERSUS gold as the standard ing that can challenge the to the specific noises of saying, (in doing this we (Graciela Carnevale, equivalent form of value. situation that we are in. each situation. would reduce expectations 7, October 1968). CONCEPTUAL ART Lack of control, pollution Ways of playing that we We are talking about a and projections over what As part of Círculo de and intelligibility: might not dare try out specific piece by a specific the other person is say- Arte Experimental Rosario, 1. If conceptual art is all attributes of noise, otherwise. composer. ing). We think we under- Argentina, Graciela Carnevale clean, noise is dirty. connect today to a level stand what is going on; at at the opening of her If conceptual art is subjec- of abstraction that capi- 8. ‘I have found that the 11. One can introduce the same time we know exhibition locked the audi- tive, noise is asubjective. talism has reached with limitations imposed by concepts, ideas and deci- that this is never totally ence in the gallery from Of course, it is the artist its credit booms, toxic decisions based on my sions within the context true. Everything could outside. who produces his or her assets and high-frequency personal ”tastes” are of an improvised concert, explode any second. We They did not get out until conceptual artwork. trading. Inevitably, ficti- absolutely stifling. Choices or use them while making better listen as much as somebody broke the front By contrast, noise is tious capital brought us made through the criteria them into noise. But as possible now. There is no glass window. everywhere. into a state of crisis. of subjective likes and opposed to conceptual reason for us to be here. b) Christopher D’Arcangelo Capital reconfigures itself dislikes are to me nothing art, where the idea is what We are in/on the/a in collaboration with Peter 2. Anybody can make noise. in order to give us the more than a kind of ther- matters (c.f. Sol LeWitt), ‘groundless ground’ (Luce Nadin and Nick Lawson One does not need to be appearance that we are apeutic ego titillation in noise, it is the noise Irigaray). This does not produced Thirty Days an artist, or go to art done with the crisis – that only inhibit further itself in its totality that mean the negation of Work in November 1978. school, or understand the nevertheless producing the possibility of sharing matters. Noise is ultra- thinking. The work was accompanied specifics trends of art- more crisis. Noise never an artistic vision (as if it specific. Noise cannot be The contrary is true. by a statement: ‘We have making such as conceptual hides itself, it is perma- weren’t difficult enough represented, as there are The established struc- joined together to execute art, institutional critique nent crisis pushing con- a thing to do as it is). those residual elements, tures of thought need to functional constructions or relational aesthetics. stantly all its elements Besides, I really believe that disinformation – that be radically reconsidered, and to alter or refurbish The everyday qualities of to their extremes. that truly good art is which cannot be counted without justifying our existing structures as a noise have been with us always made of broader or defined – that makes reason to be here, our means of surviving in a for a long time. 6. To perceive ‘noise in- stuff than the personality noise noisy. existence. capitalist economy.’ One’ (François Laruelle)1, of the artist.’ – Adrian The collaboration, the initial 3. Semantic jailers may without applying capitalist Piper, ‘A defence of the 12. The nihilist character 14. Even if noise is at the stage in a series of complain about my differ- logic, understanding its ”conceptual” process in art’. of noise makes it antago- heart of progress, it is evolving and interactive ent usages of the noun elements in their speci- nistic to democracy, and also that which progress exhibitions at Peter noise in this text. ficity without making 9. It is precisely in the it is absolutely realist in cannot control: irrational- Nadin’s loft on 84 West If there is a term that formal hierarchies over limits, in the borders, in its given understanding ity, distraction, the Broadway, was the culmination one needs not to be puri- whether one sound is the beginnings and ends that we are never going unconscious, the emotion- of a project D’Arcangelo tanical about, it might well more valuable than another, where one can find the to be in a state of ally disparate... Noise is and Nadin had begun in be noise. I would rather knowing that we are always hidden ideological contra- equality; even less so the spectacle eating 1977 in which the two play with its different going to miss something, dictions and interests under capitalism. This does itself in an act of self- artists questioned the meanings, than perpetuate makes demands upon us that rest on the con- not mean that we should cannibalism. status of their day jobs noise as a musical genre. to be as perceptive as structions of the situa- not try to understand as manual labourers, possible. tions that we are in. each other as much as 15. It’s interesting to refurbishing loft and 4. ‘Capital does not like We have more tools for possible from our differ- see the connections gallery spaces, by drawing noise’ – Miguel Ángel 7. Common denominators, expressing ourselves but ent positions and create between noise and the up contracts and sending Fernández Ordóñez, totally predictable improvi- also there are more laws democratic process, based origins of conceptual art. out flyers that detailed a Governor of the Bank sations, vulgar ways of that try to regulate our upon a present, and not John Cage 4“33” (1952), description of their of Spain. responding to one another, creativity. It is precisely a future position (plan- La Monte Young, labour, the materials used Countability, separability, average volumes or brutal that which frames the con- ning what we can gain at Composition # 2 (1960) and the time invested. measurability are intrinsic noises. How many noise text in which we operate a later date). (start a fire and let it be qualities of capital. For concerts that sound like which must be severely consumed), Henry Flynt, 17. An epic moment in my a commodity to achieve noise concerts do you questioned. These are the 13. There is more noise in Concept Art (1962), noise career: No Trend its value and therefore want to attend? Anything limitations that are con- language that we might Isidore Isou, Art festival, London, 2006. become a commodity, it (such as an idea, a concept stantly producing our think. One cannot grasp esthapériste. All these After 13 concerts of needs to be counted as one. or any other element) subjectivity. totally what somebody examples, in one way or intense and loud noise, I stood up on stage hold- from my side. As we know the Kantian correlationism thinking and being – revealing an infinite variety practice whose irreflexive ing a microphone and there is nothing pure in that binds thinking with determination-in-the-last- of meaningful objects... immersion in phenomena is wearing mirror sunglasses, noise. It would be impossi- being. We only have nihilism instances unbinds correla- The vision-in-One manifests no longer prejudiced or looking like something in ble to represent the as a conceptual tool to tion synthesis in order to things in the element of governed by latent theo- between a ‘Ramblas’ human atmosphere, the smell of understand better where effectuate (rather than radical immanence, which is retical forms and cate- sculpture, and Lou Reed alcohol, the feeling of we live. represent) an identity to say: without an inten- gories. In other words, in the Metal Machine Music being an arsehole that a without unity and a duality tional horizon of meaning. the true unity of theory cover. I stayed there member of the audience 21. ‘This is not terrible, without distinction between To 'see' things within the and practice does not holding the microphone said he felt. Noise only nothing terrible is hap- subject and object. medium of radical imma- consist in fusing a theory without moving for 10 exists in the present. pening’ Emma Hedditch said It effectuates a non-cor- nence is to shear away all limited by practical con- minutes. The microphone at KYTN 2010 festival in relational disjunction intentional transcendence cerns to a practice sub- was recording all the stu- 18. Chaos goes against Dundee, in a concert where between unobjectionable whereby phenomena are ordinated to theoretical pid comments, all the representation. Noise our only instruments were reality and ideal objectifi- revealed as something prejudices, but rather in our sensibility and our heckling, the insults, and goes against habit. The cation by instantiating recognizable, meaningful, discovering the identity speech. Even though, it spit that the audience unreason of being here the identity of-the-last- or useful, i.e. as objects of a theory uncon- created a charged atmos- threw at me. After ten and its break with corre- instance between the correlated with a con- strained by any pragmatic minutes I played the lationism is closer to phere full of projections being-foreclosed of the scious subject. and expectations. Only horizon and a practice no recorded file at ear split- noise than conceptual art. object and that of the So the vision-in-One is a silence and words. Silences longer governed by pre- ting volume. When I explained real qua being-nothing. kind of seeing without full with emotions. existing formal/a priori this to Andrea Fraser in 19. We could understand Identity without unity and seeing as. This is part of An inverted form of punk, categories. I think this is a tutorial at the Whitney noise as a form of hyper- what's involved in where the audience got duality without distinction what the vision-in-One is Independent Study chaos: Laruelle's idea of 'non- angry with us (the sup- are the hallmarks of supposed to be: rigorous Programme, she told me: ‘ah, We must grasp how the determination-in-the-last- thetic' objectivation. theorizing in an axiomatic I get it John Cage meets posed musicians: Emma ultimate absence of rea- instance insofar as its When things are 'thetical- deductive register, but Dan Graham’. Here there is Hedditch, Howard Slater, son which we will refer to structure is that of what ly' intended they are using an empirical material a big difference of under- Anthony Iles, Mattin) as ”unreason”, is an absolute because we were too Laruelle calls a ‘unilateral posited as given, which is ("philosophy") whose standing when we talk ontological property, and sensitive to each other. duality’. By effectuating a to given according to a objective form is no about conceptual art and not the mark of the fini- Because we were trying to unilateral duality between transcendent structure longer pre-given or when we talk about noise. tude of our knowledge. understand each other. thought and thing, deter- of objectivation which If we talk about ready-made but rather From this perspective, the This was a noise concert. mination-in-the-last- bestows form and content Conceptual Art we talk immanently generated by failure of the principle of instance manifests a non- upon appearances. Non- the structure of imma- about a piece, if we talk thetic manifestation reason follows, quite sim- 22. What conceptual tools correlational adequation nence itself: which is that about noise we have to implies a givenness of ply, from the falsity (and can the nihilist use with- between the real and the of the "unilateral duality". make a fictitious frame- phenomena minus the even from the absolute out falling into either ideal without re-incorpo- Obviously this is extreme- work to set up its limits. superimposition of tran- falsity) of such a principle correlationsim, or rela- rating the former within ly abstract and only – for the truth is that scendent objective forms tivist postmodernism? the latter, whether Laruelle's work is sup- I was able to say to there is no reason for and categories. However, thought the machinery of posed to exemplify what Andrea what the ideas everything to be or to Determination-in-the-last- this is not some return instance involves an asce- symbolic inscription or the this procedure consists that I brought to the remain thus and so rather faculty of intellectual to mythical originary pre- concert were, but she sis of thought whereby in, but if you wanted to than otherwise, and this intuition. – Ray Brassier, Nihil conceptual layer of immedi- understood this as the latter abjures the expropriate this model implies much to the laws Unbound, 2007 ate experience: what's another conceptual piece. that govern the world as trappings of intellectual interesting is that this is for your own uses, I think Under this perspective to the things of the intuitionist as well as of still a theoretical vision, the key thing to empha- objectifying representa- In the extremes we meet! I frame all the activity world. Everything could but one that is so radi- size would be the poten- tion. By submitting to the happening from the audi- actually collapse: from 1 Ray Brassier, in private conver- cally theoretical that it tial consonance between ence as if I was a manage- logic of determination-in- trees to stars, from sation explains the connection has been purged of the vision-in-One and non- rial artist. This is some- the-last-instance, thought stars to laws, from physi- between non-idiomatic improvisation hybrids of categorical form idiomatic improvisation, as thing we can see more and ceases to intend, appre- cal laws to logical laws; and Laruelle’s vision in-One: and practical concern; i.e. a fusion of theory that more in contemporary art. hend, or reflect the object; and this not by virtue of where theoretical reflec- abjures ready-made theo- With the excuse of making it becomes non-thetic and some superior law capable Above all, it's not really tion and pre-reflexive retical forms borrowed a critique of authorship is thereby turned into of preserving anything, "vision" in the scopic from philosophy and/or artists use more and more a vehicle of what is unob- practice are habitually not matter what, from sense. mixed together in philo- the social sciences (theo- the logic of management in perishing. Our absolute, jectionable in the object retical-aesthetic bricolage order to appropriate the itself. It's a kind of blindness to sophical conceptualiza- in effect is nothing other the light of objectivating tions of experience, the indulged in by artists contributions and the than an extreme form of The object becomes at shopping for a handy general intellect produced transcendence that mani- vision-in-One is supposed chaos, a hyper-Chaos, for once the patient and the theory), and a practice by the supposedly ‘acti- agent of its own cognitive fests things in their pre- to separate them in such which nothing is or would that abjures generic aes- vated audience’. Coming determination. Rather objective immanence. a way to release their seem to be impossible, not thetic idioms, not only back to the concert, if than looking to intellectual By "objectivating tran- non-synthetic identity, i.e. even the unthinkable. – I would do anything with scendence", I mean the a theory whose objectiva- those pertaining to musi- Quentin Meillassoux, After intuition to provide an the recording, the result- phenomenological notion tion of phenomena is now cal genre, but also those Finitude, (2006). exit from the correlation ant documentation would circle – a move which that intentional con- free of all practical prej- have accreted around the not be a representation 20. The absolute of threatens to reinvoke sciousness is a kind of udice (in terms of how to practice of free improvi- of what happened, but a unreason destroys both some short of pre-estab- transcendence "exploding" use things for this or sation and turned it into thing of pure opportunism postmodern relativism and lished harmony between towards the world and that purpose) and a another genre... Some questions emerged during a discussion: who How much are you willing to engage with the situation AGAINST REPRESENTATION: is the political subject today? Where is the political that you are in? TOWARDS A DENSE A REVOLUTION IN FRONT struggle today? Surely many years have passed The possibilities of a revolutionary practice are ATMOSPHERE: RADICAL since the concise criticism of the spectacle by already in front of us. It is a matter of penetrating the OF YOU Debord. Capitalism has continued to develop powerful surface of our reality which appears to be so neutral PERFORMATIVITY AND and complex forms of alienation, the most recent of and free of interest. At the same time, NOTE: which surely include forms of biopower and social we can feel a spectral hand making us behave SITE-SPECIFICITY First published anonymously within the Whitney networking. People are no longer simply spectators in a certain way. The hand of the normalisation Within the context of art, is it possible to have a non- Independent Study Program end of year pamphlet, of their own lives through representation, as Debord process that does not let things get disrupted. representational relationship to reality? If yes, this is an updated version was published in Mute Vol.2 argued, but create their reality through the repre- The means to disturb this neutrality might be surely done by acknowledging all the specificities of #15, April 2010. sentations available on MySpace and Facebook. Profit extremely simple; from talking to making noise, the room. One should try to activate the room as much The representation of the working class radically flows from people’s sharing of creativity, emotions from acting different than usual to being utterly as possible and disrupt previous habits and behaviours opposes itself to the working class. and intimate information – all of which is surely very honest, from saying the most intimate things in public to create different ones. In other words, to go against – Guy Debord, ‘Thesis 100’, Society of the Spectacle helpful for market researchers, and the police. to being totally quiet when you should be having fun. the normalisation process. I have found improvisation We’re no longer contemplating our life through certain To stop being so self-conscious about your reputation to be a practice which takes into account everything forms of representation. We’ve internalised the could also help. Surely it would mean to give up, at happening in the room. Not to create something new REPRESENTATION AS spectacle to such an extent that the way we relate least momentarily, the restrictions of being the that later could be used elsewhere, but as a way of to each other, our interactivity in everyday life and ‘yourself’ of MySpace and Facebook. A FORM OF MEDIATION: intensifying the moment through changing social experience, is reproducing it, not with a feeling of Why not become someone else? Fuck knows who, relations. FRAGMENTATION/ passivity or distance, but with an intense desire to perhaps the Stranger. Improvisation can be an extreme form of site-specificity SEPARATION enjoy ourselves, be ourselves and be connected. as well as a radical, intimate and immanent self- Have your say, produce, write, listen, start your own IMPROVISATION: criticality. As there is no need to defend or build a Representation in politics can be seen as a form of blog, comment in online forums, express yourself. position for future situations, improvisation always delegation. One ceases to take responsibility for Never before have we had so much access to self- ELUSIVE AND UNSTABLE points towards self-destruction. certain acts and thoughts, relegating it to somebody representation, and never before has our subjectivity We could see improvisation as pure mediality with no else who will speak for you. In representative been such a product of representation. Sabotage all representation! outside to itself, as pure means without end, coun- democracy an ordinary person does not have the All is not that bad on the internet. New realities and – The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection tering any form of separation, fragmentation or indi- possibility of developing the specific language ways of working together are being built thanks to the viduality. When can one feel this activation of the needed to speak to power or authority. A separation is Free Software movement, a very interesting example In speaking of improvisation we not only discuss the space taking effect? When there is a dense atmos- created between everyday life and the moments of how to counter the division between the realms of production of particular sounds or events but the phere which makes you aware that something impor- when political decisions are made in society or the production and consumption. But for the spectacle, production of social spaces as well. We invoke this as tant is at stake. As there are no predetermined cate- community. As Guy Debord pointed out, ‘representation consuming is also no longer enough; being connected both a strategic term and a conceptual tool. gories or words to describe this experience, what is separates life from experience’, similar to the separation is now required. Could this be a more intimate form of Improvisation can therefore refer both to experimental at stake is very difficult to articulate. Because of the difficulties of assimilating it or immediately under- of disciplines, the division of labour, and the distinction separation? What about all those iPhoners who are music making as well as everyday and mundane standing it, this affective strangeness counters the between work and leisure. However, as Jean-Luc half here, half there? Separation before being practices. Improvisation, by having a long historical normalisation process. When this dense atmosphere Guionnet remarked to me, Debord criticised representa- connected, separation from oneself? Now let’s imagine use outside the realm of contemporary art, cannot is produced, the people involved become painfully tion without criticising the language that he himself we are in the same room with Gregg Bordowitz. At his be identified with an origin nor as a term coined by aware of their social position and usual behaviour. was using. As representation is the typical medium of talk at the Whitney Independent Study Program, a group of artists or musicians (as opposed to If the density of the atmosphere is sufficient it can artistic practice, it is no wonder Debord and other we were impressed by his attentiveness to what was Conceptual Art, Institutional Critique, EAI...). Obviously become physical, disturbing our senses and producing anybody can do it without having to understand the Situationists wanted to supersede art. They desired happening in the room. What type of relations were being strange feelings in our bodies. Through such a multi- complex issues related to a specific discourse. life without separation. built there and then? What type of environments were sensorial disruption in the appearance of neutrality, As long as we accept art as a separate discipline it being created? He managed to create a different type of Improvisation as opposed to other kinds of music one gets the sense of being in a strange place – not will be more difficult to produce concrete and direct atmosphere in the space where so many discussions had making or practices has no fidelity to any roots or really knowing where to stand. We become vulnerable. political change through artistic practice. Similarly, already taken place. He created perplexity, and he origins. It is by default heretical. Where applied, Every movement or word becomes significant. Once to think that political action can only happen in the inspired us, making us aware of the politics in the room improvisation brings about glimpses of instability. If it is you are there, there is no way back. What is created realm of politics or in the streets would also be a way and certain repressive relations taking place there. working, its elusive qualities evade solidification and is not a unified sense of space or time, but a hetero- of accepting that separation. Sometimes a revolution is needed in the room. commodification – at least in the moment. topia where one location contains different spaces and temporalities. Previous hierarchies and established the logic of mastery, even when its deconstruction is unforeseeable (non-definable and non-demonstrable) organisations of space are exposed. intended. Brecht plays certain strategies against THE STRANGER theoretical and pragmatic emergence – if we look at The traditional time of the performance and distribution each other (i.e. introducing social realism into an epic the etymology of improvisation we find that its Latin The Stranger or the identity of the real is non- of attention (the audience’s respectful behaviour or romantic scenario) in order for their techniques and root ‘improvisus’ means ‘unforeseen’. It is practice-of- reflected, lived, experienced, consumed while towards the performers etc.) are left behind. If one effects to become evident. theory which is an event in itself. The DLI invalidates remaining in itself without the need to alienate goes far enough, actively distributing one’s vulnera- However his didactics continually distance the viewer or suspends theoretical authority and any claims to itself through representation. - François Laruelle bility, these hierarchies could be diffused, not to give from what they do not know, from what they still ‘have knowledge of the Real. The Real cannot correspond a false sense of equality, but to produce alternative to learn’. Rancière advocates thinking differently To what extent would you détourn yourself in the to a doctrine or a discipline, however it can be ‘cloned’ social relations of time and space. The creation of an about seeing and hearing – not as acts of passivity situation you are in? into a concept and from there you try to deal with the affective class? but as ‘ways of interpreting the world’, as ways of When improvisation is successful, it puts everybody immanence of the concept itself, taking it as an Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about ‘relational transforming and reconfiguring it. He is against this in an strange situation; it makes us strangers. In his axiom rather than using it to understand or determine aesthetics’ where some audience interactivity adds pedagogical distance as well as any idea of genre or non-Marxism, François Laruelle uses the concept of the Real. You cannot get yourself into the Real, but cultural capital to some bland art works done by very discipline, but he doesn’t go far enough in explaining The Stranger to describe a more radical and universal you can clone it into a concept, and then remain as concrete artists with dubious ideologies. how this oppositionality could be enacted. Rejection of concept of the proletariat. The Stranger is a radically close as possible by dealing performatively with the these inequalities is not enough. immanent and performative, non-representational, concept, with the minimum reflection possible. ESTRANGEMENT We need an alternative way to experience life which non-normative thinking subject. It is a force (of) Following Laruelle we can take improvisation as an is indifferent to the claims of hierarchical knowledge. thought and a heretic in the sense of refusing axiom, in the sense that one cannot really define when one is or is not improvising (since so many Again, interpretation would require mediation, as one authority and tradition. As Ray Brassier puts it: Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremundungseffekt (poorly trans- questions arise around individual free will, subjectivity, would be reflecting on the situation, rather than being lated as ‘estrangement effect’) tries to get rid of the The Stranger: is the name for the Subject of practice- and ideology; questions which I don’t think can ever in the situation. fourth wall in the theatre by distancing and disrupting of-theory, modelled (‘cloned’) on given material be satisfactorily resolved). By adopting this axiomatic The question is how to be ‘in’ the situation as much as the illusion separating the audience from the stage/ (philosophical, but in this instance sonic/music/ approach to improvisation as a domain to which one possible, with minimum reflection in order to explore, performer, making evident their ‘passive’ and ‘alien- aesthetic/cultural etc.), but determined by [the?] can bring ideas, decisions, and concepts as ways of live and experience the precise moment. Here I am ated’ condition. This in turn makes them understand real of the last instance (=One etc.), whose imma- narrowing down or focusing where the improvisation is not aligned with Feuerbach’s romantic idea of truth as how constructed the situation is. nence it effectuates. The Stranger-subject is what going to happen, one can look closely into a specific unseparateness, but claim that the Real itself does In improvisation the estrangement effect is doubled, you become when you think-practice-perform in area. Everything can be a tool for improvisation and we not contain these separations. These separations - Ray Brassier, Private correspondence as the condition of the actor or performer is also radical immanence. can learn a lot from feminist thinkers such as Judith disrupted. As both the performers and the audience can be understood as ideologically and historically with the author. Butler and Peggy Phelan about how to bring the notion constructed truths which are used to mediate our find themselves in a condition that they could not For the sake of space let me butcher Laruelle’s of performativity down from its conceptual use (as in experience of the Real. have anticipated before, the separation between complex system of non-philosophy. Laruelle is trying Laruelle’s work) in order to intensify an encounter However, the closer we get to the Real, the less them is no longer so clear. to explore the Real through radical immanence without with the concept that the ‘personal is political’. these ready-made truths help us to live it or experi- Right now, in whatever situation you are in, how much adding layers of either reflection or representation, Radical concepts can enable a radical critique from ence it. If we are ‘in’ enough, we might be able to are you willing to give up? through which we otherwise mediate our experiences. within, without respect to the master terms such as A dense atmosphere in improvisation reveals the leave behind our previous preconceptions, prescrip- In order to understand the concept of The Stranger capital and heteronormalism. J.K. Gibson-Graham conservative construction of the situation (audience, tions, and ideologies. we have to understand ‘Determination-in-the-Last- says in The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): performance, manager, curator). It produces the ‘Real’ here is to be understood quite straightforwardly, Instance’ (DLI). Originally the term was invented by A Feminist Critique of Political Economy, desire for a new set of conditions. There are no pre- as what happens ‘for real’ simply because it’s hap- Marx-Engels within historical materialism, and de- Capitalism is the phallus or ‘master term’ within a system scriptions for improvisation. The goal is to create an pening here and now. It’s connected to the sense veloped by Althusser for his analysis of infrastructure/ of social differentiation. Capitalist industrialization unprecedented situation – strange for everybody, in which one can have a real pain, and behave as superstructure (which in the last instance remains grounds the distinction between core (the developed without a didactic or presupposed agenda. In his text though that pain were real: indeed, this is an reciprocally co-constituted by what it determines). world) and periphery (the so-called Third World). ‘The Emancipated Spectator’, Jacques Rancière uses interesting characteristic of children’s playing, For Laruelle, the DLI is simultaneously real, universal, the example of Joseph Jacotot, a French professor in when they encounter pain, they express it. immanent, heterogeneous, and irreversible. If we understand capitalism as the ‘master term’, the 19th century who tried to teach his students what This is not to say that ‘real’ in its everyday adjectival The DLI is not simply an immanent causality but radical then the ‘Stranger-in-the-last-instance’ is the most he himself did not know. In doing so, he took as his sense doesn’t harbour a powerful but complicated immanence itself. A syntax without synthesis which particular and vulnerable subject and it cannot be starting point the equality of intelligence, negating connection with the Real as noun, whether François excludes reciprocity, convertibility, systematicity, represented by either the dominant hegemonic order claims to mastery of knowledge. In Rancière’s words, Laruelle’s or Jacques Lacan’s.Only the production of finality, formalism, materialism and technologism. or the working class. The Stranger is too particular Jacotot was ‘calling for intellectual emancipation new and radical concepts in a language indifferent to Laruelle is not trying to empirically prove his concepts and site-specific to be subsumed by other against the standard idea of the instruction of the the dominant structures would help us to understand but instead use them as self-evident thoughts which universalised concepts. The Stranger is the ultimate people’. Performing the authority of knowledge (like the particularities of the situation in the dense correlate to the Real. The DLI does not escape from impossible subject and only respects the authority of Debord’s criticism or Brecht’s didactics) reproduces atmosphere that we have created. itself or alienate itself. The DLI is the causality of radical performativity rather than the Represented. an instrument. But which instrument? After some hesitation, the choice of electric IDIOMS AND IDIOTS guitar presents itself for purely practical reasons: there is the dim memory of having being taught the rudiments of guitar playing long ago at school, and NOTE: even though he has not picked up the instrument since, there is the feeling First Published with the CD of a concert at Niort, w.m.o/r 36 (Visby), April 2010. that he has at least a vague idea of how to coax sounds from the guitar. No such modicum of confidence is possible concerning any other instrument. 11 Paragraphs on an improvised concert However, the choice of guitar is problematic. We have agreed that we want to do something unfamiliar not only for ourselves but also for any audience that By Ray Brassier, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Seijiro Murayama and Mattin might be present. Yet the presence of an electric guitar immediately threatens to undermine this imperative. On one hand, the instrument brings with it a whole Improvisation: 1786, ‘act of improvising musically’ from Fr. improvisation, from host of associations with the rock idiom – associations we would rather avoid. improviser ‘compose or say extemporaneously’, from It. improvvisare, from On the other hand, the use of electric guitar in free improvisation is associated improvviso ‘unforeseen, unprepared’, from L. improvisus, from in- ‘not’ + provis- 1 with renowned players like Derek Bailey or Keijo Haino, whose distinctive styles us ‘foreseen’, also ‘provided’, pp. of providere ‘foresee, provide’ (see provide). might be caricatured through incompetence rather than design. Inability risks resulting in an inept pastiche of ‘free improvisation’: incompetence can breed familiarity as surely as a surplus of competence. The potency and impotency 0 – WHAT HAPPENED? concomitant with incapacity will prove to be a decisive factor in the concert. It is not just that one of us does not know how to play according to the We did something together: a concert. We want to try to explain it to our- technical conventions governing recognisable musical idioms; he does not know selves: what happened exactly? How did it happen? And why? ... We want to how to ‘free improvise’ either. The question is whether this double incapacity recount the story of the process, but not only that; we also want to recapit- can nevertheless yield something besides banality. ulate all the discussions that took place before and afterwards (right up to the present), articulating the questions posed by the concert – questions that are both abstractly theoretical and very concrete. Our hope is that in 2 – Don’t Start Improvising for God’s Sake doing so, the experience of the concert will allow us to attain a better under- standing of the representation of art in art. We take improvisation as an axiom, in the sense that one cannot really define when one is, or is not, improvising (since so many questions arise around individual free will, subjectivity, and ideology; questions which we do not think can ever be 1 – BEFORE THE CONCERT satisfactorily resolved). By adopting this axiomatic approach to improvisation as a domain to which one can bring ideas, decisions, and concepts as ways of narrowing We are all interested in philosophy. One of us is a professional philosopher down or focussing where the improvisation is going to happen, one can look interested in music. The others invited him to collaborate on a project. closely into a specific area. The precise nature of this collaboration is to be determined: he is not a musician In speaking of improvisation, we’re not just talking about the production of and has never participated in any sort of musical performance. He agrees to particular sounds or events but the production of social spaces as well. collaborate but neither he nor the others have any idea what form the We invoke this as both a strategic term and a conceptual tool. Improvisation collaboration will take. can therefore refer both to experimental music making as well as mundane There is something interesting about the sound of words in a musical context – everyday practices. But wherever it is applied, improvisation should bring about even though most of the time the results are terrible. The sought-after emotion glimpses of instability. If it works, its elusive qualities should evade solidification often results from the contrast between two, three, or more simultaneous lev- and commodification – at least in the moment. The goal would be to apply to els of logic, or levels of thought. Thus for example, the commentary which whatever discourse one is in the process of articulating those quibbles developed actors provide about their own acting within a film can be powerfully moving: with regard to the world so as to always understand discourse in the exteriority consider Ingmar Bergman’s A Passion, or the way in which Chris Marker provides of the world – though ‘world’ is not the right word here; perhaps it would be a commentary upon his own film in Level 5, or the way in which Sarahang, the better to say ‘what one ”is” not’? Afghan singer, commentates upon his own song within the song (even if one Is it possible to have a non-representational relationship to reality in the con- doesn’t understand a word he is saying). text of art? If so, this would surely be achieved by acknowledging all the speci- The first difficulty arises over the role of words. Although unsure about how ficities of the room. One should try to activate the room as much as possible to proceed, the philosopher is sure about what he does not want to do: and disrupt previous habits and behaviours in order to create different ones. he does not want to perform the role of academic theoretician commentating on In other words, one should strive to work against the normalisation process. a musical performance by the others. And he fears that if his participation We have found improvisation to be a practice that requires taking into account takes the form of him speaking about the music in his capacity as a philosopher, everything happening in the room. It is not just the creation of something new the result will only be a banal and stilted academic exercise that remains that could be used later elsewhere, but a way of intensifying the moment by beholden to certain dubious assumptions about the relation between sounds and transforming social relations. Improvisation can be an extreme form of site- concepts. Principal among these is the notion that the thinking embodied in specificity as well as a radical, intimate and immanent self-criticality. Moreover, music is some form of sub-conceptual content that must be given explicit conceptual since there is no need to defend or construct a position for future situations, expression through an act of theoretical reflection on the music. This schema improvisation always tends towards self-destruction. is unacceptable on three counts: first, the resort to speech threatens to Thus, improvisation could be seen as a pure mediality with no outside; as a pure re-envelop sound in signifying tropes that cannot but attenuate the latter’s means with no end or telos, countering every form of separation, fragmentation, material opacity; second, it assumes that music means in a way amenable to sub- or even individuality. When does this activation of the space take effect? When sumption by ready-made conceptual forms and theoretical categories; third, it one has succeeded in generating an atmosphere of sufficient density as to be implies a division of labour between verbal conceptualisation and sonic production capable of engendering the awareness that something significant is at stake. that seems to reiterate the ideological distinction between theoretical-cognitive Since there are no predetermined categories or words to describe this experi- reflection and practical-aesthetic production. Improvising musicians who really ence, precisely what is at stake is always difficult to articulate. Yet because of think about what they are doing are far better qualified theoreticians of their the difficulties in assimilating or immediately understanding it, this strangeness own musical-artistic practice than any philosopher could ever be. Professional counters the normalisation process. When an atmosphere of sufficient density accreditation as an ‘academic philosopher’ does not automatically entitle one to is generated, all those involved become painfully aware of their social position the role of ‘designated theorist’. and standardised behaviours. And when the density of the atmosphere reaches This presents an immediate dilemma: three of us are experienced performers- a certain threshold, it can become physical, generating sensory disturbances improvisers; but if the other is unwilling to perform as an academic theorist – and unfamiliar corporeal sensations. Through a disruption in the appearance of reflecting upon, commentating on, or otherwise providing a second-order accom- neutrality, one gets the sense of being in a strange place – of not really paniment to the performance – then what exactly is he going to do? Given that knowing where to stand. Every movement or word becomes significant. What is he has abjured all recourse to commentary or speech, there seems to be no then created is not a unified sense of space or time, but rather a heterotopia other option but for him to somehow perform alongside the others. Mime and where one’s location contains different spaces and temporalities. Previous hier- tap-dancing having been ruled out; it becomes difficult to avoid the resort to archies and established organisations of space are exposed. The traditional time of the performance and distribution of attention (the audience’s respectful ways of almost not reacting as a way of reacting. But the point is not to behaviour towards the performers, etc.) are left behind. If one goes far substitute a ‘non-reaction’ for a ‘reaction’; it is to seek out a mode of reaction enough, these hierarchies may even be diffused, not to provide a false sense or non-reaction that would overtake any kind of latent or ‘hidden’ imitation; of equality, but to produce alternative social relations of time and space. precisely the kind of imitation that doesn’t reveal itself as an imitation – the We do not want to be misunderstood. We are not talking about any variant of latter applies to most of what gets called ‘reacting’ in music, whether composed ‘relational aesthetics’ where a little injection of audience interactivity adds or improvised. cultural capital to bland artworks executed by very specific artists with dubi- We each bring our own tools to the concert situation: instruments, ideas, ous ideologies. Rather, we want to interrogate the limitations of performing on timing, craft, knowledge... . To believe that one could break with all this all at stage: To what extent is it possible to use the parameters that define the once is unrealistic to say the least. So what does it mean to react to one spectacle (i.e. the divisions between audience, performer, stage, expectations) another? We think it has to do with striving not to do so in any obvious way; as material for improvisation? The issue about expectations in this concert is with forcing oneself to attempt something that has not been attempted important because many people were expecting a philosopher: what would a before; something that incurs some fragility, some anxiety, some tension that philosopher do in an improvised music concert? Something involving speech... might feed the other players; in the hope that everyone might thereby be ren- But he played guitar instead – badly! To what extent did the tension produced dered maximally alert. The goal would be to attain a mode of interaction that by these expectations influence and intensify our playing? would allow each player to appropriate a personalised sense of time: there is a In the conversations leading up to the concert we talked a lot about trying to very specific way in which the passing of time is experienced in special concerts, be ‘in’ the performance as much as possible. Lately, we have discovered that and there was definitely something like this going on in Niort. the way to do this is by pushing towards the borders or limits of the frame- work that one is working with. These borders, which are often simply accepted without question, actually contain all the problems, contradictions, and condi- 3 – DURING THE CONCERT tions that determine the concert situation, but not in any obvious way. One has to deal with them very carefully if one is to be able to identify how they Just before the concert, while doing the sound-check, there was a realisation constrain us to behave in certain ways, and the extent to which they affect that we needed to do something about our mode of interaction, since the way us. Here we are not just talking about whether or not the room is hot or cold, we were engaging with each other was too obvious. So we conceived a structure etc., but about those unwritten yet binding conventions that we comply with that would impose constraints on our interaction. The concert was going to be out of habit: those rules which are not supposed to be challenged. The simple 45 minutes long. We divided these 45 minutes into 3 parts, each of them lasting question often overlooked in improvisatory practice is: How does the social 15 minutes. Each of us could decide to play in one or two parts, but not in all context of the concert frame and delimit our scope of action? three. But we also allowed ourselves the decision not to play in any of the What is required to go beyond such limitations? The refusal to fall back into a three parts. So not only was there the possibility of 15 minutes of silence practice that reproduces established conventions or reiterates stereotyped occurring during the concert; there was also the possibility of 45 minutes of ways of music making, even those accepted as part of what one is supposed to silence should all four of us coincidentally decide not to play in any of the three sections... . Of course, for one reason or another we broke the rules, but do in order to be recognised as an ‘experimental musician’. Take for example the still this structure generated unusual ways of reacting to one another. convention governing the acceptable distance between performing and being in One of our principal aims in approaching this concert was to try to render the the audience (this relates to the allocation of passive and active roles among atmosphere as ‘dense’ as possible. In Niort, each of us strove individually to performers and audience). If one is performing or has made the commitment to realise this quest for density. Yet in doing so separately, we managed to perform a concert, it means that s/he has a proposition, something to offer. achieve a collective mode of intensification that could never have been realised But if one’s proposition consists of being the audience, then the risk is that had we resorted to stereotyped modes of interpersonal communication. such a proposition will just become an everyday, casual situation. Yet what is For instance, one of us chose to use nothing but a very reduced electronic arguably most interesting about the concert situation is that it provides an device and his voice, neither of which he usually uses; playing alone during the opportunity to create a different social space: people who attend a concert second third of the concert’s duration was a very powerful experience. This want to be affected, touched; they want to receive something – or perhaps density was experienced by another in the form of a gamble, not only about they don’t? In which case the performer’s decision not to offer would frus- when to play, but also about whether to play at all. The possibility of not playing trate the audience’s desire not to receive... . Although it is very problematic to was envisaged as a powerful temptation, since it provided an easy way of avoid- accept this passive role, it also provides the performer with the opportunity ing the risk of ridicule that inevitably accompanied the decision to play. This to do something ‘extraordinary’; to create a situation that goes against the decision assumed the form of a challenge, like the decision to leap from a great grain of our everyday social interactions. The most interesting concerts any of height without knowing what lies below. us have played or witnessed were those where this position and these accepted roles, which both audience and performer inherit from the conventions of the concert situation, become twisted or developed into something else as a result 4 – Clinical Violence of the audience assuming a more responsible and active role, such that they come to believe that they could do anything. When we began discussing what we wanted to achieve during the concert, we We appreciate the problematic nature of terms such as ‘activity’ and ‘passivity’; talked about trying to attain a cold or clinical violence. We set ourselves what we are also aware of how easy it is to lapse into a patronising stance. is, on the face of it, an absurd (not to say dishonourable) goal: we wanted to But we have observed that concerts which do not challenge or affect anyone make people cry. And in fact one member of the audience – unprompted – did just leave everything as it is, failing to generate anything with which anyone cry. It might be that this is what happens when the density of the atmosphere might actively engage: in such cases, it is as though nothing had happened. becomes too much and is rendered oppressively physical. Why did we want to Other concerts – and Niort was one of them – might provide food for thought achieve this? Because we wanted to do something that would go beyond the long afterwards (a year and a half in this particular case), precisely because it production of more or less aesthetically pleasing abstract sounds, the ‘liking’ remains difficult to judge whether or not it was a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ concert in or ‘disliking’ of which is concomitant with the reaffirmation of one’s musical any musical sense. This is what spurs us to try to think ‘in between’ these taste. terms: in this context, a ‘good’ concert would be one wherein any judgement Of course, we do not believe that music harbours some sort of intrinsic affective executed in conformity with established dichotomies between ‘good’ or ‘bad’, dimension and we fully embrace the Modernist critique of sentimentalist ‘success’ or failure’, would be absurd. In such cases, extant standards of Romanticism. But this critique on its own is insufficient; it has too often judgement are suspended and we are forced to question the basis of the encouraged a sort of aestheticised formalism. We wanted to cut through the parameters by which we judge – previous standards and values collapse. paralysing double bind: either emotional impact via rhetorical expressionism or It is not just a matter of dissolving judgement and of liquidating those con- reflexive lucidity via safely disengaged formalism. We wanted to achieve some- straints that allow one to distinguish artistic success from artistic failure, thing that would be at once theoretically and viscerally exacting. The problem is but of ratcheting up the challenge inherent in the ideal of ‘free improvisation’ one of forging modes of musical expression that incur some sort of psychic as to the point where it is the very nature of the concert situation that is at well as cognitive challenge while abjuring affective stereotypy and the recourse stake in the performance. Plinky-plonking is not enough. The plinky-plonk mode to facile emotional gratification, whether the performer’s or the audience’s. of reacting to one another in improvisation is long gone; our goal is to try to What passes for violence in music too often consists of a series of shock problematise what ‘reacting to one another’ might mean by exploring different gestures: dissonance, volume, noisiness; theatrical threats and imprecations... . We wanted to try something else: to subject ourselves and the audience to an or philosophers. One is a musician only when one succeeds in giving a presence, obscurely unsettling test; to force them and ourselves out of any recognisable a life to music. The same holds for a philosopher. Let us be musical, philosophical, comfort zone by withholding displays of improvisatory craft as well as of musical etc., at the same time... (In the word ‘collaboration’ one finds the word ‘labor’. technique. ‘Violence’, but of a peculiarly studied kind. Obviously, it need not be It usually means a collaboration in which each finds him or herself in his or her physical (though this is not to say that it cannot or should not be physical). habitual position, as a musician, philosopher, etc., without any subversion of Often it is psychological and deals with expectations and projections. It is born identity or attempt to slip towards other identities, towards X). of the refusal to satisfy the former while interrogating the motives of every- one involved until the level of self-reflexivity is pushed to the point of posi- 7. By putting philosophy and music in parenthesis, by separating our profession tive feedback. from ourselves, we simply felt ourselves to be human beings who feel, react, and Thus the type of violence we are interested in is not spontaneous. It is disci- reflect: the experience of not feeling ‘ourselves’ anymore (don’t we feel too plined and calculated. It is purposefully motivated. In this sense, it bears a cer- tied and sometimes even imprisoned by our professions?). tain affinity to what people refer to as ‘political violence’. It comes from the core of our subjective engagement in our practice and when it hits home, it 8. The profound silence within us, filled with the immense energy that threatens touches something very deep. It falls outside the reproduction of stereotypes to explode when blocked: this unnameable zone would be the basis of our experience or ready-made categorisations of expression. Who carries it out? It might well with language. There we were. be the idiot trying to express him/herself, coming from a totally different angle, cutting through the warm shit, the familiar comfort zone. The idiot feels 9. The audience was thereby invited to share this experience and some of them cornered by the non-idiots; there is an elastic band tying them to him/herself. seemed to feel the direct impact of the tension that was flowing from us, for- This elastic band is the pressure exerted upon his/her self by all the conser- getting their own expectations of the concert set-up vative properties of the context with which s/he is engaging. At some point, this elastic band is slightly too tight and there is always the risk it might snap 10. Once the non-concert was finished, our work began again, and we had to try but the idiot has a lot of time to reflect upon the nature of this pressure, to put this unsayable experience into words. This text is part of that attempt. and why s/he feels this way. In the middle, there are the accepted norms; any- thing that represents the status quo proper to the context one is working 11. To dare to do each time without falling into routine, in order to renew, to with. In the context of free improvisation these might include: craft; aesthetics; stimulate, to dynamise the everyday. taste; certain preconceptions about what it means for performers to react to one another or to the audience; the habits that condition and reproduce the concert situation, etc. 6 – Non After one has been thinking through these issues for a long time; when at last what one wishes to cut or break with has become very clear; when one is no We think there is a particular relationship between the NON of Derek Bailey’s longer prepared to wait; one becomes a slingshot. Of course, this might entail ‘NON-idiomatic’ and the NON of François Laruelle’s ‘NON-philosophy’. NON-philoso- shattering some of the foundations supporting the values that are taken to phy is the theory or science of philosophy, treating philosophy as a material. be constitutive of an improvised music concert. An incalculable risk has occurred NON-idiomatic playing is supposed to be able to treat all music as a material. and while this description might sound desperate, there is no desperation Derek Bailey: involved in such violence. Even when the pressure in question is that of the [T]he main difference I think between freely improvised music and [other musics] status quo, once this violence occurs it becomes indifferent to it; it super- is that they are idiomatic and freely improvised music isn’t. They are formed by sedes it in the simplest way imaginable, as though nothing extraordinary were an idiom, they are not formed by improvisation. They are formed the same way happening. One might feel as though one were in the dark, but when people are that speech vernacular, a verbal accent, is formed. In freely improvised music, comfortable with the light and someone questions that light, then people become its roots are in occasion rather than place. Maybe improvisation takes the place fearful and they perceive the threat of enforced obscurity as violence. This is of the idiom. But it doesn’t have the grounding, the roots if you like, of those the sense in which it is a clinical violence. The precision involved is that of the other musics. Its strengths lie elsewhere. There are plenty of styles – group sniper or surgeon cutting through the veneer of normality; some may experience styles and individual styles – found in free playing but they don’t coalesce into this as an act of violence but for the idiot it is simply necessary. an idiom. They just don’t have that kind of social or regional purchase or alle- The scalpel cuts through the foundations that provide the unquestioned or giance. unstated rules of improvisation holding the concert situation together. Unlike They are idiosyncratic. the surgeon however, the idiot has no clear goal, nor an identifiable cyst to Of course, one could understand Bailey’s statement as one strategy among excise. The importance is in the cut. From there we can all draw our own conclusions. others to affirm an individual position in the music world. But although these The idiot looks upon reality from an unstructured or uncategorised point of kinds of strategies are usually simple (and sometimes stupid), the non-idiomatic view. His or her intervention is without a foundation: an-archic. There is no one seems to us to be very dynamic and full of interesting questions and general consensus or general understanding: this is the sense in which we are problems – even if Derek Bailey is not necessarily the best exemplar of his own idiots. idea (but isn’t that the sign of a good idea? When one’s idea or theory completely overtakes one’s practice or subjectivity?). There is a similarity between the trajectories of Laruelle and Bailey: both seem 5 – eleven ways of SAYING NOTHING to be engaged in trying to free philosophical and musical practice respectively from their institutionalised idioms. Both have very similar relationships to their 1. From ‘having nothing to say’ to ‘finding something to say’ by shifting one’s own historical background. ‘NON’ as a prefix means that you are not part of position with regard to that movement. something but dealing with it from some kind of exteriority – yet one which involves the immanence of practice rather than the transcendence of reflection. 2. Around the question of the concert, music and philosophy met, without knowing As a negative prefix, ‘NON’ also means that you are supposed to have some kind why. In any case, we wanted to change something about it. of immanent general point of view: not from above but from within the practice of music itself – the most immanent point of view possible. It entails that you 3. We exchanged ideas about ‘what a concert is’ in order to find an efficient add a layer of representation such that it either subtracts the previous layer practice, mainly by defining what we would not like to do in any given concert. or even unifies all the layers. 4. The conventional frame of the concert was thereby displaced (which would Laruelle: ‘Philosophy is always at least philosophy of philosophy’; ‘non-philosophy have created possibilities for the opening of vision and for a renewed listening). is the science of philosophy’. Why is non-philosophy as the science of philosophy Nevertheless, we did not know what we might do. not a metaphilosophy? Laruelle claims that philosophy is constitutively reflexive: every philosophical claim about X (whether X is an artwork, a scientific theory, 5. By putting this in parenthesis, we performed a kind of concert, a non-concert. or a historical event) is always at the same time a reflection on philosophy’s But in any case, what is the relation between A and non-A? relation to X. In other words, the philosopher is never just talking about this object, but also about how every other philosophy mediates his or her relation- 6. The decision taken by thought and psychological tension were our sources of ship to this object. Non-philosophy represents an attempt to ascend beyond energy. This project also undermined the identity that makes of us musicians this level of reflexive mediation while simultaneously descending beneath the level of irreflexive immediacy. It does this by operating in the medium of what the two previous ones (I know that I know that I know), especially if this layer Laruelle calls ‘real immanence’: this is an immediacy that is radically irreflexive, is nominated as not-something (knowledge), can mean attempting to return but one that generates a kind of pure practical transcendence (mediation artificially to the first layer: the non-idiomatic would be the (long and subjective) through practice rather than theory). ‘Real’ as opposed to wholly idealised or process of constructing an ‘artificial bird’. The sequence would be the following: conceptualised immanence boils down to the question of the use of theory: the real immanence evoked by Laruelle entails a strictly disciplined practice of 1 - First layer: bird song philosophy. Instead of exacerbating reflexivity by ascending to a meta-metalevel, non-philosophy adds a third layer of auto-reflexivity that is also a minus (an + 2 - Second layer: vernacular accent a that is - a) – a subtraction that allows us to view all philosophy from a vantage point that is at once singular and universal. Mediating abstraction is concretised 3 - Third layer: either the super-idiomatic (playing with the multiplicity of and unified through a practice that, as Laruelle puts it, allows it to be ‘seen idioms); or the non-idiomatic: taking the music ‘in-One’ (= aproblematic layer). in-One’. This is not some mystical rapture but a practical immersion in abstraction; a concretisation of theory that precludes the sort of play ‘with’ different Representation can be envisaged as a thousand-layered cake (mille-feuille), each philosophical idioms indulged in by postmodern ironists. layer being re-injected into itself and more or less into the others (there We brandish the NON as the marker for an incapacity that adds a layer of being a more or less powerful filter between the output of one layer and the knowing and subtracts a layer of self-consciousness from reflection in such a input of all the others). To be able to situate oneself relative to an idiom is to way as to eliminate complacent gestures of reflexivity: the player’s knowing wink take up a position within the thousand-layer cake; to work through the ques- to the audience (‘you know that I know that you know...’). NON rescinds the com- tion is to operate upon the thousand-layer cake while forcibly subjecting it to placent reassurances of such ironic distancing by driving an inalienable wedge an irremediable modification: here, the interaction with the object is particularly between the player’s intellectual and affective capacities and his technical craft: dynamic (even requiring some security measures) – whether to lose or not to it pits practice against craft in a gesture of uncrafting. lose one’s accent (but what is the absence of accent)? Non-idiomatic music exemplifies a similar agenda: it is informed by knowledge of NON is a layer added to the thousand layers, but one imparted from the vantage music and musics, but adds a layer of non-knowledge that would allow the music of a practical ‘vision in One’: it is the thousand and oneth. This is a new layer to be taken ‘in-One’ (something like a phenomenological époché applied to the that is a function of unknown knowledge: the immanence of practice as an addition whole of music), thereby forestalling the typically postmodern gesture of ‘playing that is also a subtraction; a plus that is also a minus. So long as one thinks with’ idioms. NON supposes the impossibility of any second-order discourse ‘on’ that to know always already implies a power of knowledge and that knowledge is music; it indexes the impossibility of interpretation: one may view all the music a regression in those powers that bring us back hypothetically to mere knowing, of the moment through the filter of electroacoustic music; one may also view without knowing that one knows – then one will continue to insist that it is not the viewing through the window of improvisation. possible simply to know (=knowing) – yet it is precisely to this condition that We postulate an equivalence between NON (‘non-philosophy’/’non-idiomatic’) and we accede to through the NON... . UN (‘un-conscious’/’un-craft’). Both are about releasing the potency proper to The question is whether representation is a flattening out from below or levelling impotence, the capacity proper to incapacity. The practice of uncrafting does out from above; which is to say, an elevation... . The ‘reality’ of influence in an not just imply the negation of technique, but the unleashing of a generic improvisatory context consists in acceding to one less level of representation potency proper to incapacity, of which technical/practical capacity would be (this is the reality of synchronicity). Things happen when they are as little merely a restrictive instance. represented as possible. Our performance in Niort pitted uncrafting against the aestheticisation of Why not then consider the rumour around, within, or outside the work as con- improvisatory technique. The latter results from the tendency to abstract the stituting its real matter? What do we mean by rumour? The flux/afflux/influx sonic or auditory dimension of performance from its non-aesthetic envelope, of data and signs generated by the form of the work; since the latter is itself exemplified by the social framework and the concert set-up, and to grant pride a particular point within a huge flux of data and signs. Rumour is the claim that of place to sound according to the aestheticism of the ‘pure’ listening experi- a piece of art cannot resist the flux it generates, and of which it is made. ence. In doing so, free improvisation risks degenerating into an aestheticism of The problem then would be to bend a previous flux towards another one in such technique in which the skill exhibited by the free-improvisation virtuoso is a way as to prevent the piece from being rendered transparent to the flux: fetishised just like that of the idiomatic virtuoso. The immanent critique of transparency=YES; work=NO. This is not to say that a work should be more con- aestheticism will not be accomplished by collapsing music into ideology or injecting ceptual than material: it could still be anything, and even more (or less) than it with an extra layer of self-consciousness. It is rather a question of levelling anything... . Of course, what we are calling ‘rumour’ could be designated differently the hierarchical difference between immanent practice and transcendent theory since the word’s semantic proximity to ‘gossip’ could invite misunderstanding. by re-implicating theory into practice but in such a way as to precipitate a crisis But we think this proximity is or can be important: consider the history of art, wherein convulsive conception interrupts complacent sensation. or the debates and commentaries surrounding any artistic event, including The goal would be to effectuate a critique that would no longer depend upon those promulgated by the so-called artist herself. Nevertheless, according to the security of critical distance; a critique that would remain inside. This would this logic, every work of art would be a way of saying NO to rumour, all the no longer really be a critique but rather the discovery of an outside through while knowing that rumour makes its living from every such NO. This would mean the inside. that the shape and the process of the music have something to do with the shape and process of the rumour surrounding the music itself – even if rumour is also a way of resisting. In the context of composed music, the influence 7 – REPRESENTATION (among other factors) is often represented as something that happens to sound as something subsisting in itself. Represent: late 14c., ‘to bring to mind by description,’ also ‘to symbolise, to To say that improvisation always has at least one less layer of representation be the embodiment of;’ from O.Fr. representer (12c.), from L. repræsentare, from is to say that it is the deployment of influence in the real – this is where the re-, intensive prefix, + præsentare ‘to present’, lit. ‘to place before’ (see immanence of music resides, rather than in the immanence of the performance or present (2). Legislative sense is attested from 1650s. Representation ‘image, the immanence of the context to or with the music. And to say that the influence likeness’ is from c.1425; legislative sense first attested 1769.2 happens ‘for real’ just means that it is not represented as an influence. ‘Real’ here is to be understood quite straightforwardly, as what happens ‘for real’ In the 1980s, Claude Levi-Strauss, voicing his strong objection to what was simply because it’s happening here and now. It’s connected to the sense in then contemporary art, exclaimed: ‘They think they can paint like birds sing’. As which one can have a real pain, and behave as though that pain were real: so often happens when thinkers criticise art, the sharpness of their thoughts indeed, this is an interesting characteristic of children’s playing. This is not to points to something that is supposed to be negative, but which from another say that ‘real’ in its everyday adjectival sense doesn’t harbour a powerful but point of view can be seen as a potentially positive dynamic. We can connect complicated connection with the real as noun, whether Laruelle’s or Lacan’s. Levi-Strauss’ remark to the non-idiomatic. If I simply know, I am in ‘pure presence’ Criticism, in art, or of art, invariably consist in superimposing a layer. This layer (animality); if I know that I know, I am in representation (double layer/idiom). could be described as follows: it transforms everything into the theatre of its The human is supposed to be sapiens-sapiens, the animal that knows that he own representation, even in those cases where everything is already theatre. knows; this means that human beings can never exit representation; in other In other words, the indication of representation has always already been accom- words that ‘we’ will never be able to paint or sing like birds because we’ll always plished and yes, it is always being forgotten. To indicate representation is to be bound by our cultural constructions and background. But adding a layer to frame the frame: a doubly redundant gesture. Ultimately, critical distance ends up converting everything into fodder for sociological analysis and an object of to play without worrying about any idiom. It is the idea of universality as a the human sciences (the latter amounting to a grotesque caricature of what is genre itself that the non-idiomatic must avoid. This is not to suggest that most distinctive about the scientific stance). Being aware of the fact that you non-idiomatic musicians think of their own music as universal; rather, it means represent the art you are supposed to create is simply the engine that drives that even if it is impossible to ensure that a non-idiomatic musician isn’t sur- any historical process in art. reptitiously trafficking in hidden messages about genre, and thereby exercising some sort of judgment about what music should or should not be, such judge- NON: the trap consists in believing that the contemporary is always the ultimate; ments should be pushed to the paroxystic point at which they usurp their own that it is contemporary with us; that it is our contemporary: that we are con- parameters, exposing them as invisible operators that have become illegitimately temporary! To break history in two, to want to do so, to declare it by doing it, naturalised through custom, habit, or convention, whether what music should be is already a sign that it is not being broken, that one is just praying... . doesn’t cancel all critical interdictions about what it should not be allowed to The impossibility of a discourse ‘on’ ultimately entails that of a discourse ‘with’ remain: a spiritual balm, a token of good taste, a lifestyle accessory, a luxury or even ‘in’: all that remains is discourse’s feedback, re-injected into itself good... . (and what this cry renders possible relative to cry/non/...): a discourse re- injecting itself into itself on the pretext of having to integrate its own condi- Derek Bailey: tions of possibility. Freely improvised music is different to musics that include improvisation. When I put the book Improvisation together, I found it useful to consider these In this sense, NON would be a tabula rasa: the degree zero of cognition. things in terms developed in the study of language. And the main difference It presumes knowing and at the same time the non-use of what is known as an I think between freely improvised music and the musics you quoted is, that they object, as a material. Art is a school that teaches you about what a ‘material’ are idiomatic and freely improvised music isn’t. They are formed by an idiom, they is, but it tends to repeat the same lesson over and over again: ‘Either there’s are not formed by improvisation. They are formed the same way that vernacular no material, or one must redefine it to obtain a radically new sense of what it speech, a verbal accent, is formed. They are the product of a locality and soci- is’. But we are always already implicated in the material because there is no ety, by characteristics shared by that society. Improvisation exists in their possible position from which we could obtain an ‘objective’ vision of it as a music in order to serve this central identity, reflecting a particular region and whole. The latter is of course precisely what the concept of ‘material’ presup- people. And improvisation is a tool – it might be the main tool in the music, but poses; but it does so because it assumes the transcendence of vision (and it is a tool. In freely improvised music, its roots are in occasion rather than hence a veritable exit from the blind immanence of the real). Of course, non- place. Maybe improvisation takes the place of the idiom. But it doesn’t have the philosophy’s claims with regard to its material is that such an immanent posture grounding, the roots if you like, of those other musics. Its strengths lie else- can be realised without exiting from the element of radical immanence that is where. There are plenty of styles – group styles and individual styles – found constitutive for its thinking. Nevertheless – and it is our conviction that this in free playing but they don’t coalesce into an idiom. They just don’t have that is what art teaches us – the taking up of the material in immanence entails the kind of social or regional purchase or allegiance. They are idiosyncratic. In fact end of the material: we exit from the semantic field concomitant with the name you can see freely improvised music as being made up of an apparently endless ‘material’. There is something incompatible between the NON and the material. variety of idiosyncratic players and groups. So many in fact, that its simpler to think of the whole thing as non-idiomatic. 8 – EVERY MUSIC IS IDIOMATIC Question: How can someone imagine that their own speech is unaccented? Even a non-idiom is idiomatic! But the tendency towards it (or the vis à vis) is a very The proposition ‘Every music is idiomatic’ is the affirmation of a point of view specific energy that provides a powerful source for the music, as for example, rather than an affirmation about the music itself. It says a lot about who is in most of those cases that prevent one from playing on or with genre as saying it and nearly nothing about the music itself. By way of contrast, the established forms, through the affirmation of a total incorporation of the musi- proposition ‘It is possible for music to tend towards the non-idiomatic’ says a cal experience into the interiority of each musician. What is culture? Something lot about what music’s inner dynamic might be. To believe that, regardless of all like a very resistant core of knowledge that one can’t help having anyway, and your efforts, whatever music you produce will always be idiomatic is to assume that one has to deal with in every day life (without having to know about this that you have a point of view from above, an aerial perspective or a kind of knowledge). But music is never completely idiomatic: non-idiomatic playing is play- general map of all existing and possible musics. It is to assume that your playing ing that does not seek to represent what one thinks music should be or how or composing or performing is unfolding on the basis of that map, as an immediate music should work. In this regard, idiom itself is radically a-subjective. It becomes part of it — that you are playing with or on that map. To integrate one’s self subjective when it becomes the representation of a particular idiom: this is into the idea of a non-idiomatic music doesn’t mean that one is without such music as idiocy.... a map; it means simply that one’s self is not located in the same place in your It’s a question of inserting the idiocy of the real (Clément Rosset) into human intellectual activity and in your artistic practice. being: you don’t choose to have the accent you have but you can work with or On another level, this can also mean that what one considers to be an idiom is against it. A non-idiom is an ingenious way of separating music from linguistic simply the set of influences, imitations, or authorities from which it is possible metaphors and of insisting that ‘No, music is not a language’. One never notices to generate any musical proposition. This is an all too historical point of view, one’s own accent in one’s own language. in the most impoverished sense that history can assume. The human being does There is something programmatic about the very idea of the non-idiomatic: to indeed seem to be the greatest imitator among all the animals we know. To then impose a name on a practice is not necessarily to describe what it is in the go on to claim that ‘all music is nevertheless idiomatic’ is to point out this imi- name of some (short-sighted) pragmatics; it can also serve to name the dynam- tative skill. But to say ‘music can tend towards the non-idiomatic’ is not to ics of this practice – partly no doubt in the name of some sort of vitalism, but assert that one can, as a musician, operate apart from any imitation or influ- also, quite possibly, of a profound dialectic, inaugurated by the nomenclature ence; it is merely to point out that it is possible for music to occur independ- itself, between that which is the result of a given practice and that which is ently of any play upon those relations; or that music itself provides a powerful its motor (where practice and theory are one and the same). NON is what gives vehicle from which one can attain a critical point of view upon what could be force to this dialectic. There is on one hand the decision to do this rather called the prison-house of self-referential imitation. Quite apart from anything than that (knowing why one is doing so); but there is also the inability to do else, the impetus towards the non-idiomatic prevents improvisation from lapsing otherwise (and even to regret it). into a series of private jokes and the citation of musical references only a What assumptions are implicit in the idea of being an idiomatic musician? That to select few could properly appreciate. ‘inhabit’ an idiom is to play in that idiom without questioning it; that to be bound by an idiom is to have failed to attain an aerial point of view upon one’s In some ways, the concept of the non-idiomatic is connected to the Deleuzean playing: one is inside, there is no possible outside; much as one is only able to notion of ‘becomings’ (devenirs). Consider in this regard the link between the speak in one’s mother-tongue. In this regard, there is a connection between an idea of ‘minority’ and that of ‘idiom’ (there is the example of creoles, where the idiom and a popular culture or knowledge. An idiotic form is a specific form that non-idiomatic is not necessarily where one might have intuitively supposed to it one can find only here and there: language is such a form; accent is an idiotic to be). If genre is truly obsolete, then ‘we’ are faced with a huge potential form included within another idiotic form. Consequently, the idea of the non- disjunction between that which would separate the play on or with genres idiomatic would seem to entail the obligation to reflect on one’s own idiom(s) ... . (which assumes a private joke aimed at those ‘in the know’ about genres, just Nevertheless, non-idiomatic means quite the opposite. Non-idiomatic presumes as it assumes that universality is not truly universal), from that which manages that in a modern or post-modern culture one can’t inhabit an idiom without having a strong representation of it. This means: one can’t play in an idiom set of conditions. There are no prescriptions for improvisation. The goal is to without (somehow) having the feeling that one is representing that idiom (showing create an unprecedented situation; one that is strange for everybody; without an image of it). Furthermore, one can never really inhabit a single idiom; one also a didactic or prefabricated agenda. In his text The Emancipated Spectator, has to know more or less about many other idioms... . This means that one has Jacques Rancière uses the example of Joseph Jacotot, a 19th Century French the possibility of an aerial point of view. An idiom presumes a simple knowledge professor who tried to teach his students what he himself did not know. that may be as profound as possible, but which is not supposed to engender In doing so, Jacotot took as his starting point the equality of intelligence, knowledge of this knowledge. To have a representation of the idiom is to pre- negating claims to epistemic mastery. In Rancière’s words, Jacotot was ‘calling sume that one possesses knowledge of its knowledge (that one knows that one for intellectual emancipation against the standard idea of the instruction of knows it). Popular culture is supposed to ‘be’, without representing itself the people’. Performing the authority of knowledge (like Debord’s criticism or (that’s why, at the simplest level, pop-art is not popular). But ‘non-idiomatic’ Brecht’s didactics) reproduces the logic of mastery, even as its deconstruction means: to play minus this second-order knowledge about what one is playing. is intended. Thus, since all idioms are representations of themselves, the task of the non- Brecht plays certain strategies against each other (i.e. introducing social real- idiomatic musician would be to escape from the representation of music in music. ism into an epic or romantic scenario) in order for their specific techniques and effects to become apparent. However, his didactics continually distance the In a way, non-idiomatic supposes both that one can be devoid of any accent and viewer from what they do not know, from what they still ‘have to have learn’. that one can have an accent such that no one knows where it is from. In this Rancière advocates thinking differently about seeing and hearing – not as acts regard, non-idiomatic music would be a way of producing what should be popular of passivity but ‘ways of interpreting the world’, of transforming and reconfig- music; which means that it’s not popular music. There’s an ‘as if’ at work here, uring it. He is against this pedagogical distance as well as any idea of genre or but one that is not of representation: ‘I play what I play, where and when I discipline, but doesn’t go far enough in explaining how this opposition could be play it, knowing what I know, as if I were a real popular (i.e. ethnic which is not enacted. Rejecting these inequalities is not sufficient. We need an alternative to say ‘popular’) musician’. Thus the non-idiom supposes an ‘as if’ that is close model of experience; one which would be indifferent to hierarchical knowledge to the one scientists use with regard to their own work: ‘Every thing happens claims insofar as it fuses a deficiency as well as a surplus in what counts as as if...’. It’s strange that popular means ‘well known’ rather than ‘ethnic’ (rumour relevant knowledge within a situation. It is not a matter of interpretation – as again). The only way to produce something like a ‘popular music’ would be by when cognitive authority is supposedly contested by interpretation: interpre- being a non-idiomatic musician. Non-idiomatic = popularity against the popular tation requires mediation, through which one reflects upon the situation as a (idiom against fame). Yet doesn’t the fact that improvising musicians are sup- way of consciously mitigating one’s own immersion in it. The goal would be not so posed to be able to play with any musician in any context mean that their non- much to oppose performative immediacy to interpretative mediation, but to identify idiom is in fact a ‘super-idiom’ that includes all others? No: by adding a layer the point of indifference between knowledge and ignorance, capacity and inca- that is a ‘minus one’, NON precludes the idea of a super idiom. The immanent pacity, and to occupy it in such a way as to convert their indistinction into a ‘One’ indexed by Laruelle’s NON is precisely not-All. In the last instance, to be a focal point concentrating the most explosive contradictions of the situation. non-idiomatic musician is actually to be a contemporary idiomatic musician. Estrangement and idiocy. 9 – THE Politics of estrangement 10 – Stranger and idiot Why does society need free improvisers? We are little entrepreneuriats; very If one becomes (or comes to be) a non-idiomatic musician by being aware of the good at managing ourselves and acting as our own little bosses and workers, fact that idioms are a representation of idioms, then to become a non-idiomatic producers and consumers. There is a sense in which the improvised music con- musician would be to become a (super)stranger (in the same sense as Whitehead’s text provides a little laboratory prefiguring capitalism’s future development, subject is a ‘super-jet’). since being an improviser requires many of the characteristics prized by the capi- If one becomes (comes to be) a non-idiomatic musician by pushing one’s own talist economy: self-motivation; strong individuality; hyper flexibility and adapt- accent to an extreme, then to become a non-idiomatic musician would be to ability; the ability to adapt quickly to different circumstances; the ability to become a (super)idiot (in the same sense as Whitehead’s subject is a ‘super-jet’). perform in public (for customers); constant self-promotion (‘look at my individual Basically, the stranger is s/he who has ‘another’ idiom, while the idiot is s/he qualities, my very particular way of playing my instrument: what I provide is who has no idiom or an exclusively idiosyncratic one: if the idiot has an idiom, something you cannot get elsewhere’). that idiom will be used only by him/herself. For all these reasons, we think it important to try to reconnect free improvi- Consequently, if we define background noise as everything in sound that is sation to the politically engaged atmosphere from which it emerged in the unrecognisable and/or undefined as a form, and/or uninteresting (for the listener); 1960s. This is necessary in order to understand the connection between the and if we define rumour as noise composed of signs (forms and/or informations development of capitalism and the ideological shifts from the historical moment and/or influences); then the stranger is s/he for whom the border between of free improvisation’s original inception to its current status in contemporary rumour and background noise is ‘different’, while the idiot is s/he for whom the capitalist culture. We need to grasp why previous leftist perspectives on border doesn’t exist: background noise and rumour are a whole that is mani- improvisation failed to recognise the problems that this practice harboured fested in-One to ‘him/her’; a whole that can also be an information and/or a (such as the fact that the free improviser provides a model of the ultimate form, and/or a sound, and/or etc. ... . Undifferentiating the sonic world as one capitalist); we need to expose the Romantic idealisations that generated this sound and/or the sonic world as one information. political myopia; and we need to understand why improvisers often promulgated The ‘super-stranger’ = the ‘solar stranger’ in the sense that this stranger such excessively crude and over-simplificatory accounts of the political poten- casts light upon idioms (sun). tial of improvisation as a form of praxis (assuming of course that free improvi- The ‘super-idiot’ = the ‘nyctalopic idiot’ (nyctalope = one who sees in the dark), sation does in fact harbour a progressive aspect, which we think it does). in the sense that this idiot has his/her very own idiom, and can speak in a non- Let us consider the political subtext implicit in the concert set-up in relation speaking environment (s/he creates light for her own sake in total obscurity): to the theatrical machinery of representation. Brecht’s Verfremundungseffekt s/he speaks with a non-linguistic instrument. The non-idiom is idiotic! But the tendency towards it (or the vis-à-vis) pro- (poorly translated as ‘estrangement effect’) tries to eliminate the fourth wall duces (non idiotic) music. Audience and performer becoming strangers together... in the theatre by distancing and disrupting the illusion separating the audience from the stage and performer, rendering evident the audience’s ‘passive’ and ‘alienated’ condition. This in turn is supposed to make the audience understand how artificial the situation actually is. In improvisation, the estrangement effect 11 – Text-language, non-language is doubled, for the condition of the performer is also disrupted. Since both the I, the origins of music according to Curt Sachs: performer and audience find themselves in a condition that they could not have music has two sources of origin: the vocal and the instrumental. previously anticipated, the separation between them is no longer so clear. The vocal seems to us to possess a vector heading towards language, whereas Question: Right now, whatever situation you find yourself in, how much would you instrumental music in its origins pertains to non-language. be willing to give up? We are now talking about the concert, and the concert was conditioned by some The point of triggering a dense atmosphere in improvisation is to reveal the conversations that we had before it took place. conservative construction of the situation (one that involves the audience, the We are more interested in bringing language and music together rather than performance, the manager, the curator) and to generate the desire for a new separating them. The fact that one of us was presented as a philosopher on the programme, the fact that he refused to say a word in the concert, all the words surrounding the concert (the discussion before, the discussion after, this booklet). All these facts point to a lack of words in the concert itself, and a strong expectation of language from the audience (and also from the three of us)... . II, non-language = the pre-linguistic state, historical yet always actual within us, rooted in solitude, silence, and depth; under the sway of the interminable and the incessant (Maurice Blanchot): the background noise: Emmanuel Levinas’ ‘there is’; non-language possesses the force and potential to overcome the impossible (bringing about the creation of language). III, an inconceivable impetus from non-language to language. Man’s creation of language was driven by his need to socialise himself, to communicate with himself, and to live communally. IV, language: segment; formulate; organise. A saturation of language results in its dysfunctioning, its death: if everything was formalised, it would be too much. Language requires an injection of non- language in order to open up, to breathe, and to maintain its equilibrium. V, the two structures of man’s linguistic activity are: the supra: language the infra: non-language VI, the non-idiomatic according to Derek Bailey: to distinguish oneself from those instances of idiomatic improvisation encountered in the history of music. VII, actual situations around music: The domination of music insofar as language, which brings about the alienation of music, and consequently the alienation of men, with forces that are difficult to distinguish, to expel non-language. A music industry and concert-system based on capitalism, a culture for the masses. The cerebral acceptance of music, various virtual modes of access to music (the personal stereo phenomenon, hi-fi, etc.) They dissimulate reality. VIII, first-generation improvisers: More concerned with musical games and with action than with listening, they revealed to us the importance of non-linguistic force (particularly change and speed), but ultimately they have a noticeable tendency to become captivated by this force (once one gets caught up in it, one no longer knows how to stop). IX, the subsequent or contemporary generation as antithetical tendency: The musical exhaustion, the boredom that crept up little by little from the first generation, on account of our evolving ears, created a motive force for a radical change from one music to another. Now, in place of speed, slowness. In place of change, the quest for depth. The question of listening is more focused than that of musical games; or perhaps the former is determined by the latter: feedback. A particular attentiveness to a non-linguistic aspect, in a way that differs from that of the previous generation: silence. Varied and subtle strategies are required in order to tame language and non- language, while at the same time evading their captivity: it is a matter of delicate balance: not too close, not too far. One must await the arrival of a sound by plunging into sound or silence, by hearing the interminable and the incessant. There is no longer an author. For this generation, non-idiomatic could take on a new meaning: non-idiomatic music frees the listener’s hearing because it does not oblige him/her to acquire any musical idiom or syntax in order to understand it. Non-idiomatic music is addressed to personal listening rather than to a collec- tive listening rooted in the notions of categories and idioms. X, our strategy straddles two paths (language and non-language): it is impor- tant not only to question the actual system surrounding music from a political, social, cultural etc., viewpoint, but also to propose a radical music capable of unmasking the hegemony of music as language; it is from non-language that music derives its essential force, which renders it capable of overcoming difficulties and of going beyond itself.

1 www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=improvisation 2 www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=representation microphone of the computer computer is that it does not La Secta (which the drummer The Velvet to generate feedback. carry much historical luggage of Billy Bao was in). It was The mic picks up sounds from as a music instrument. It is very inspiring to know that Spectacle: the room or from other also a very pragmatic choice. great music was being gener- musicians, from the audience With the computer I can do ated in your city. Also the or my movements on the a lot of different things, in Velvets were a big influence Interview with keyboard. The space where fact with the computer you on me, and I still do the the performance takes place can make music, edit it, mas- cheap Lou Reed with the guitar, Roman Pishchalov effects the sound. Often ter it, make copies, graphic a first volume representing digital sounds can be as you design, press releases, e-mails this side will come on Japanese and Andrij Orel said hermetic, then it is just for distribution... and you can label Hibari (www.hibarimusic.com), a matter of how the amplifi- do all this using a free the second volume comes with This interview was conducted cation delivers the sounds operating system like this magazine. via email with Roman Pishchalov from the computer. So I try GNU/Linux. In the last year and Andrij Orel for the to play with different possi- I became very interested in RP: What is Bilbao for you? experimental music magazine bilities of how to deliver the GNU/Linux thanks to the Autsaider (issue 6), based sounds. Or actually let the Metabolik Hack-Lab in Bilbao, M: It is my hometown, and I in Kiev, Ukraine. sound that is already there a great bunch of people feel very much attached to The interview was published be more present. In the trio working in the squat of it, but at the same time also in March 2006 in printed DC Training Thoughts (recorded Leioa. They organise talks, very alienated. Bilbao has been format in both English and live at Emban, Tokyo) with Taku courses, actions... all around going through an amazing Ukrainian with a CDr of my Sugimoto and Yasuo Totsuka, the use of Free Software. regeneration. In the early Songbook vol.2. what you can hear mostly is They also made their own 1990’s, it was a devastated the sound of trains passing GNU/Linux distribution for post-industrial city, and by by and very subtle infiltra- media-hacktivism, it’s called the end of the 1990’s it tions of our sounds. Often X-evian and you can download appeared on the cover of INTERVIEW improvisers try to generate it from www.x-evian.org. Time magazine. This was mostly an autonomous situation, Before, in order to get music achieved by Gehry’s grandiose Mattin is an improvising in which musicians are in the software, you would have to Guggenheim Museum building. musician from Bilbao, the foreground. Training Thoughts crack it, but with GNU/Linux Now Hal Folster cites Bilbao Basque country, currently does the opposite, by being you just download it. And as an example of ‘the spec- residing in London. He plays quiet the sounds that are there are great audio appli- tacle of society’. The society computer and guitar, and already there come to the cations in Free Software. itself has internalised the runs the label w.m.o/r and foreground. Our playing becomes spectacle. the web label Desetxea completely subjected by For me it has been a very In Bilbao, you can really feel (www.mattin.org), which releases soundscapes that we can hear important change. I am not a this process. Nonetheless, non-trivial music with from outside. very technical kind of person, there are some interesting thought-provoking artworks It’s funny that reviewers in fact a bit the opposite, things going on like the con- and texts. In addition to solo talked about the sounds of but with GNU/Linux you get ceptual Telestreet Amatau TV, works, he performs actively the trains as though they activated as a user, and it MEM festival with both electronic musicians were pre-recorded. is often very community (www.musicaexmachina.com), and players of acoustic based. Metabolik Hack Lab, Periferiak instruments. RP: I thought computer feed- (www.periferike.org)... . back was rather about pro- RP: Billy Bao’s music sounds The list of his collaborators cessing interferences and to be influenced by the RP: Is there an improv scene includes Lucio Capeco, errors in music software that Stooges. Do you draw inspi- in Bilbao? Do you perform in Margarida Garcia, Tim Goldie, would generate a sort of ration from them or, perhaps, Bilbao? Radu Malfatti, Eddie Prévost chain reaction, noise, feedback. other American underground and Taku Unami. I can see now that it’s bands? Proto-punk, garage M: There are some great somewhat different from bands from the 1960’s? musicians (Edorta Izarzugaza, Autsaider, Roman Pishchalov what I previously thought. Enrike Hurtado who makes (RP): Is there any concept How did you come to playing M: Yeah, sure. Funhouse is my ixi-software.net), then in or philosophy behind impro- the computer? Did you play favourite record: raw and Bera there is the Ertz vising on a computer whereby any other instruments before? brutal and at the same time collective (www.ertza.net), audio-in is connected to so sophisticated and delicate a very active group of musi- audio-out, a hermetic instru- M: I used to play the guitar (‘Dirt’). Punk rock was very cians who organise a festival ment closed to input from and bass back in Bilbao, and big in Bilbao throughout the every year. A core figure is outside? I still do in Billy Bao, La Grieta 1980’s and 1990’s. There Xabier Erkizia who is also (www.mattin.org/desetxea.html) were some great bands like running the audiolab in M (Mattin): Actually, it is the and Deflag Haemorrhage / Eskorbuto, MCD, and then later Arteleku (www.arteleku.net). opposite of a hermetic Haien Kontra (with Goldie) on, Pop Crash Colapso (Mikel He is an amazing musician and instrument. I use the internal but what I like about the Biffs recorded Billy Bao) and very important in promoting experimental music in the Basque can produce activities which The spectacle is a permanent abolish this system. Not that country, and there are other do not have to be subjected opium war which aims to make I see a possible rupture great musicians such as Alex to capitalist interest but people identify goods with clearly, but hope never ceases. Mendizabal, Tzesne, Akauzazte, your own, not that the commodities and satisfaction Oier Iruretagoiena, Ministro, division is that clear. with survival that increases Again Debord: ‘The spectacle Baseline... . Actually the according to its own laws. is not only the servant of Catalonian/Greek label Anti- RP: I heard this thing about But if consumable survival is pseudo-use, it is already in frost (www.antifrost.gr) has ‘cracks in the system’ many something which must always itself the pseudo-use of life.’ released a compilation of times before, but are there increase, this is because it Basque experimental artists. cracks? Does ‘finding cracks’ continues to contain privation. RP: Do you think it’s correct mean finding a grant to fund If there is nothing beyond to view improvised music as RP: There are many improvis- your artistic activity and increasing survival, if there associated with leftist ing musicians and new music living? Is financial (in)depend- is no point where it might ideas? Or is it just a false composers, who have written ence a question for you? stop growing, this is not view that comes from the essays and even books on Do activities in the cracks because it is beyond privation, fact that some of the musi- music. You’re also active in have any future if the system but because it is enriched cians (Cornelius Cardew, Keith belles-lettres of this kind. remains the same work- privation. Rowe, John Tilbury) were and Why do you write texts money-supply-demand cycle? are communists? about music? Getting back to the question Is it because you feel you M: I think it is very difficult of what is wrong with capi- M: I do not think there is a fail to be expressive and to make a living doing this talism, and the impossibility correct view on improvised music. clear enough with your tone music, and people who pro- of being able to distinguish Actually when Cardew and art that you resort to mote this music (organising many of its qualities, or being Rowe became Maoists, they writing to explain your aes- concerts, running labels...) able to divide it, like this is stopped improvising and they thetic approach? (This ques- often do lose money. capitalism, this is not, Debord started playing revolutionary tion concerns you, as well as So everybody has to look was a crucial figure in analysing songs. other improvising musicians for alternatives. At the the way that commodity- Eddie Prévost, Derek Bailey moment. I am living in London, exchange expanded more and RP: Do you associate yourself etc. But of course I don’t a very expensive city (espe- more and the alienation that with any particular ideology? expect you to speak for cially rent). So many people occurs in this process. them. Speak for yourself.) (including myself) have to M: Anarchism. squat in order stay here. There is a lot of discussion M: It is not that I want to This is the kind of thing going on about ‘post- RP: You visited Tokyo in 2004. explain an aesthetical that I have in mind when Fordism’, and how language, Tokyo is a base of onkyo approach with my texts. It is I talk about ‘finding cracks’ affects and care are the music. What do you think that I am trying to find out within the system. Others tools of a ‘new factory about onkyo? Do you know what it means to improvise. are organisation of concerts, without walls’. This decen- the musicians? Language is a very explicit or workshops like the one tralised mode of production form of communication. I find Eddie Prévost is running forces the classic forms of M: I don’t give a fuck about antagonism to cede power. it very useful to put into every Friday on improvisation onkyo. There are great musi- Now there is the need for words thoughts that are or Antonio’s at Rampart cians and a very rich under- new strategies. A good example triggered by thinking about social centre on Free Software. ground culture in Japan. improvisation and its conse- can be independent media, In fact, one of the most which before Seattle was not quences in a broader context. RP: Gilles Deleuze appears to underground musicians is very developed. Taku Unami, the son of be the name mentioned most Détournement is constantly RP: You seem to be critical frequently in your texts. famous philosopher Akira needed. Not just in the Unami (Japanese translator of capitalism in your texts. What’s so special about him? What’s wrong with capitalism? media but in our own projec- of Deleuze). He has just tions. We should granulate released the amazing M: Anti-hierarchical, Permissibility, any development of cliché in M: To simplify a lot: I have Kitsune-hitori on Taku Becoming, Trendy. ourselves, bastardising our neither chosen to live under Sugimoto’s label Slub. ideas as much as possible. This music completely avoids this system, nor to be edu- RP: Guy Debord seems to be cated towards work, money categorisations and brings another influence on you. How is it that even if many another perspective on music. and certain values which What do you think about his of us hate capitalism, we are praise competition. If there is an avant-garde Society Of The Spectacle? not doing everything neces- now in music, that is Do you find this book sary to destroy it constantly? Kitsune-hitori. This music Capitalism is very complex. prophetic? That is because we are also avoids trends and terms. There are good things and part of capitalism, we are bad things within that com- M: Sure! Thesis 44 from the reproducing it constantly, Andrij Orel (AO): At the plexity. So, it’s a matter of chapter ‘The Commodity as and probably we are scared present moment, a certain finding cracks in which you Spectacle’: of what could come after we tradition of free improvising seems to be thriving, associ- they do not question values, ated with Keith Rowe, some but assert them? Do you European and Japanese musi- consider the questioning of cians, and the Erstwhile label. values as the only form of For better or worse, this thinking worth pursuing? music seems to have estab- If so, why? lished a set of more-or-less firm structural patterns of M: By questioning values tension/accumulation/release, I mean to try to find the along which we can expect it inner structuralisation that to move. Would you agree we have inside in order to that this type of post-AMM destroy it, to not get stag- layered/textural free improv nated. I do not think that is becoming a traditional music? improvisation is the only way Do you support or oppose to do this, but for me it this tradition? has certain elements that I find very refreshing. M: I do not think that to Like not having to achieve any think in binary oppositions is coherence, the production of that helpful, even if I think constant contradictions and of myself as a very binary having to deal with them kind of guy. collaboratively.

In terms of Erstwhile, even AO: Do you listen to any if I appreciate Jon Abbey’s composed music (avant-garde passion, I find the production or other)? and design often sterile. No danger. I’d rather get M: Yes I do listen to composed Corpus Hermeticum stuff in music, avant-garde and other which you find yourself kinds. questioning whether what you are listening to is pure AO: What do you think of genius or pure shit – obviously field recordings as a ‘genre’ this situation questions your of recorded sound? own values. And this thing Can listening to field record- of Keith Rowe being on a ings be meaningful? pedestal, where he can put himself in any combination M: Absolutely. that he wishes, brings a hierarchical way of working, RP: Do you listen to pop music? in which a couple of people (Jon with money and Keith M: My attitude to pop music with respect of other musical is that of both disgust and fellows) invite other musi- pleasure. It can be so fucking cians to play in the forma- vulgar and full of common tions they want. In opposition denominators, as with experi- to that, I admire Derek mental music, and at the Bailey, who puts himself in same time it can easily bring any formation to improvise, affects that change your not in order to make taste- mood. It is like being cheat- ful music but to create conflict ed, which is great if you do within improvisation. not feel guilty for being a fucking idiot while some people AO: Regarding ‘questioning are making a good living out your own values’: do you of your idiocy. think of timbral/noise improvisation as the prime way for questioning values in music? Are melody, harmony and meter absent from your music because, being elements of a stable music language, game against the improvised the most attractive. Instead, sense of it. And in this way Towards Abject musics establishment and its thinking of composition in a everybody is an audience, the Music: dogmatism. Why do these two very open way, as Mark does, filmmaker included. Because sonic extremes open new might bring him some more the music that we make is Interview with playing territories for improvi- interesting approaches often so abstract, this might Michel Henritzi sation? How do you bring towards making music. For me also be applied to improvised these two poles of extreme this problem of terminology music. This could happen in all NOTE: noise together? shows that the definitions are kind of musics, but I am not Michel Henritzi interviewed me no longer clear cut. Players sure how other musics are via email during February and Mattin (M): When I started to like Radu, Taku Unami and open to the marginal aspects March 2007 for the Grenoble improvise I always thought of Taku Sugimoto have been of sound and performance. based experimental music improvisation as a field of incorporating compositions in Very quiet music has helped magazine Revue & Corrigée. permissibility, being able to do improvised music contexts, us to be appreciative about This interview was first trans- whatever is materially possible and the opposite also occurs. the sounds that occur during lated and published in French. and conceptually conceivable. Personally I still find the term the performance that are not This is the first time this inter- To explore all the possibilities improvisation useful. For me it necessarily performed by the view is published in English. available, to play without hav- has an open endedness that musicians. The sounds from ing to deal with a narrow can be constantly twisted. I do outside might be the most INTERVIEW BEGINS spectrum of consensus, taking not think that improvisation is dramatic aspect of those into account the poles, only happening among the kinds of performance or a Michel Henritzi (MH): extremes and opposites. musicians, improvisation is member of an audience that You appeared quite recently Improvisation is about conflict, always happening in ways that has bad stomach. It is impos- on the international impro- different people coming it is impossible to totally predict sible to try to isolate those vised music scene, in the early together and doing something. what happens in the contexts sounds produced by the play- 2000s. You’ve since played What? Fuck knows. Have fun? that you are in. Computers ers from the other sounds. with some of the most radical Perhaps my understanding of and samples have shown us I think we can take an improv- musicians of this movement having fun is to not get bored. that you can press a button isation concert as a situation. of New improvisation, such as I’ve just read a recent interview and bring sounds whose original We just need to be aware that Taku Unami, Mark Wastell, Taku with Mark Wastell (November contexts were elsewhere. what we are doing is not just Sugimoto, and as well with issue of Paris Transatlantic) in The file that you play can be music but constructing a social some of the outstanding per- which he was saying that, for as long as you want, and it is space. As Henri Lefebvre has sonalities of free improvisa- a couple of years now, he has possible for you to just be shown us, space is never neu- tion such as Eddie Prévost and not considered himself an there listening and observing tral and it always contains Radu Malfatti. Your approach improviser. And that in making the reaction that this might power relations. While impro- to improvisation is marked by a group there is a composi- produce in the audience. vising we should deal deliber- a rupture of sense in that you tional element. This might be As Structuralist filmmakers ately with these power rela- play between extreme noise true, but why does Mark not were discussing in the ‘70s, tions in order to counter the and silence. To claim the influ- want to be associated with the the work is not just in the film ‘illusion of transparency’, ences of both Radu Malfatti term improvisation? Perhaps but the work is happening in the idea that everything that is and Whitehouse could be more because the history and tradition the heads of the audience happening is smooth and free, than a simple provocative of improvisation might not be while they are trying to make which I think is never the case. MH: How did you come to have M: No. What really matters to multidisciplinary). Someone need to be brought and sold an interest in improvisation? me is to do it, or to use these like Mark Wastell does not for survival within this system. How did the transition from rock terms as catapults for possi- want to be considered a great This spiral needs to constantly energy to improvisation happen? bilities, take whatever you cellist (which he actually is), reproduce itself and while it is have at hand and do some- probably he would prefer to be growing we are being thrown M: I remember when I was thing with it. Lately, I have considered as an interesting around here and there. playing bass in my first band, been bringing concepts to the musician. To change it as a whole is not I was always changing the improvisational context in the easiest thing that comes bass lines, and I do not have order to precisely question the MH: What entered into the to my mind. But to try to be a good sense of rhythm, so core of what is actually practice of improvisation playful, to realise what are the other members of the band improvisation. What is freedom? between the moment this music those aspects in your immediate were getting very annoyed I still think that there are some invents itself, the answers to environment that don’t let you with me, as basically I was traditional aspects in improvi- a political questioning of it express yourself or makes making the song sound wrong sation that should be questioned. and this school of new silence? you feel constrained, to try to Aren’t we simply repeating the due to my inabilities to play Why do we actually need to do something with those barriers, experiences already played properly. But something that I realise the music ourselves, might be a good starting point during the ‘60s? Improvisation always thought is that if you why can we not bring just for changing your immediate is still a marginal practice, have inabilities, or the ability ideas that someone else might surroundings. In terms of to do things wrong, do it as perform. The musicians are though it is now greeted in recognition, I must say that wrong as possible and you will still too attached to the instru- contemporary art galleries and I am interested in the dis- surely get somewhere. ment. Here I am not talking has made its place on the course that a work might gen- Improvisation was great as it about composition. I am talk- shelves of cultural merchandise erate. As I said before I do is not about playing properly ing about bringing different like any other idiomatic form. not think that the work is over or improperly, the learning ideas that can challenge In so far as the performers of once I burn a CD master from process is constant, and what established notions of what this improvisation scene want my computer. In fact I think really matters is the focus improvisation is. In this way to break with the existing codes, that then is when real improvi- at that precise moment, the the art world is ahead of the why look for recognition of sation happens: what are peo- intensity, to be as one as improv world. The artist does what you are questioning? ple going to make out of it? possible in the situation that not necessarily need to realise Most of the festivals are sub- This I find very interesting. you are in; to have the feeling the work, as other people can sidised by the state, a lot of musicians deplore the lack of Some musician friends often that surely you would not like perform the ideas. Then these interest their music provokes do not appreciate reviews, but to be anywhere else because ideas can be confronted with especially in university, stan- for me they are a way of nowhere else is there some- other ideas and make some- dard accounts of history, finding out what the work is thing as interesting as this thing together which does not research etc. actually doing. I know it is happening. necessarily mean to make very different to put an expe- nice improvised music. Still, M: This is an interesting ques- rience into words, but I also MH: This debate of the last 40 something is already happen- tion but also a very difficult one. think it is important to at least years about what opposes ing which is that people are That we are fucked there is try to say where you are com- improvisation and composition changing instruments often, ing from in order for other is still lively. Does this opposition and this is totally fine (in the no doubt about it, capitalism still make sense to you today? same way that artists can be makes us as commodities that people to understand you. MH: About improvisation, you concert. At the end of the day M: Perhaps in the most posi- good way or a bad way. say that it never tries to con- a concert is supposed to be tive light we could think of Representational politics have solidate structures, as idio- just a concert, a delivery of them as a form of hijacking shown us a good amount of matic music can do. That it’s some kind of music that you of other aspects of life that fucked-upness. a pure process which doesn’t might enjoy, and a situation in are connected with more con- So it might be more helpful to aim towards a finished object, which musicians enjoy your servative attitudes, like indus- bring politics into what we are and in that way it is somehow attention in the best of cases. trial music-fascism, or reduc- doing or rather to think about an autonomous situation. What can change? There is a tionism in classical music. the politics involved in what Can’t we analyse this as a very clear hierarchy going on I must say that Cardew might we are doing. By this I mean kind of collage process, which in which the performer is have been right in asserting to understand that what we no longer starts from an idiom always in a very powerful that the avant-garde is a self- are doing is saying something whose constituting elements position and the audience is enclosed system, one which to other people, even if this is are organised but from idio- often very submissive. This tries to be autonomous from to a very small number of syncrasies inherent in the per- music is supposed to break the fucked-upness of our lives people. And we should be sonality and the background with this hierarchy but still by being in our nest full of careful as I think more and of the improviser? many musicians are just look- safety expressing our ‘freedom’ more people working in culture The performer fits together ing for the recognition of the while we improvise. are becoming the peons of the real time elements of the audience, a very simple trans- Sure we can be as radical as capitalist mode of production vocabulary he built for himself action which can only be cul- we want by playing this abstract in the western world. You can or herself. Is it only here a tural prostitution, then you music for four hours on a see that the quality of wealth difference of scale? Otherwise hear people talking about stage but for sure we are not of cities more and more is why did a lot of improvisers revolution. going to improve the working judged by the amount of culture feel the need to create systems conditions of the barman. So that is going on. of restraints? MH: Aren’t both free improvi- in terms of direct relations to sation and especially the politics this music does not MH: There is a star system in M: I do not think that improvi- reductionist school and indus- have much. free improvisation which leads sation can be an autonomous trial bands (to quote the old At the same time getting back festivals to invite one musician situation. Where, then, is the politico-aesthetic terminology) to Cornelius Cardew’s communist rather than another. Doesn’t point of rupture? When does a kind of spectacular meta days, I do not believe in get- the risk exist for you to be real freedom happen (if that music? Debord denounced ting involved in a party that commercially used as the actually really exists)? What culture as the ideal merchan- has all the solutions to your grain of sand that messes up I think is that improvisation as dise, the one which leads to problems and tells you that a routine? a modus operandi is more lib- the acceptance of all the oth- what we really need right now erating than other ways of ers. Cornelius Cardew also crit- is propaganda in order to take M: Sure, but what matters is making music. As I said icised ‘avant-gardes’ as bour- power. What happens once you what you do in the situation. before, a concert is a social geois cultural moments which get the power? As usual If what I do is reactionary or space in which people bring separate themselves from power would be executed in I leave things just the way their expectations, and these social noise. Aren’t these the classical top down way by they are, I might as well have expectations are obviously two focuses a critical and some bureaucrats who surely an ice-cream, but if, on the made through the awareness libertarian illusion? would judge whether you are contrary, I manage to put for- that they are going to see a using your creativity in a ward some questions that might leave the audience (including me feel that I do not want to record they sound better and I do not think that this kind of myself) thinking, well that is be anywhere else, because this better, just like any other music is about consensus but something. Once I played in a is actually the most interesting band, nobody gets their brains about being able to express festival and I did an average place that I can be. squeezed while thinking what your creativity at full volume gig with some kind of nice Again to be interested does is going on, but some people without anybody telling you music, and I felt shit, I thought not have much relationship are certainly making some that what you are doing is never again a middle of the with being pleased. money out of it. wrong. Usually in this kind of road gig, either something In Britain people frequently music people explore their very good or totally shit, but say please and thank you and MH: Further to Bruce Russell’s instruments in the most dis- at least taking some risks. it’s good that sometimes manifesto you attribute an parate ways. It is only normal somebody comes and says to emancipatory power to noise that you would also use the MH: You often evoke Whitehouse. you: ‘fucking cunt’. Of course in the face of academic musical speakers in all the possible Which aspects of this band are in Britain they are also very codes – that we’d go beyond ways. If you come to a noise you interested by? good at marketing things into music, and particularly it or improvised concert I pre- How do you compromise with popular culture, so it is not would be a space of freedom. sume you want to get a kick, their political ambiguity? that impressive any longer to Don’t you think that any music some noise if it is played at Particularly with its authoritarian hear these words. Early records played very loud is, in an the right volume can have a relationship to the scene and of Whitehouse show many opposite sense, a form of physical intensity which you audience? They were often reductionist aspects, long feed- constraint for the audience, cannot achieve in any other aggressive with their audience backs and silences, and that noise music creates a way. There are always power (with whom they were in a many aspects of contempo- relationship of submission? relations going on, and don’t commercial relationship, the rary noise but those times To quote Pascal Quignard tell me that some fucking public was charged for its and those guys had a charged ‘Ears have no eyelids’. Isn’t musicians playing for a boring ticket) because of its passivi- attitude, they were disgusted noise the most authoritarian hour at an average volume is ty in front of the rock ‘n roll by society and to a certain kind of music and paradoxi- not giving you hard-core sub- show. There was this nihilist extent they were also disgust- cally the least political in the mission? So even if ‘Ears have attempt to create a destructive ing to society. Now it is very sense that every statement no eyelids’ venues usually collective happening. What does difficult to find this attitude of gets confused in it? have doors! their sound bring for you, this confrontation, so much frus- Some people say that if you extreme noise terror? tration that you want to shake M: THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST either play very quiet or very your surroundings in any way DISGUSTING ARGUMENTS that loud you are being authoritari- M: Whitehouse have changed a possible. People like Wolf Eyes I have ever heard, it is like an, but according to what lot during the last years and or Prurient are not going to when Eddie Prévost, says ‘oh, authority? Basically to the way now are much more about make you feel alienated nor my god this is too loud’ or the music has been perceived parody than transgression. depressed nor challenged nor ‘oh, this is too quiet’, for through history. Usually the I do not think that if I pay for are they going to give a hard whom are we talking about? first ones get the shit, and do a concert I should be remuner- time to anybody. In fact this For humankind? Should we, as not get me wrong as I think ated in a simple satisfactorily kind of music has become musicians that often play for people have been dealing with manner. If I pay for a concert pretty much party music. They no more than 20 people, be noise and silences for a very I want the musicians to do play, they tour, they drink a concerned with the hearing long time, but because they something with me, to make couple of beers and with each health of the whole of humanity? still are not totally recuperated they can be offensive. By not in the experimental music field relationship to the world and now there are no intermediates being recuperated I mean that can actually make the most this economic system which is making profit out you. People the audience may still find it reactionary music that I have a relationship that I find very can put their music on the outside the established normality. ever heard, it is not a surprise complex. internet and everybody who is But here we encounter another that often they themselves connected can get it for free. question: what kind of audience have quite a reactionary way of MH: To say that improvisation It is true that the production is are we talking about? talking. Surely making impro- isn’t a consumer product seems really growing but I think this Obviously for a noise audience vised music is a collective questionable to me. has to do with very positive they might find an aggressive experience, and I think the more In the microcosm of improvi- aspects such as anybody being concert by Mark Wastell bland rich the collective is the better, sation, as for every other able to make, record and in term of noise, but for an the more differences are in musical style, the subject is promote their music by them- audience who is used to his this collective the more that we turned into an object. Besides selves. refined improvisation they can learn from each other. the economy it generates – might find it noisy. and, as you finely say, it’s MH: Between 2001 and today, MH: You write a lot about only a matter of scale – you published more than 40 records, while it took musicians MH: In an interview you said music, especially improvisation. through concerts and a more such as AMM or Radu Malfatti that you try to play against Why this need to comment on and more plentiful production 40 years to produce such an (at least to contradict the pre- your practice? Isn’t it a way of records, there is also a amount of records. What makes conceptions your partners or to reduce and then to confine commercial relationship between the promoter, the audience these records necessary and the audience could have). a practice in a category, to and the performer. justifies them? Particularly for Isn’t playing against the other, make it respectable through its A relationship based on the someone who seems to be against the audiences’ expec- conceptualisation? very critical towards the mer- tations, against the musically sale of a product, whether it is a time unit or a record. Today chandising of culture? acceptable, a questioning of M: The relationship between records pile up in a movement the social body, of the collec- music and language is a diffi- of production which fulfils the M: Making records is a very tive work? This way of building cult one but it does actually same commercial logics. There different process as compared oneself against is basically a exist. As we have been talking is this quote from Derek Bailey with improvising in a concert. quite nihilist process. Is it the about before, this is not just I like a lot: ‘The problem with It is another way of working only way for the collective about music, it is a social recordings is records’. How do which I really enjoy because it experience to happen? Should construction that has been you react to Bailey’s opinion? is much more discursive. While we see these strategies as developed through the years, making a record, you can take breaking with improvised in very different ways. We are M: I think the idea of the internet a long time to make it, or very musics’ dogmatism and their totally immersed within an really changes this relationship short time. You can think about questioning? economic system and I am within classical notions of the it, edit, discuss, delete ... and not sure whether you would be market, by this I do not mean have critical distance (or not). M: I do not think of improvised able to get a grip on this that it is independent to it but It is more like an operation to music as making pretty music relationship by playing 16 perhaps money is not so visible create little Frankensteins. but as a way of showing con- hours a day all your life. or it is in the background. The more monstrous the better. tradictions within the process Through writing I try to under- Surely it is still based on While making this monster you of doing it. Sometimes people stand what I am doing and its attention and recognition but can shape it the way you want little by little. You also have to do with it? If I have a CD burner M: To be honest I don’t buy that the best computer that deal with a lot of technology, in my laptop I am going to records, I get them from the you can have to make music recording, editing, mastering, burn CDs until the burner burns internet. Yes I might not be with is a Mac. This is not nec- pressing machine, promotion, itself. But also it really depends getting the beautiful and love- essarily true. If you know just distribution and so on. After on the project, sometimes we caring hand made artwork of a bit you can get a cheap having done all this work you share the cost between different the CD-R but I just don’t give a machine, install a GNU/Linux have no idea in what kind of people to get 500 copies, so fuck about artworks on releas- system and start to make conditions your record is going each musician gets 100 copies es, often they are just bland music (obviously you can also to be played in: people doing each. So each project is differ- design to fit the aesthetic of get a couple of stones and the washing up, talking about ent but I think CD-Rs are great the music. I personally think it still do brilliant music). Thanks how well their business is as you can burn on demand, is a matter of getting the to Metabolik (the Hacklab from doing, perhaps while they are just like Toyotism in the ‘80’s. music heard. And the internet Bilbao) I started to learn thinking about holidays, dancing, is great for this. On the label about how important the use thinking very carefully about MH: Why did you create this that I run (w.m.o/r) all the of free software is. The soft- it, loving it as if it was that label? What is the idea of it? releases are available for free ware is often made by a com- lover that you would never get online, so people can down- munity, in which users and because you are so obsessed by this kind of music. On what M: To not have to wait for other load it in the free Ogg format producers are in constant dia- kind of speakers is your music people’s decisions as theirs (as opposed to MP3 which is logue to make it work. going to be heard? From a might be as bad as mine. To patented). Certainly it is not So many people working for computer? Copied CD-R or the have total autonomy over the the same thing as getting the free for so many hours, is this ‘real CD’, MP3, Ogg, good com- artwork and distribution. Some beautiful object (I also try to do advanced capitalism? I do not pression bad compression ... of the releases on the label beautiful objects and actually know but if I am making very difficult questions emerge. have a conceptual approach try to sell them which is far music with this free software I that take into account the CD from easy). But at least people will also try to give my music MH: Why did you choose the in its relation to the artwork do not need to work certain away. Thanks to the whole free CD-R medium for your label and the booklet. hours in order to get these software movement questions w.m.o/r? It makes me think records. about intellectual property about the underground economy MH: To remain with the notion have arisen which are very which appeared with tape in of medium, what do you think MH: Can you tell us about this complex but I think they are the 80s. A material which about MP3? Do we listen to the Free software/GNU Linux you going to be the issues of the announced its disappearance same music as the one origi- use and credit in your work? future. Certainly the free soft- – not only through the turn of nally played or recorded? ware movement has been very fashions and experimental Michel Chion would talk of low- M: I find it very important to important in developing the breaks, but also physically definition. Does it seem to you make people aware that you legal structure that makes this because of its instability during that peer-to-peer questions can make music with software community able to work. But I conservation. the system? Or isn’t this that is free and what is more think in terms of culture we dematerialisation of records important is libre (as opposed should be wary of putting our M: This is a very practical rea- throughout the web a way to to Mac and Windows which production at the mercy of the son, which has to do with what sell us the same shit under a both use proprietary soft- law and lawyers (as Creative I have at hand and what can I strictly virtual shape? ware). Many musicians think Commons does) who try to develop a more liberal idea of this we enter a post-modern aware of it and play it back recording with Taku Sugimoto copyright. I think we should fiction which goes against his- from the speakers making it and Totsuka – it fits with the look for options outside of tory as Marx conceptualises it. obvious that what they are concrete aspect of the Copyright and the bureaucrats You sometimes reuse sounds doing is a very important Japanese music. But what that deal with it. produced by other musicians part, if not all of what the does this burst of social with whom you improvise. concert is. Then who is really space within the ritual frame- MH: Some improvisers explained Can we talk about improvisa- playing the concert? Whose work of the concert bring to their choice of an electronic tion in this case, or is it rather sounds are the ones that we us? Isn’t it a simple anecdote? instrumentation – laptop for a recontextualisation? Don’t are listening to? Then the In other words, is this ‘deterri- example – saying it allows you use the other as an instru- whole venue is improvising, torialised’ sound part of your getting away from the hand’s ment? What do you give in but even then, nevertheless, music (and then in what way) memory, from the technical return during this meeting? my privileged position as the or is it conversely the social restraints bound up with the one who decides to play the space that needs music? instrument which are experi- M: What I was doing before recorded files gets exposed enced as a limitation to imagi- was simpler than that. I basically and made open to questions M: I find it very interesting nation. Do you share this point turned the volume of the inter- and criticism. when musicians playing quietly of view? Seeing you on stage nal microphone of the comput- adapt to the sounds of the we rather have the feeling er up and it then picks up the MH: You’ve studied at art environment. Then it becomes that you get frustrated by this sounds of the room and of the school. What did it bring to more apparent that you are direct connection with the other players. you in your approach to part of a situation, and instrument, totally used as a So while some people were sound? atmosphere, rather than trying media here. There is a radical thinking that I was doing some to impose your playing. split between the gesture and kind of sampling I was basi- M: I think that in the art world I remember that the first the generated sound. cally recording with the worst there is a more sophisticated sound was after the twentieth microphone ever. Anyway, theoretical discourse than in minute, and the atmosphere in M: I play with the computer in I always think of recontextual- the experimental music field. the venue was very focussed, many different ways, some- isation as a creative process. It was while I was studying art then whatever sound you bring times taking the most out of I found the so called reduc- that I began to develop an really has to be special. While its material possibilities: like tionist approach very inspir- interest in theory and also listening to the recording typing, playing the hard drive ing. Here it is possible to conceptual art and notions I remember listening to the or the fan, or waving it around appreciate sounds that are around performativity. At the second note that Taku making feedback as if it was often overlooked like rubbing same time the problem with Sugimoto played and it com- a guitar or in the other ways plastics or other squeaking the art world is that it is con- pletely blew me away, I thought using it to just record and then sounds which can sound very stantly looking for the new just because of this note that play a file. interesting when they get thing, what is the latest cool this album should be released. amplified and the attention is thing or what are the concepts For me, that concert was MH: The whole of electronic there. So what I am trying to that people are talking about extremely interesting in the culture turns around the idea do lately is to record the right now. way that we were infiltrating of re-activating a set of mem- sound of the audience which our sounds within a specific ories or gestures, in order to often makes interesting MH: About this train we hear context, but then the recording decontextualise them. Through sounds but without being on Training Thoughts – a live becomes something else like a field recording with an ultra MH: To me, one of your most couple of years and I can’t. piece which is the noisy one, subtle improvisation in the interesting projects is your I really do not know if we are and not so well recorded per- background. This is another duet with Taku Unami. Both of making such a complex music haps, is the one that you have interesting aspect that reduc- you have a very personal that for me it is totally impos- more problems with. For me it tionism gave to me. approach to the laptop; diverting sible to understand or that is interesting in the way that it from its given use. what we are doing is so I could think some of the MH: How did you come to col- Especially in the choice to use senseless that to try to make recordings of Corpus Hermeticum, laborate with Junko? What was only the integrated speakers. sense of it is just stupid. in which the lo-fi quality of your idea? How did this first Has all this Onkyo movement the recording is taken into gig in Tokyo with her go? had an influence on you in the MH: Going Fragile, a duet with account by the listener. I wanted Have you got the feeling that way you think sound and its Radu Malfatti, is a problematic to do this but with this kind of you renewed the approach to relation to space? What differ- record. What is to be heard in very quiet improvised music. noise? What do you think ence do you see between your this record? The ambient about Masami Akita’s idea, approaches to the computer? sounds (outside of the record- MH: Your Song Book series are who said of noise that it was What do you think about this ing) are more present than the very punk records, lo-fi the unconscious of music? young Japanese scene? sounds you generate. Must we played in a very rough way. see here a semantic shift of How do you consider these M: Actually the collaboration M: I do not think that Taku what is musical? A provocation? song records in comparison with Junko happened thanks to Unami would identify himself What does this record bring with your other productions you. When I listened to Junko’s as Onkyo, but it is true that that the concert circumstances and more precisely with solo LP Sleeping Beauty, that there is a great bunch of didn’t? The hearing situation regards to improvisation? you put out (on your label musicians around Taku Unami. seems very different to me What are the texts about? Elevage de Poussière), at Taku He himself is a genius, who between a live act in which Unami’s house it completely would dare to play in an you play with this relation to M: Cheap Lou Reed, that is who blew me away. Brutally minimal, improvised concert situation silence and a record (as a fin- I am trying to be in the song- raw and direct. Of course I the sound of the sea cut by ished object). I wish to argue books. They are an exploration knew Hijokaidan, and actually the sound of a helicopter all with this sentence from John of what I can do within the I had met Jojo a few years extracted from a sample CD. Cage: ‘The problem with context of a song. There has before at the Alchemy shop in It is true that there are great sounds is music’. Why did you been a progression within Osaka, but I was not able to things that you can do with a choose to produce this silent them. I have always written hear how amazing Junko was computer, but this is really music on a record? songs, as I find it very inter- until I heard her solo. taking it too far. esting the way that text and She is such a special person, He is one of the most talented M: I do not think that this sounds mix together in them. so humble and with a beautiful musicians that I have met but music is so quiet, in fact I My literary interest comes way of being, and an amazing also the most perverse (in the think there is a lot going on. mostly from songs, not poems, artist. Regarding Merzbow’s most positive way). Playing Whether the sounds that you nor novels. The lyrics and the comment: I think to make with him is always a challenge, are talking about are pro- songs are sketches of thoughts noise is to be conscious of which often makes me wonder duced by us or not does not and ideas that I have, some sound. what the fuck I am doing and matter, they are on the CD and of them might be developed to be honest I have tried to you are hearing them together into something else, others answer this question for a with our sounds. The second just stay like that, as sketches. MH: I’ve been to two gigs of which are extra musical, but at get it done. I presume it was Leeds, in which I lost quite a you and drummer Tim Goldie: the same time they really a lack of confidence. A friend lot of my right ear hearing. Deflag Haemorrhage / Haien effect the way that you con- of mine, Xabier Erkizia, says Actually Matthew had to put up Kontra. If I really enjoyed the ceive the music. This music is about Proletarian of Noise that his channel by 80%. I really did first one at Cave 12 in Geneva, about frustration. In the case it is like a sound essay. When not realise how loud I was. especially because of the of Tim, he is a total virtuoso he mentioned that, for me it This will be coming out on unbelievable energy you get of drumming, actually the was a very inspirational Bottrop-boy. And surely we will from noise music and rock in fastest and this is not enough moment. It is something that do something soon with our an improvisation concert, the for him, he needs something I have been trying to work dear friend Billy Bao. second one left me a bit more else. To break down on stage around, ideas on language doubtful. Especially the spec- is part of the music, to feel and put them on the record. tacular aspect and this disgusted with your own rela- Joachim from iDEAL records is aggression played against the tionship with the instrument to interested in releasing some audience which seemed gratu- spit at it and the other player solo stuff by me, so I hope to itous to me the second time, to be aware that things are have finished another solo CD you seemed simply to repeat going wrong, but actually not in some months. Also I just what you played the day wrong enough, what do you do have released on w.m.o/r before. It turned into gimmicks. then? To keep pushing, push- Euskal Semea (Basque Son) a What concepts inform this ing into the abyss of logic CD from Josetxo Grieta which project? You play a lot with until you are able to take the I am very happy about. quotation in this duet, either attention of the audience with Josetxo Grieta is Josetxo Anitua, visual or sonic, quoting as you into the most personal In~igo Eguillor and I. Euskal much Whitehouse as The Stooges, desperation, into the realisation Semea consists of two versions Peter Brötzmann or Motörhead. that any of these radical ges- of ‘European Son’ by the Where does the improvisation tures are not enough and they Velvet Underground. In the take place in this band? This will never be. At the same time first version we have translat- way of deconstructing theatri- we all know about the vulgar ed the original lyrics into cal codes makes me think of stereotypes of this music, and Euskara (Basque Language), a hardcore version of Fluxus. we do not return to them. by doing this the song really Sometimes it can be a laugh, changes its original meaning, M: We describe what we do as sometimes it’s not. then, second, is a brutally raw ABJECT MUSIC which basically improvisation. means to produce as much MH: What are your plans? The other release that should confusion as possible in the be coming out soon is an LP head of the spectator. This is M: I have just released my on Tochnit Aleph of a duo with done by taking all the props first solo CD, titled Proletarian Junko that we recorded in of noise, improvisation and of Noise. For me it was very June 2006 in Tokyo (recorded rock and twist them around as important, as I had to work by Taku Unami). much as possible, taking into for a long time on it. More Another one is a duo with account that in a concert thinking about it than actually Matthew Bower, which we many things are going on making it, it was really hard to recorded at Mick Flowers in music that is made together A: How do you perceive the notion of spontaneity is A single decision: in a communal way. At the relation between planning and questioned in improvisation. same time most of the spontaneity in improvisation? Early on in the history of Interview with players (including myself) improvisation, to react to are very conscious of put- M: Oh, when I improvise I am each other’s sounds in ting their instruments next so free! Free of what? very direct way was a way Addlimb to their names as a way of Certainly not free of falling of expressing freedom. NOTE: making a name for them- into the most obvious cliché At some point it became This interview was made for selves within the history that improvisation has clear that this way of Addlimb, a collective based of each instrument. We should developed: the idea that interacting was becoming in Belgrade, Serbia, inter- get rid of this attachment. while improvising you are more and more predictable. ested in exploring the free to do whatever you Other people like AMM (and critical and theoretical A: What is it that attracts want, and that you create also thanks to electronics) potentials of contemporary you towards musical experi- new music all the time. were able to play longer improvisation. Addlimb had mentation? I think we can all pretty sounds, so the reaction a web based project, where much anticipate, to a cer- to each other was not they asked different impro- M: Trying to achieve freedom tain extent, what the music so direct and it was more visers the same questions. whatever the fuck that that comes from certain about sounds being together. This interview was published means. improvisers might sound Players like Sachiko M, took in 2007 on their website like. I am very dubious of this drawn out way of which is no longer active. A: Why are you involved in the idea of spontaneity, working with sounds and improvisation, and how do you as if what we do to be minimalism to an extreme by perceive it? free could ever be without playing just one sinewave in INTERVIEW restrictions from ideologies, a concert. A single decision M: I take improvisation as circumstances, spaces, people could also be a way of a problematic term that can in the room, aesthetics and improvising: BEGINS never be resolved. judgements. I play only one sinewave in Addlimb (A): Have you got As a matter of doing, a I am surprised when (in an the whole concert and let’s any formal musical training, constant work in progress Addlimb interview) Christof see what happens. Some and what do you draw from that questions boundaries Kurzmann says with refer- people might think of this it now? of sound, time, spaces, ence to improvisation that as a composition, and here people and social situations, he is interested in commu- many interesting questions Mattin (M): I have a PhD and the music and culture nication but only between emerge. Among them: who is in Lou Reed’s solos on ‘I industries. At the same musicians, as he considers performing the sound? Heard Her Call My Name’, time the question of impro- playing solo a monologue Every time the listener I learned that sometimes visation is a very tricky rather than a dialogue. moves his/her head the one if we put it in relation- you should watch out for Where is the improvisation sinewave sounds different ship to capitalism. Capitalism taking place, just among to him/her. This kind of your ego and sometimes puts higher and higher the musicians? I don’t think playing, is very paradigmatic you should just let it go. demands on people to be so. I am interested in looking in the way that it takes able to improvise, to adapt at concerts as situations into account a more direct A: What kind of to the constant changes in which different people relationship with the audience equipment/instrument do of the market, to interact are involved, and even if and the space. you use, and what is your with each other and commu- hierarchies are established Of course this is not an relationship towards it? nicate in an effective way, by default (the performer end point and we should What do you think lies to be ready at any time getting attention and being keep exploring different behind the choice of your for the worst. There is a paid, the audience paying possibilities. People like equipment/instrument? strong correlation between for bringing their ‘quality Taku Sugimoto, Taku Unami the importance of constant taste’ and being quiet and and Radu Malfatti started M: I think there is a big innovation in capitalism and respectful), these aspects to put their own composi- problem with the attach- in improvisation, and we should be questioned, dealt tions into an improvisation ment that an improviser cannot avoid the fact that with, twisted, deformed and context. These musicians has with his/her instrument there is a strong relation- contradicted. This should have opened avenues that and the history of the ship between the two. be done by creating intense help us to understand instrument. In other So my question is: atmospheres in which all that improvisation happens experimental music scenes when does capitalism stop involved feel strange: in between all the people that they laugh at the way that producing value out of which they do not have are involved in the room or improvisers always put our own experimentation? clearly defined roles to fall space. We all know that a their names and their Can you make a clear into; where they are part higher amount of intensity instruments in the record- distinction? of something which does and concentration on behalf ings as if it was a brand or I cannot. So who are we not necessarily need to be of the audience also makes a trademark that later on really experimenting for? pleasant. A situation cre- the atmosphere more can be used as a way of The more open you are to ated in order to stop the interesting. Is the creativity promoting a certain musician experimentation, the more reproduction of stereo- coming only from the per- for his/her specific use of likely you would be to open types through amplifying formers? I do not think so, the instrument. up new avenues through to eleven the alienation I think it is a shared expe- Improvisation is often dis- which capitalism can produce that capitalism produces in rience. We see that to put cussed as being a kind of value. us. More and more the ideas into the improvisation context, for example the I was not producing any very quiet music, people A: When you are recording use of single decisions sound per se but recontext- behaved in a very respectful for a release, does the (Sachiko M sinewave) or ualising the sounds being way. But the question of awareness of being recorded a composition (Radu and produced by the audience ‘respect’ is complicated: influence your playing, and the Taku’s), can help us in the room. Generally both could such passivity also in what way? precisely question the the audience and the players be read as active partici- boundaries of improvisation. respect the sounds that pation in the form of M: Of course it does. These kinds of works are come out of the instruments ‘concentrated listening’? When you record you do not seriously questioning the and the speakers more have a direct relationship role of the performer, as than those produced by A: Do you ‘practise’ for an with the audience, you have anybody would be able to the audience. This respect improvisation, and what are no idea in which circumstances press the ‘on’ button on is created by the hierar- your general thoughts on your music is going to be the sinewave, or turn on chical division between per- the idea of ‘practising’ for heard, who they are, or how the amplifier and just allow former and audience that improvisation? When you they got the recording the hum sound. I don’t makes up the structure of improvise, do you use sounds that (internet, bought in a shop...). think it’s just about making the concert format. you’ve already ‘tried out’, and There is a temporal quality But in improvisation you can those sounds and pretending how much room is there for that makes the CD a total- not separate the sounds they are the only ones actual sound experimentation? ly different thing from the that matter in the room, made by the audience from those made by the per- performance. The listener but also taking into M: If we are talking about can listen to the CD as account what the people formers, they are existing improvisation happening in together and we cannot many times as she or he who are present are expe- the concert context taking wants, on different stereos, riencing, and what feelings exclude or forget some and all the aspects into account extract out others for our rooms and while doing other and thoughts are being (room, people, amplification, enjoyment. This concert things. Basically they are developed. So if we can was very intense as it lights...) then there is no improvising with their own bring single decisions and became like a sonic panopti- possibility to practice as listening environment, compositions into improvi- con, in which the movement the concert is going to be whether they are aware of sation, I am also interested of the audience was moni- a single special occasion. it or not. in using specific concepts tored and then heard by You just basically have to I think it is important not as part of my playing in all the people in the room. do it. Of course you can to make clear cut divisions order to question notions At the same time it became think about it, but what between the musician as of spontaneity, authorship obvious that everyone then actually happens happens the creator of a recording and freedom in improvisation. present was part of the and you cannot go back. and the listener as just These concepts are often situation, everybody was I use the concert situation a consumer. Peter Gidal and developed from discussions playing the concert, all of as a place for research, the structural materialist with other players. I will us were audience and per- like a ‘social studio’ to try filmmakers in the ‘60s were give an example: formers at the same time things out. Also the con- discussing the idea that and this did not give a versations that I might the film is not happening Before playing a concert at sense of freedom but a have with the audience and just in the film but in the the 2006 Erstquake, at sense of responsibility. other musicians are very head of the viewer; the Tonic in New York, Radu Some people had criticized important to me to try to viewer had to make sense Malfatti and myself started Radu’s concerts because find out what it was that out of it. I think we could to talk about what we were the audience felt like in actually happened. For me, think in similar terms going to do for the con- a church or in school and to ‘practice’ is very prob- about recordings; the real cert based on what we you would not be able to lematic, especially since I am improvisation is happening knew about the space, the move. But what happens not so interested in show- context and the possibilities when a person is listening when your movement actually ing off my musical abilities and trying to make sense that we had. And this is becomes the music that with my instrument. I try something that many musicians of it. Of course I cannot everybody hears? to reduce possibilities as interfere with this kind of do. When does the improvi- Then your social behaviour much as possible. ‘improvisation’, I can only sation begin? When we comes into focus, and people started to play or when we hope that in the recording have the chance to totally A: How do you evaluate an started talking about it? disrupt the concert. In there is material for We decided that it would improvisation? What is it, thoughts that are going the case of the concert according to you, that makes be interesting to play with at Tonic, nobody did any- to inspire the listener a composition of his which one improvisation better than for a long time. thing strange, everybody another? has a very strict time behaved in a very correct structure with many silences. way. This says a lot about During these silences I was how audiences feel com- M: When I get a head-fuck, to record the sounds of fortable behaving in certain when I can feel that something the room with my computer ways depending on the con- is going on that I cannot (people moving, rumbling text. If we had tried the fully understand but there stomachs, glasses, mobile same concept in a pub or is something at stake, it’s phones ringing, ventilators...), noise festival or in a squat, good. I find it interesting and then I was to play it is very likely that audi- when I cannot work out those sounds back at the ence would have been more whether what I hear is good same time that Radu was playful and reactive. But as or bad, because it makes me playing his composition with the audience at Tonic that question the foundations the trombone. night had an interest in of my values and judgements. Why do you make records? A survey by Jérôme Noetinger

INTRODUCTION: This question was posed by Jérôme Noetinger to different musicians. The answers were published in French in the magazine Revue & Corrigée in 2008. This is the first time the interview is published in English. INTERVIEW BEGINS

Mattin (M): I think of records as material for thoughts that might inspire somebody to do things. The most positive aspect that a record can have for me is to open up possibilities, not only for the musicians but also for the listeners, to make people say: I didn’t think that could be possible!

In order to do this I think it is necessary to be slightly disrespectful to the making of a record, not to be so extremely precious about what you are doing. A punk attitude is always needed. Personally in order to achieve this ‘disrespect’ I needed to release many records. While there is a nihilistic aspect to this attitude, there is also a liberating feeling in thinking that it is not such a big deal to release a record, and if it’s shit, oh well another one on the pile of shit! What is there to lose? Reputation? I never had a good one anyway. I am not so interested in affirmative records that are there only to show off musical qualities or some kind of virtuosity, but records that inspire me to do something, even if it is because you hate the record or just because you find it too fucking boring to waste your life listening to it. If you are not able to make the best record in history try to make the worse one!

When you put a record out, you are in the dark, you do not really know what you have done. Then you start to get some feedback about the record and then you start to understand whether it fits your intentions or not. Also, the comments of other people might show you new directions that can take you somewhere else, somewhere you can develop in the future. When I think of making a record I do not think of a final statement. After you make a record there are a whole set of mechanisms, such as distribution, critics, magazines and so on, that generate discourse around what you have done. As somebody who releases many records, and has a couple of labels and a netlabel, I am interested in knowing how they work. I do not think that the record finishes once it is recorded, the meaning produced around the record changes the perception of it. Even the choice of which label you release your record with would change the reception of the record. I am interested in taking improvisation to different levels of musical production, not only in playing with my instrument and other people but to use the exploratory way embedded in improvisation in the making of CDs and the way you run a label; not that the way I run the label is so alternative but there are some elements that are quite suicidal in terms of selling, like making the recordings available online.

But I must say that the aesthetics of certain records (artworks, covers...) can also create certain atmospheres. Through making records I have tried to explore the possibilities that extra musical aspects, such as booklets with text, images and artworks, can add different elements to the work.

Perhaps because I grew up with CDs, vinyl, cassettes and so on, I think that as objects they can have a very strong influence on us, a super-fetishistic direct relationship to its materiality that makes us discover new worlds and find out that there are very interesting people making crazy shit out there.

That records are commodities that can be exchanged for money makes you continuously aware that your creativity is part of the economic system that we are living in. Through making records you have a very direct relationship to the market and the way that it tries to shape up your creativity in its favour, but this can also be applied to the digital medium, for example through the fallacy of intellectual property.

Of course when you make records there are some production costs that need to be covered, but now thanks to the internet we are able to distribute our music without so many production costs. But what happens to that fetishism of the object? I do not know but what I can say now is that my external hard-drive with 300 Gigabytes of music just died and this made me get back into physical records: we are releasing a Billy Bao LP and a 7” this month, and I am dying to get them! nationalist, ultraconservative regime of Generalísimo Franco, which ended with a whimper in You Cannot Survive Any of My Desires: 1975 when the fair-haired dictator ingested one tainted ham, delivered to his chambers by an inbred courtesan, and croaked. By the mid-eighties, Bilbao, its largest city, was awash in Acapulco Rodriguez on Mattin & Billy Bao heroin and bad vibes, a perfect storm of unemployment, separatist violence and industrial decay that set the scene for the rawest and most noxious punk-rock scene in all of Spain INTRODUCTION/NOTE: (if you don’t believe me, check out Shit-Fi’s unbelievable Basque punk mixtape at www.shit-fi.com/). This interview took place in person in New York between the end of 2008 and the beginning Amid the squalor, spaces opened up where young people were given free rein to create a of 2009. It was published in ZGUN #3 (Sacramento) in February 2009. culture of their own and give voice to their dissatisfaction, a dissatisfaction voiced in an explicitly radical political register. It was this environment that a young Billy parachuted into INTERVIEW BEGINS around 1986, fleeing sectarian violence and militarism in his native Nigeria. Acapulco Rodriguez (AR): Billy, how did that early Bilbao punk scene inform what you would go I first met Mattin (Basque for Martin, pronounced ‘mah-cheen’) when he played at some stupid on to do with your band? festival or another in 2005. In performance he reminded me of a younger, more caustic Alan Vega, or a Spanish Dave E, or perhaps a clean-cut Jean-Louis Costes. Confrontational ad Billy Bao (BB): Radical music in the Basque country discussed real social problems in a very absurdum, he seemed wholly uninterested in rewarding his audience with anything like ‘music’ specific way, subjects with which you identified in a very immediate way. This had a huge impact or ‘pleasure’. Impressed with what I heard I said to him, ‘Have you thought about recording on me as a teenager. People sang about what they saw immediately in their own neighbour- your music?’ hoods, in real life. It was as though they said, ‘I’m young, I’m X, I don’t amount to much. But with a guitar I can talk about what I see, as a teenager’. At the time there were gaztetxes, He had. Even then, Mattin had released more music than fucking Sun Ra. Last I checked, the which were basically squats, and this was an example of how you could do something with the grand total came to some 183 CDs, CD-Rs, ‘vinyls’, and internet-only releases, with reality on the streets. You can make the streets yours, you can change the streets. That’s more–always more–to come. what always fascinated me about punk: crude, concrete realities. On the news, etcetera, there was never that crudeness, that bluntness. This is real. Two years hence, I’ve finished mucking my way through the fucker’s oeuvre and recording my impressions on the old laptop. In its present form, the document fills my hard drive, which I AR: Mattin, you weren’t yet working in Bilbao at the time, right? would happily submit to you were I confident that the postal service will not suddenly go on strike, leave the week’s mail sitting in the bin until New Year’s Day, and then dump it in the Mattin (M): I began a bit later, in the early ‘90s, when a smaller scene took root in Getxo, the ocean. What I have done instead is to whittle it down to pocket size, discussing just a few suburb of Bilbao where I grew up. There was something known as the ‘Getxo sound’, and we recordings which I believe justly summarize or encapsulate the raison d’etre of this formidable were at the end of it. I was in a band with the drummer from La Grieta when I was fifteen career in noise, and interspersing pertinent remarks by the auteur and various associates from his sundry side-projects and gimmick releases. and sixteen years old. It was a rather shitty indie-rock scene. I was a part of it, playing bass in a band called Inte Domine. Later, in London, I started listening to Japanoise and to If there’s a common thread coursing through Mattin’s work, it’s the element of confrontation music like AMM. I saw Masonna and Filament, I started improvising at one of [AMM drummer] that pervades his performances, recordings, and writings. Even in his turns as a laptop Eddie Prévost’s workshops. I started on guitar, then sampler. I played in a duo for a while. improviser of the reductionist school, where restraint and impersonality are core principles, Eddie and I later performed and recorded together as Sakada. his pregnant silences often explode into excruciating feedback, or they’re punctuated by moments of subversive humour, sabotage tactics, and queasy real-time commentary on the Mattin spent about seven years in London, where he attended art school, communing with the audience’s response. city’s underground radical intellectuals, people like New Zealander Matthew Hyland of the band Mean Streaks, and with its reductionist improv scene, where he practised a sort of radical In the US, he’s probably best known as the guitarist in Billy Bao, a punk and noise project minimalism that steered clear of tonality, riffs, ‘self-expression’, all that shit. In 2000, he named after its lead singer, a Nigerian exile based in the Spanish Basque Country. That group attended the International Computer Music Conference in Berlin, where laptop music was the has generated a passel of pretty confusing, noisy concept-records since 2005. The first of order of the day. those, Bilbo’s Incinerator, is now a minor collectable thanks to American record dudes’ rever- ence for the Word of ‘TJ’ Lax. That unpleasant little record (only 300 pressed, foolio) whet- M: I decided then and there that I must buy a laptop. But I didn’t want to sound like the ted the public’s thirst for more, ah, ‘Nigerian punk’, and so the floodgates were opened to a Mego guys [Pita, Fennesz, et al.]. I wanted to make the laptop sound like Bruce Russell or stream of defiantly ugly agit-prop anti-records on such labels as Parts Unknown and S-S. Keiji Haino playing guitar or the nasty feedback of Whitehouse. Needless to say, I’m excited to find Billy Bao sharing labels with bands like Pissed Jeans and Tyvek, ‘cos it means he’s engaged with an American audience famously averse to thinking crit- This is roughly where Mattin’s prolific recording career begins. Encouraged by his work with ically about itself and allergic to braiding politics into its noise. So, yeah, let’s say for the Prévost and other big-ballz of the London improv scene, Mattin started playing laptop sets moment that Mattin is the guitar player in Billy Bao and chew on that cud for a moment. with everyone from Radu Malfatti to Tony Conrad and from Campbell Kneale to Junko, always keeping one foot in the lofty improv scenes of Europe and Japan, where he met and collabo- The Basque Country occupies a unique place within Spain’s geography, as a nation-within-a- rated with Taku Unami, and the other firmly inside the world of noise. Mattin never turned nation, a people ethnically, linguistically, and culturally separate from those of central Spain, down an opportunity to play, and the porous jam session ethos of those two scenes created the historical seat of that country’s political power. As such, the land of bacalao and banks a perfect environment in which to practice his swinging, unapologetically conceptual approach was the site of intense governmental repression and cultural resistance throughout the to silence-and-screech. Perhaps it’s best not to think of Mattin’s work as music at all. For Mattin, performance is an This dynamic powers a good deal of Mattin’s work. It’s at the heart of Deflag Haemorrhage/ opportunity for confrontation and dialogue, and music is ‘simply’ the pretext and the medium Haien Contra, his collaboration with a London improviser named ” ” [sic] Tim Goldie, who have that enables the exchange – the common currency. In some instances the exchange takes the a new album coming out soon which you maybe should buy. I’m looking at it now. It comes in a shape of a muted, ultra-minimal dialogue with the elder statesmen of European improv – Radu white box with a mirror glued to the lid. Mattin claims it’s being released by Tochnit Aleph but Malfatti, or Prévost – and that’s fine, if you have an ear for extreme minimalism and a lot of I don’t see anything on the box to indicate that it’s being released at all. There isn’t even room in your life for silence and self-cancellation. Just last month he played a duet with a CD inside. Margarida Garcia in which his only contribution was to sit in the audience, listen, and applaud politely. If you’re feeling grouchy, I suppose you could take that as Mattin simply saying, AR: Am I supposed to listen to this? It’s just a box with a mirror on the lid. ‘Fuck you, I’m not playing.’ On the other hand, one could see it as a critique of the way concerts have been historically and socially constructed, and the way in which listeners and perform- M: Hmmm… let me see it. Yes, well, that’s a prototype. There’s going to be a CD inside, called Humiliated. ers alike reproduce the norms, habits and stereotypes associated with concert going. It’s your choice, really. But chances are if you’re coming at Mattin’s work from that angle, you will AR: I’ve heard of abject art, but what exactly is ‘abject music’? Is it worse than that shit find plenty to dislike. you did at the No Trend Festival?

Listeners approaching him from the world of noise and power electronics might have a higher M: Yes, I suppose so. Abject music is about running out of possibilities with your instrument. tolerance for this kinda shit, to their own detriment. It’s been a long day at London’s No When you run out of possibilities with your instrument, it turns to pathos. The erect cock Trend 2 Festival, and the crowd’s collective g-spot is bleeding from overexertion, its third of noise becomes a flaccid penis. If Whitehouse eventually turned into a self-parody, we’ve eye glazing over from too many pints of warm ale and nearly a dozen sets’ worth of aes- picked up that torch and become makers of pathetic music. Self-reflexive flaccid cocks that wants theticised sonic dystopia. The next set better start soon. to get rid of their own machoness. The music of impotence.

After what feels like a really long time the house lights dim, and Mattin climbs onstage wearing AR: So what happens when you and ” ” [sic] Tim Goldie perform? mirrored aviator glasses, a beat-to-shit laptop held open on his forearm. He grabs the mic and leans in, poised to sing. And then… M: We try to get it up, we try to get an erection, and we fail, and we become hermaphrodites. It’s about expressing that frustration onstage. Deflag Haemorrhage is a Frankenstein mon- He just fucking stands there, doing absolutely nothing, frozen in place. The whole thing is ster that goes nowhere. ” ” [sic] Tim Goldie holds his arms out like this, like Frankenstein’s rather pathetic and, frankly, kind of eerie, like those wretched living statues you see pan- monster, and he walks around but he just bumps into the wall, going nowhere. Then he does handling in Times Square or Las Ramblas. some air quotes, you know, with his fingers, like the quotation marks in his name. And he sticks the air quotes into his mouth to induce vomiting. So he tries to vomit, but the only For once, the artistic or metaphorical violence suggested by so many noise artists from vomit that comes out is the frustration of the audience having an embarrassed laugh at our Throbbing Gristle to Whitehouse to Wolf Eyes, turns into actual, manifest violence. Insults expense, and at their expense. Everybody is utterly embarrassed. People feel very happy to issue from the audience. Gobs of spit smack Mattin in the face. A beer bottle pelts him in go back to normality, but something has happened, they’re no longer the same. the temple. Mattin stands there and doesn’t flinch, doesn’t crack a smile, doesn’t move a muscle. As much as I’ve enjoyed following the dude’s career as a fly in the Euro-improv ointment, it’s Mattin’s punk-rock moves that I find the most satisfying, partly because punk’s formal con- After ten minutes of this shit, he clicks open a sound file, and an ominous roar takes over ventions are so familiar and long-overdue for a thorough deconstruction, and bro is just the PA. The sound coming over the speakers at earsplitting volume is a playback of those the kind of cheeky wiseass who just might rise to the occasion; also, because punk strongly first ten minutes of the set. Every insult, every retarded joke, every drunken, smartass emphasizes the production of records, and I like records. And ultimately because punk rock remark is amplified twentyfold and spat back at the audience with unforgiving clarity for a provides Mattin and company a commercial laboratory for all them hoity-toity, fancy-pants full ten minutes. Wire magazine ideas, a marketplace of credulous collectors in dire need of a critical suppository to clean out the plumbing. M: After the show I spoke to a few members of the audience and it was very uncomfortable. People were uncomfortable hearing their own voices, their own taunts and smartass remarks. With Billy’s anguished vocals at the forefront, the band became a fleshy, grotesque, punk One of them came up to me and shouted, in my face, ‘Thanks for making me feel like a dickhead.’ rock monster with an improvised papier-mâché penis that temperamentally insinuates itself into the picture, squirting jism and pus all over the grooves (another reason why it’s important Mattin is really into this kind of broad gesture. A sizeable chunk of his repertoire consists to always hold vinyl records by the edges). The recording process became a central element of what you might, unkindly but accurately, describe as a bunch of stunts. Some are more in Billy Bao’s sound as Mattin and Xabier Erkizia’s laptops deformed the band’s real-time successful than others, but the thing about a good stunt is that it involves a significant punk-rock jams in the digital mirror. The effect is disorienting: on one hand, you can’t help measure of risk. Sometimes, that risk means the potential for a bottle upside the head. Most but respond to the music on a visceral level, because, frankly, it rocks. This shit is as smok- of the time, the risk he runs is humiliation – dire, abject, humiliation. If you wind up at one ingly fucked-up and rancid as Drunks with Guns, Brainbombs, or High Rise. But there’s always of his performances, you have no choice but to become a participant in the stunt, whether something there – a bizarre jump cut, a wash of too-pure digital distortion – to remind you you know it or not. If the stunt succeeds, it transforms you by forcing you to examine your that the whole venture is artificial, that somebody on the other end is fucking with the relationship to the performer, to wonder who’s really on stage, why they’re there, and what recording and very likely fucking with you and your personal enjoyment of the music (or, mostly, you’re doing there watching and listening to him. non-music). M: The records are full of deliberate digital cuts. Xabi and I are coming from laptop work, so BB: Intellectual property is shit. this came naturally to us. It’s a very good way to pervert punk rock through the lens of musique concrète. When we made Bilbo’s Incinerator I was playing electronic music and I wasn’t You can take all of Mattin’s music for free at www.mattin.org. Take some, maybe leave some too. quite sure I wanted to play punk at that point. Mikel Biffs was playing in Safety Pins, and It’s a pretty open place to visit online. While you’re there you might, for instance, check out before that in Pop Crash Colapso, a band that sounded like Tad. He recorded us, we put digital Billy Bao’s second single, ‘Accumulation’, another example of the band hewing to the strictures distortion on the guitar, and he was able to get that drum sound. I cut and pasted the of a medium and exploiting its potential. It consists of ten one-minute tracks spread evenly record on the laptop in one night. We were going for our version of ‘L.A. Blues’. The actual across two sides of a 7”. Each of the tracks takes the previous track and layers more on Stooges track was pasted into the noise parts to make it more intense. top of it, until, at the very end, you have an ur-track that includes, absorbs, subsumes every track before it. A good chunk of Mattin’s recent jointz involve creative reimaginings of good ol’ rock & roll tropes, borrowings, appropriations, repurposings, exercises in détournement in which paleo- AR: As Billy Childish would say, that’s some ambition, there, Billy. and proto-punk collide with Mattin’s fucked approach to improvisation. Take his Songbooks, for instance (there’s four of them already), wherein he dons the mirrored sunglasses, shoves BB: Fuck you, man. Punk rock is shit. his hand up a mouldy Lou Reed puppet, and makes ol’ monkeyface bawl, caterwaul, and ‘sing’ a river of crude indictments of (1) capitalism; (2) conventional song forms; (3) his perception AR: Okay, well, since you brought it up, I want you to talk specifically about how improvisation of the audience’s perception of his set, which is always histrionically negative. How do you shapes the way Billy Bao sounds, because that may not be clear to listeners who know the like them apples? No? Okay, then, how about his album-length cover of Lou’s Berlin, cast as a band exclusively through the records. piercing duet with trumpeter Axel Dörner? M: Billy Bao doesn’t rehearse. We never play the same track twice. In that sense we’re a gen- Well, what the hell do you want, man? The White Album? All right, then, dig the forthcoming erative project; we’re either playing live or we’re recording. If we play one riff, what we’re Billy Bao LP on Parts Unknown, recorded in honour of the fortieth anniversary of May ‘68. doing is narrowing down the improvisation to one riff, but we’re interested in not playing the same riff ‘correctly’, but rather, working with this sort of micro-improvisation on the riff. AR: In the US, 1968 doesn’t resonate in the popular imagination as it does in Europe or in We think of the records as a totality; whereas in punk rock you’re nailed down to one track. Mexico, where it represents the culmination of a powerful, unified youth movement, a moment In punk rock you’re working with individual tracks, and there’s this pathetic downtime between of rupture and revolutionary possibility. How was May ‘68 commemorated in Europe? songs. With us you get one riff, then another riff, and it turns into a different song. We play with the format, whatever the format may be, whether it’s a record or a live performance. M: A lot of conferences and talks. There was guilt all around, to the extent that if we com- In punk rock, a lot of people think once they’ve got the song down, they’re done. That’s memorate ‘68, we’ll all get depressed. On the other hand, you have the food crisis, the crisis wrong. That’s why improvisation is interesting – it forces you to explore the format, the in the rest of the world. performance. We’re applying some of these same principles to the medium, the record, and we do this to our relationship with the public. AR: So the Billy Bao record is like a souvenir, huh? The red-on-black type on the cover was a nice touch. The Fuck Separation 10” is a nice example. The two sides of the record are cross-faded into M: The conceptual aspect of the record lies mainly in the accompanying text [the cover just each other. The record has no proper beginning and end, and you can only properly experience mentioned]. Those are the lyrics of the record. It’s almost a Spoken Word record. It’s divided it as a vinyl record with sides. into decades – each cut is a different decade M: If you do something over and over again, it becomes routine, it becomes a template. The AR: Tell me more. interesting thing is to see what are the limits of the template, seeing how it can be changed. That template also constructs us as subjects. When we go to a show, depending on the envi- BB: Okay, there are five cuts, one for each decade: ‘68, ‘78, etc. On the 1968 track, we play ronment, the space where a show is held constructs you as a performer and as a listener. over a Luigi Nono piece recorded that year, entitled Non Consumiamo Marx, using recordings The public gives you that power. It’s a brutal degree of power the public gives you. It’s from demonstrations in Paris and Italy. For 1978 we took Fela Kuti’s ‘Zombie’, which is the song about exploring that relationship of hierarchies – not in this bullshit hippie sense, but to Fela was playing in Accra when the riot broke out in the audience. explore hierarchies in the most brutal form possible. If I try to open up possibilities, the hierarchies won’t be broken. If you really want to break them, it requires an extreme commit- AR: What’s 1988? ment on the part of the audience, because the audience creates a group dynamic. You might dare to say something, but you don’t want to leave your role as a member of the audience, M: ‘Second Coming’ by Brainbombs. as part of a mass or a crowd.

AR: I see. AR: There’s an unspoken contract between the performer and the audience.

M: ‘98 is of course ‘A Cunt Like You’ by Whitehouse. M: Yes. The public is a mass, it pays, it applauds; the performer gives the public something extraordinary, he’s the guy who gives you cultural capital, or value in exchange for your BB: And 2008 is me, Billy, feeling so fucking depressed that I could die. money or even simply for your presence.

So watch out, recording artists. Mattin is open to strategically taking your stuff and put- So what? What’s the point of ‘subverting’ this dynamic, you say, rather than taking it for ting it on his own records, ‘cos as everyone knows, private property is theft. granted, which is another way of saying, in Billy’s words, ‘If it isn’t broke, please don’t fix it.’ For an avowed anarcho-Marxist like Billy (or Mattin) the answer is clear: because there is nothing revolutionary in a performance that reproduces the power structures of capitalism, The Records These are the Billy Bao and Mattin records that I would shove in your stocking if I knew where you in a show that casts the performer and his audience in the same power dynamic they would lived, bad boy. There’s several hundred more where these came from, but these are as good a place play out at a Christian rock concert or a Vice Magazine record-release party, or on MTV as any to start. No, actually, they’re the best place to start. So go to. ‘Total Request Live’. Those are just different flavours of the same rancid cultural product (vanilla-caramel wafer, heroin-vanilla, and vanilla anal-nut, respectively). Radu Malfatti & Mattin Going Fragile CD (Formed) In other words, the medium itself is political, and it is constructed ideologically. Mattin takes A sublime reductionist improvisation session. Malfatti (trombone) is an old-school master of extended this one step further with the help of our number-one Frankfurtin’ celebrity Hebrew sperm technique and improvisation at the threshold of audibility, what you might call gestural improv. Mattin donor, Wally Benjamin, who, in his essay ‘The Artist as Producer’ posits that art is truly radical (laptop) is his pupil and antagonist. if, and only if, its resistance to capitalism is manifest not only in the form and medium, but also in the means of its production and distribution. Josetxo Grieta Euskal Semea CD (w.m.o/r) BB: This is why MySpace is problematic, and why Billy Bao will never use MySpace. It shapes the way Wherein Mattin’s long-running punk band, La Grieta, backs legendary Bilbao singer Josetxo Anitua, of in which one interacts with others. The MySpace brand name appears before the name of the the pioneering band Cancer Moon, in an improvised treatment of VU’s ‘European Son’. An uncommonly artist. And MySpace is the brand name of a corporation with a brutally conservative ideology. dark, tortured commentary on the subject of Basque identity, and one of Mattin’s most satisfying ‘rock’ records, to boot. Like most CDs on Mattin’s w.m.o/r label released after 2005, it is packaged M: It’s proprietary software and the software is very hard on older computers. MySpace in a cellophane sleeve with a beautifully printed, oversized colour booklet; this one includes Anitua’s reserves the right to censor you whenever they want based on content; they don’t have to original longhand lyrics and a photo-parody of the Velvet Underground and Nico cover art. give you any explanation. Everyone knows at least one band that has been removed arbitrarily from MySpace? Josetxo Grieta Sonrisas Vendo CD (Taumaturgia) Smiles for Sale. An excruciating psychodrama for four-piece band, recorded live in 2007. Anitua BB: What fucking bothers me the most is that if you’re not on MySpace, it’s as though you committed suicide in April of this year, leaving this record, the LP The Art of Distraction, and the don’t exist. That very same creativity that we deploy in making music, we can apply to the DVD of their last concert-up ready for release. process of production and distribution.

AR: This would make for an apt segue into a discussion of anti-copyright. Mattin Songbook Vol. 4 CD (Azul Discográfica) Disclosure: I ‘brokered’ the transaction whereby this disc was released. All profits have disappeared M: Yes. The idea of authorship has developed hand in hand with capitalism. The law categorizes and no books were kept. A cornerstone of the terriblist school of rock & roll, this final entry in and places a monetary value upon creative work. Even underground musicians have internalized the Songbook series finds Mattin ‘bridging’ the ‘gap’ between ‘improv’ and ‘songwriting’ with an all- star Japanese band. To quote a good friend, this record is beyond good and evil; but mostly it’s this logic: this is my property. Our creativity has a dollar value, and it’s divisible; it exists evil. Not in your wildest dreams. under the law. In improvisation that logic is completely absurd. When we play our instruments, we play them against the grain, in the most perverse, unconventional way possible. It’s a moment of liberation. You might make a fool of yourself because you might be the first to do Mattin & Axel Dörner Berlin CD (Absurd / Tilt) it. Why is it that we can do that with an instrument but not with what other people pro- duce? If you put music, or records, out in the public, that public should have the absolute right to do whatever they want with them. Creativity has to be free. Wait a minute! This is Deflag Haemorrhage / Haien Kontra CD (w.m.o/r; reis- also what what capitalist would tell you. So something more appropriate for us would be: non- creativity should expose our lack for freedom. This is why noise is interesting as something sue: Tochnit Aleph) without any value whatsoever (meaning you can't even make it into property). That very same I couldn’t begin to explain to you what this record is ‘about.’ Mattin’s first recorded collaboration logic of property also creates the logic of policing. You need a police or government body with ” ” [sic] Tim Goldie, the founding document of Abject Music. to enforce the copyright law, to back you up when you say to somebody, ‘You’re stealing my property.’ But these are ideas. The only ones who care about that theft are those who are making money off it. Billy Bao Bilbo’s Incinerator 7” (w.m.o/r) Good luck finding it. BB: We competed this year in the annual BilboRock competition, in the ‘Pop-Rock’ category.

AR: Did you win? Billy Bao Fuck Separation 10” (S-S) The band in barnburner Stooge mode. Heavier than Brainbombs and more fucked than anything in M: No, just the opposite. I set my amp on fire. You remember when Jimi Hendrix burned his amp? the Bad Vugum discography. For real. AR: No. Billy Bao May ’08 LP (Parts Unknown) BB: What matters isn’t what you play; it’s the sound that comes out of the speakers. The ultimate Billy Bao record. The only thing that matches the level of digital mindfuckery at work here is its apocalyptic, anti-capitalist vitriol. The ante is hereby upped. M: What matters is setting my amp on fire. They made me pay them 150 euros. So I’m not sure if Billy Bao will ever play at BilboRock again. Now, go make a fudgie. I began interviewing Mattin by tion, with what I am doing, how I remember seeing concerts where Fuck Separation: writing back and forth with him via much integrity is there in what I the musicians were very good, and a conversation email; finally we sat down to talk am doing, and how much I am willing the music was very good, but further about his work. We decided to give up. My physical health? where what they were doing was between it would be best to present what Prison? Everybody hating me something that I could just throw we came up with in the spirit of afterwards? Lack of recognition? into a category. It would leave me Alessandro Keegan Mattin’s work: without categoriza- Violence anyway can be an effective with a feeling of emptiness. When a tion or clear authorship. This is not way of breaking certain boundaries performance can be easily framed, and Mattin an interview per se, as Mattin’s and connecting with a sensation of it risks becoming impotent, no matter words often become my words and the real. I must say that the only what energy or intentions lay at NOTE: I spent a year in New York I in turn have re-written and time that I experienced real violence the heart of it. There is always a during 2008 and 2009. Just after expanded upon some of his. was during a concert with Drunkdriver, passive consumer mentality at I arrived I met Alessandro Keegan when Berdan was swinging the work, and a market ready to exploit when he played an amazing concert Alessandro Keegan (AK): Are there microphone and hit me. I did not the artist. Even if this market with his band Twin Stumps in lines that should not be crossed faint, so I continued to play. Even pretends to be alternative, it is September 2008 in Brooklyn (the or cannot be crossed in a per- if I am interested in getting head- still about profiting from people. line up included also Drunkdriver formance? fucked in a concert, I am not sure and Pink Reason whom I have also whether I want to get them literally. A DETOURNEMENT OF ROLES OR collaborated with). Mattin (M): Do you mean like killing I was very confused after that IDENTITIES, A MORE PERFORMATIVE We became friends and had long somebody? Like using somebody’s concert; the whole conceptual UNDERSTANDING OF APPROPRIATION conversations. This was his first head as a resonance box? I do not approach did not work, but there ever interview and it was published mean to sound like a futurist, but was a very strong atmosphere and AK: You have an unusual relation- in the web based magazine Visitation machine guns have beautiful it seemed that everybody was ship with your laptop, sometimes Rites on Saturday May 23 May 2009. sounds! feeling very intense. using it as a means of physical Link to Visitation Rites: I am more interested in bringing engagement with the audience. www.visitation-rites.com/ certain ideas that the situation- AK: This ‘strong atmosphere’ is Link to the interview: ists used in the urban environment something difficult to quantify, M: One of the most important www.visitation-rites.com/2009/05/ into concert situations. I under- but I think many performers have things that I get out of improvi- fuck-separation-a-conversation- stand that this is problematic, in sensed it at certain times. Instead sation is the opportunity to play by-alessandro-keeganmattin/ the sense that I am still an artist. of being hypnotized in some instruments against the grain. So The situationists did not want to orgiastic way, we are forced to if people usually stay in front of have their personal stamp or the reckon with an unexpected situa- the screen, respecting only those INTERVIEW BEGINS brand of an institution on their tion or to look at the event little fucking patches that they documentation. through a different frame. Some- have in front of them, letting the Mattin is a musician and perform- After a concert in Madrid, some- thing has been transgressed in audience seem like they are just ance artist from the Basque body took my microphone and told the social hierarchy of the setting. secondary to the situation, I am Country. He has produced a slew me to stop. I was surprised and I interested in doing the opposite: of releases under the names of did not know what to do. Somebody M: Violence is a difficult question, in socialising my interaction with Deflag Haemorrhage/Haien Kontra, else told me that I should hang I am personally interested in a the computer. It has cost me many Sakada, Billy Bao, and No More myself with the cord. I was even psychological type of violence, in motherboards. Music. He has also collaborated with more confused. I went up to her doing something subtle that can many artists, including Drunkdriver, and asked her, ‘why don’t you do really disturb peoples expecta- AK: Do your collaborations usually Margarita Garcia, Tim Goldie, Taku it? Here is the cord and here is tions. The boundaries we create begin with a conversation or with Unami and Tony Conrad, to name a my head.’ She said: ‘Fucking shut with limited expectations and the a performance? few. His work mixes laptop electronics up.’ Afterwards, I was thinking categories we ascribe to art are with politics and, in the case of that I should have fought her for the most oppressive psychological M: Either way. A conversation might Billy Bao, some harsh, deconstructed the microphone. What she did was factors, and the most difficult to be a way of putting a process rock and roll. In the live setting, fascist in the sense that she was overcome. They dictate separation forward, a process that exceeds Mattin is subversive, sometimes censoring what she did not like. and cause alienation. The goal is to the framework of the concert. abrasive, and always finding ways Maybe the fascist was me but I identify those moments of separa- There is no such thing as a neutral to undermine audience expecta- learned a lesson: to always ask tion, because those separations audience, or a perfect audience, or tions and break the boundaries myself, before a concert, how far produce power structures and an audience where everyone has inherent to performance. I am willing to go with the situa- defend ideologies. the same level of awareness about your work. So, if everybody has a things to feed stereotypes of this persona different relation to the performer’s Take Improvisation to called Mattin, that doesn’t mean I agree work, and to the situation that is the Streets: Interview with all of them. at hand, I find it stupid to say So I’ll try at times to follow your game, that the performance is the only with and at other times to disrupt it under- thing that matters, or the only standing that we might fail miserably but place where things are going on. Dan Warburton at least we’ll have countered the normative In terms of improvisation, many qualities of the interview. I’ll try to go against the stereotypical concerts start before the actual NOTE: persona that I and others have created concert begins, with conversations Dan and I meet for a chat in a Parisian against the mediation of my self-presen- that influence the playing. bar on the 4th of April 2009. He then tation. transcribed our conversation and then Against the idea of neutrality in this we went through the interview via email Recently, I played a concert with interview, probably in order to feed during June and July 2009. Margarida Garcia and I said to her another stereotype... will this ever end? This interview was published in the web that I did not think I had anything THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF IMPROVISTATION, IT based magazine Paris Transatlantic where interesting to play with my comput- NEVER ENDS. Dan Warburton is the editor. er. I wanted to just plant myself When I say neutrality I’m thinking of the Link to Paris Transatlantic: in the audience and see what would way people used to record improvisation www.paristransatlantic.com happen if I was announced as a sessions trying to achieve as much Link to interview: player in the concert but then fidelity to the event, creating the feeling www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/ that by listening to the recordings you’re was discovered just sitting there interviews/mattin.html in the crowd, the only sound I pro- almost there with the players. duced being the clapping at the We all know that this is absolutely end, along with the rest of the INTERVIEW BEGINS impossible, that there are always decisions audience. This was probably the that mediate your relationship with the concert where the most attention Dan Warburton (DW): In time-honoured recording. was on the other players as I did boring PT style, I’ll start with the For example, Dan gives the impression not have to worry about my shitty usual question about your origins and that this interview took place in a café in Paris in April, which it originally did, playing. And it was amazing! background, so but we are now typing at our computers I don’t think things should be boring for and it’s early July. AK: Being given the role of per- routine reasons, SO LET’S TRY SOMETHING former is a kind of alienation. Being OUT: I’m interested in extending the Did you have a musical childhood? a member of the audience is alien- exploratory aspect of improvisation to ating as well. It’s funny how the other areas that might seem to be at Mattin (M): No, not particularly, but my concert situation falls into a sub- the periphery of music production such mother had lots of tapes. Bands like MCD missive pattern when one would as interviews and the way I present and Eskorbuto. I discovered punk rock at think that it should be a moment myself in the context of music. I think the same as the Velvet Underground and of liberation. that our knowledge about a certain play- the Stooges. Punk in the Basque country er influences our appreciation of her or was very political. Bilbao was totally eco- M: It can be very lonely on stage his music. So I don’t make a clear distinc- nomically fucked in terms of industrial because it transforms you into a tion between the production of sounds decline in about 1983. It used to be very particular subject, like a and the way one presents oneself. very important for shipbuilding, and when rock star, and this somehow dis- A musician giving an interview should be that stopped in the ‘80s, there were tances you a whole lot from the honest: you should be the same person riots. There was a lot of unemployment, audience. You are suddenly this you are at home and the same when and a lot of drugs. Heroin. Middle class gifted artist who commands respect, you’re playing. kids weren’t interested in following their rather than another pathetic One coherent subject. parents, so they started taking heroin. But I can see from the way you’ve asked A whole generation, a lot of my mother’s human being. Don’t get me wrong: me certain questions and the way you’ve friends just... died. It was really some- I am saying this about myself. If edited my answers you want to portray thing. Heroin started in the middle class the danger is gone, that means me in a certain way, as someone I don’t milieu but the Spanish police used it to this desperation has become a think I am. infiltrate the lower classes in order to commodity. And I am not just talking Then again, I’M NOT A SINGULAR COHERENT depoliticise the Basque radical left. There about physical danger here. SUBJECT and even if I might have done were demonstrations every weekend, and for fun we used to go and pick up the BILBAO, MIERDA, ROCK’N’ROLL underground, not the ideological aspect Anne Tallentire the college was fucked), rubber balls the police used to fire at that they are fighting for. I’m not and then an MA in Art Theory at Goldsmiths, the protesters. It was intense. And the DW: What other music were you listening interested in the construction of a which was great. punk rockers were talking about this – to at the time? Jazz? Contemporary? Basque nation, or any other nation some of them were very political, some (is there a nation without police?). It’s DW: Who was on the faculty at the time? were pretty nihilistic, but they all made M: No, not until I got to London. We were like what Jean Genet said about the PLO, something out of it. There were social always listening to things from a kind of I’m interested in the rebels, they look M: Irit Rogoff was quite impressive. centres, squats or gaztetxes (young rock perspective. Maybe I still am, but I also so beautiful etc., but once they get a Everything was interesting and experi- people’s centres) – it was a very politi- understand more the problems involved nation, count me out. For me this is easy mental. You could try things out. Things cised scene. It’s great that there’s a with rock, how closed-minded it sometimes to say: Genet actually lived with the PLO were pretty eye-opening. Later on we very strong tradition of squatted is, how male. I had a Japanese friend, for several years. could see that it was quite problematic social centres in the Basque country. Natsuki Uruma, who took me to see Masonna, in political terms. They’re very good at The squat scene was very connected to and that was amazing. And then later on DW: You’ve moved around a bit – you generating sophisticated terminology and punk. Now with some friends we’re trying I saw Filament – those high sinewaves cre- lived in Berlin for two years, and before theory, but I sometimes wonder how much to reconnect squatting with improvisa- ated such a different perception of that seven years in London. You’re based they wanted to put it in practice and tion, trying to see what the connections space! in New York at the moment, right? how much it was going to help the under- between the two practices are, in the privileged. Then again I also wonder how sense that both try to produce a more WHY DO WE CONSTANTLY NEED TO MAP OUT M: Yes, but only until the 5th of June, much what we do helps to change the autonomous social space. Trying to pro- OUR INFLUENCES? when I’m going to Gotland in Sweden, dominant culture, and the people excluded duce your own subjectivity within the where my girlfriend lives. That’s where from it. situation you find yourself in, either by DW: Bilbao must have changed a lot since Ingmar Bergman lived the last 40 years inhabiting a squatted space or by dealing they built the Guggenheim Museum. of his life, and where Pippi Longstocking For me the important thing was Eddie with your instruments. What do you feel when you go back today? was filmed. At the moment I am doing the Prévost’s workshop, where I met people Whitney Independent Study Program and like Tim Goldie, Anthony Guerra, Denis IF I’M ALIENATED WHY DON’T I SQUAT MYSELF? M: Before, you could feel that there was living one block away from Ground Zero, Dubovtsev and Romuald Wadych, great something going on in the streets. in a room that belongs to Jeff Perkins. people. I heard about Eddie’s workshop DW: Were you playing anything yourself In one high school I went to there were He’s a really interesting artist who used through the LMC. back then? sit-ins and they squatted the building, to do light shows for the Velvet because they wanted people to speak Underground, Cream, and later The Germs, HOW MUCH OF WHAT WE DO HELPS M: No, I didn’t start until the early ‘90s, Basque. There was a constant political when he was living in LA. He’s also very CHANGE THE DOMINANT CULTURE when there was another small scene that tension that was very rich. Now it’s more good friends with Henry Flynt. This year AND THE PEOPLE EXCLUDED FROM IT? sprang up, more influenced by Sonic Youth, diluted, not as present. Having said that, we’ve been organising four-hour lecture the American indie thing. Quite noisy. It the other day I was walking where I used sessions in our kitchen with Henry Flynt DW: So you were listening to improvised was called Getxo Sound. But the politics to live in Algorta and found this anarchist/ talking about the economic crisis and music by the time you got to Saint had changed by then. People had started autonomist bookshop called Eztabaida, communism. Martins, then? singing in English, to distance themselves and thought, great. Something is going from their immediate environment. I guess on. We can sell our records there, and HOW MUCH DISTANCE IS THERE M: I went to an LMC festival in 1999, and it was a direct response to the populist they seem to be interested. And it’s BETWEEN saw John Tilbury, Mass Producers and approach of Rock Radical Vasco (Basque just five minutes from where I used OUR POLITICAL CLAIMS Filament. They had like a stall with all the Radical Rock). It was also a class thing. to live. But in general, Bilbao got very AND Resonance magazines, so I got a few of I played bass in an indie band called Inte gentrified. How gentrified did I get myself? OUR EVERYDAY ACTIONS? them and started reading, and that’s Domine, and sang on one song. The rest where I heard about Eddie’s workshop. of the band were pretty pissed off at DW: Do you have any sense of national DW: When and why did you move to And it really changed my life. People were me, because I didn’t have a good sense identity yourself? Do you think of your- London? so committed to what they were doing. of time and used to change the bass self as Spanish, or Basque, or what? People like Seymour Wright. There was a lines. The drummer [Iñigo Eguillor] was M: I was a very bad student, probably feeling that we were doing something always getting mad at me. I still play with M: In Bilbao there has never been an the worst. So in 1995 I went to London interesting and important. It was very him in La Grieta, and he’s still mad at me strong tradition of speaking Basque so to learn English. And clean dishes. focused and there was a sense of self- (laughs) – actually that’s not true: he’s I don’t speak it, but I did grow up in that I worked in a hotel in Harrow, cleaning organisation. Eddie’s generosity was one of the sweetest people I know. Iñigo environment. At school there were Spanish dishes. A few years later, I was working exemplary in the sense of giving us the and I played with Josetxo Anitua as history books and Basque history books. in a factory in Poole, Dorset, making and courage to just go and do it. It inspired Josetxo Grieta until last year when I still feel very connected to a certain packing pies, and I said to myself, I’d us to self-organise, get our concerts, Josetxo died. Josetxo used to play in Basqueness, but not to the kind of poli- better do something with my life. So next get labels running, write about what we a amazing band called Cancer Moon. Iñigo tics the Basque separatists want. I’m year I enrolled in art school. I did a do and so on. and the other guys from Inte-Domine interested in the idea of resistance, of Foundation in Camberwell [College of Arts], now play in a band called Gringo. people refusing passports and living a BA in Central Saint Martins (apart from DW: How were the workshops organised? Eddie had a kind of... strategy, like ways DW: Explain how computer feedback works. DW: How did you get into Malfatti’s music? during the exhibition the gallery will of playing, duos, trios, quartets. There Which piece opened the way? be closed wasn’t much talking. Maybe that was kind M: It’s very simple. I’ve always had a very of part of the AMM thing. After the direct approach to things. If you turn M: I’d heard a lot about Malfatti and This type of work questions value pro- workshops we’d go to the pub, and there up the volume of your computer, and set then we did a tour with Joel Stern and duction, and the limits of what is consid- we’d talk. Share information, organise the the little microphone inside to maximum went to Nickelsdorf [Austria] and ered art or not. But why are all my ref- concerts. I like talking! I don’t make a level it will feed back, just like any other Christof Kurzmann told us about the erences to male artists or musicians? distinction between talking and improvis- type of microphone. I just put it through duo [he’d released, Rotophormen Graciela Carnevale did a much more radical ing anyway, they’re both part of the some filters and add some white noise or (Charhizma)] with Annette Krebs and exhibition in a much more difficult con- same thing. I don’t believe there’s any pink noise. For me, the thing was to use Andrea Neumann and mentioned Radu and text (Argentina under strong repres- kind of purity in playing music. There’s elements that were marginal in other Bernhard Günter, like if you like silence sion) a year earlier. She was part of the a musical quality to talking and a conver- types of music, take something of no you should listen to that. I saw Günter Grupo de Artistas de Vangardia, formed sational element to playing, and they real value and use it. I was influenced by perform live, and thought, wow, this is in the 1960s, which created some of the feed each other. They’re both ideologi- Keiji Haino and Bruce Russell, and wanted something. After hearing all those punk most important examples of political and cally and historically constructed prac- the computer to sound like that, like records played as loud as possible, to be investigative art in Latin America. Their tices, frameworks that limit (or focus) those guys who played guitar in that able to hear all the detail was fantastic. practices encouraged the viewer to con- our scope of action. The more that we very brutal way. I didn’t want to sound I was also listening to Cage and Reynols’ sider ideas such as power, economic dis- talk about them, the more we’re able to like Mego. I didn’t want it to sound digi- Blank Tapes, the very quiet stuff. I’ve parity, the state and the social role of understand and transform them. tal. I didn’t want it to sound glitchy. always been interested in minimalism. As in, art. An early work by the group, I wanted it raw. Punk rock. When I saw how minimal can you get? How boring can Experimental Art Cycle (Rosario, October CAN TALKING BE A FORM OF PRAXIS? Masonna, it was like punk taken to you get? What questions emerge when 1968), was a series of individual exhibi- extremes. People find punk rock kind of you push things to extremes? So when I tions that challenged the conventional DW: When you started, you were using a stupid, kind of limiting in its parameters, heard about Radu Malfatti and Wandelweiser, role of the gallery, placing art within a guitar and sampler. When did the computer but at the same time the kind of affec- things like Antoine Beuger’s Spinoza piece, wider context. On the opening night of become your instrument? tive quality is empowering. It gives you calme étendue (spinoza), I was interested. Graciela Carnevale’s exhibition she locked the feeling that you can also do it. the guests in the exhibition space M: I went to Berlin in 2000 and there I’m still dialectically dealing with that, Apparently it took a month for Beuger (she slipped out and then locked the was this off-ICMC computer music con- trying to make something out of that to perform that piece, which consisted door from the outside). They only ference at Podewil, and all these people contradiction between sophistication of extracting all the monosyllabic words escaped when a passing member of the were playing, like Zbigniew Karkowski, and brutality. from Spinoza’s Ethics, and reading them public smashed the gallery window. This Merzbow, Pita, everybody was there. one by one, one every eight seconds. exhibition radically questions notions of It was very refreshing. When I came back HOW PRETENTIOUS CAN I BE? So he was performing from four to eight authorship, forcing the audience to activate to London I got a computer. I basically hours a day, just sitting there reading the space, think about power structures liked that the computer was not only an DW: When did you start the w.m.o/r label? calmly. The extreme nature of the work, and do something about them in a situation instrument for music but for many other its duration, questions what a concert which is fucked. things. I could basically run my label with M: In February 2001, to release my own is, what music is, what the audience is if the computer: email, covers, website, music, stuff, and have control over it. There it cannot hear the whole concert, and to For me the most interesting artworks of mastering, burning CDRs... . were three things that interested me at what extent one is committed. It just the last century were probably Duchamp’s But more and more I think the idea of the time: that Haino/Russell guitar sound, breaks with so many conventions of what readymades, Cage’s 4’33’’ and Debord’s the instrument is problematic. the nasty feedback of Whitehouse. And a concert or performance is. And then first film Hurlements en faveur de Sade, We’re faced with so many possibilities: Radu Malfatti, who was equally radical in a you have the issue about value, how do which interestingly enough came out the focussing on a single instrument sounds different way. There was something going you measure the value that is produced same year that Tudor performed 4’33’’ very reductive. Especially now that trum- on that was really mind-opening. Can you in this concert? Do you judge it accord- for the first time, in 1952. Even if pets try to sound like electronics, and do that? Yes you can! You can hear 30- ing to its musical quality? What is the politically I wouldn’t trust either Cage or electronics like acoustic instruments, and second silent tracks in Whitehouse’s New musical quality of the piece? Or do you Duchamp, and Debord’s filmmaking took so on. I try to think of ideas as instru- Britain, and if you amplify Malfatti’s die give value to the amount of boredom ideas from Isidore Isou, what their works ments, to have a more open understanding temperatur der bedeutung to death it’s that is produces? But aren’t we actually have in common is that they bring a new of what improvisation could be, rather than fucking noise. You can see they’re very pretty bored ourselves even if we are paradigm shift on how art and music can focus in formal terms as it was before. similar. Maybe it’s about going against a constantly reading and writing in internet be understood. They radically question At some point improvisation became so certain notion of ‘musicality’ to achieve forums, blogs and websites like this one? what the framework of artistic activity enclosed. your own voice, but the extreme and Another piece that I found interesting is, what its relationship is to our everyday perverse has always interested me. along the same lines was Robert Barry’s life. They bring the social context in HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE THOUGHT THAT Closed Gallery Piece, in an exhibition in which they are presented or produced THINGS CAN BE DIFFERENT RIGHT NOW, I CAN DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY Amsterdam, 1969, at Art and Project, to the forefront. Their minimal nature YET WE DAREN’T CHANGE THE SITUATION WE AND I DON’T WANT TO ASK MYSELF LATER: which was basically an invitation card makes people question at the same time ARE IN? WHEN DID I MISS MY CHANCE? saying: the production and the reception of the piece. In Duchamp’s readymades, is the your noisy stuff before you played with Whitenoise it was the best record room the louder it got because there worker who has mass-produced the bicycle together? When I played with him and I’d been involved in, and Miguel Prado was less protection between you and the wheel the artist, or the one that claims Frédéric Blondy, he’d been tipped off by thought it was even better than speakers. By the end of the concert it as art? Or in the case of the Cage or Axel Dörner that Blondy played piano like Whitenoise. Alex (Angelus Novus) gave it there were only eight people left, three the Debord, who is performing the piece Fred Van Hove, and Radu was worried. one of the most interesting reviews of them in tears, and we all looked total- when the audience itself activates the Until we did the gig and he was delighted. we’ve ever had, and another guy at a ly disturbed, as if we’d just watched our context in which it is presented, often post punk blogzine, ZGUN, even did a fathers being raped for a whole hour. by its own rage? I saw Hurlements en M: No, I always played it cool with him. review in the form of a concrete poem. Total alienation in the form of the most faveur de Sade screened in New York, I showed him my soft side (laughs). I really The release inspired him to experiment beautiful sound poetry ever. and almost 60 years later it still created wanted to play with him. About that time with the format that he was dealing with. conflict: some people started singing, I was preparing the MA thesis on improv- I get a kick out of these types of DW: Unami is one of your frequent playing others told them to shut up, and others isation and politics, and I had one extended responses rather from people telling me partners these days. When did you replied: ‘do you think this was made to conversation with Radu, which was very I am a ‘good musician’. They’re probably start working with him? be appreciated in some puritanical way?’ interesting, and then at the end of my lying anyway. I often question myself about improvisa- stay in Vienna we recorded Whitenoise M: I first saw him play with Mark Wastell tion today. People seem to be making this in Amann Studios and it just clicked. It DW: Was the following year’s Pinknoise at the Bonnington Centre, but I’d already music just to show what great players just felt right. That’s one of the best [with Junko] deliberately intended to be heard that CDR of his, Music for they are, rather than to open things up, things that I’ve done. It was very clinical the total antithesis of Whitenoise? Whitenoise [2002], which I thought was or show how fucked up things are. – we did one thing for about 30 minutes, very interesting. I’m very interested in If somebody intervenes during a concert like warming up. Radu had three mics on M: Well, it made sense. One was quite white noise, as you can imagine. So I went they get angry, as if something was his trombone – Amann you know is very quiet and the other was quite loud. to the concert and he was like, oh we being taken away from them. Or, even meticulous – and the computer was very The story about that is very simple – in can set up this tour for you. Being with worse, if somebody copies them, they loud, so we were in two different rooms, March 2004 when I produced those CDs Taku is extremely inspiring. I love his... think that they’re being ripped off. listening to each other through headphones. I was in Australia, staying with Swerve I don’t know if it’s right word, but per- This type of wanna-be-genius mentality There was no editing at all, apart from from Dual Plover. There was this computer version, the idea that things are possible, makes me sick. taking the silence away, like removing the shop run by these Chinese Australians the craziest, stupidest things. Try things sounds of Radu’s stomach gurgling and who were selling clam-shell cases, five out. Anything is possible. For example, in I’M PROUD TO SAY I HAVE INVENTED the saliva in his mouth. It was very clear, and five pink. We needed a lot of this interview, I should be just talking NOTHING straightforward. A great experience. CD cases, so we used the clear ones for about my background and my music, so that ALL I’VE DONE IS TAKEN FROM SOMEWHERE When we finished we knew that we had Whitenoise and the pink ones for others can understand what I’m doing. ELSE made a good record. Pinknoise. But one thing I learn from improvisation is that you don’t always know what you DW: When did you meet Radu himself? For me Whitenoise reaffirms an already DW: How was that session with Junko? are doing. Do I really know what I’m doing? established appreciation of improvised Do you? M: Thanks to Christof Kurzmann I got a music. Nowadays I’m interested in making M: Beautiful. She’s like... a highway, you residency in Quarter 21 in Vienna for records that are more difficult to cate- just go with it. Playing with her is not DW: No. three months in the summer of 2003, gorise. People tell me that what I do is about improvisation, it’s about keeping and set up a concert there with Klaus too conceptual, that it’s no longer the same level of intensity. One of the M: What are the privileges that allow us [Filip], who I knew already, Dean Roberts about music, that it’s post-music. But of speakers got fucked (sorry Taku!). to do this? I’d love to have a Marxist and Radu. We went on to record that course it’s about music. Perhaps not the Junko is such a special person. When we and/or feminist analysis of the situation. disc that came out on Grob [Building music that you like, but I still play concerts recorded that, I was with Taku, who mastered Why don’t you do that instead of con- Excess], and it was a great feeling. That and make records which contain sounds. the album, and we took Junko to the centrating on details of my miserable and quartet was really special, totally surreal, It’s not about subtraction, as if bring- station afterwards to catch her train. pathetic musical life? really beautiful. It’s probably the most ing ideas prevents you from focussing I’ll never forget the sight of her, just mellow thing that I’ve done. I’m very on the music. It’s about adding ideas and standing there waiving us goodbye. WHY HAVEN’T I MET ANY FEMINIST OR QUEER happy with that album. Radu wasn’t. The concepts in order to explore what could It was so touching, this person who can ACTIVISTS IN THE IMPROV SCENE? label had to pay him ¤400 (instead of be done without reaffirming or consoli- produce the most horrific, brutal sounds, copies of the disc he preferred money). dating an established genre of music. looking so sweet. DW: Firstly because I’m not sufficiently I remember you criticised it quite a bit too. At the end of 2007 I organised a solo well-versed in Marxist analysis to under- How can we make a music that cannot be concert for her in a tiny venue in Berlin, take the task, and secondly because I DW: Did I? You remember my reviews more easily pigeonholed? Take Attention, for a very small basement with a huge PA. find those details more interesting than than I do. Maybe I’d been blown away by example. When Taku Unami and I finished Junko’s microphone was on the verge of you do. I’d sooner listen to a piece of Whitenoise first, and it was a question that record we didn’t know how people feedback, and she played for an hour, music than read a book of philosophy, of EAI overkill. I listened to it again not would react. Many people laughed at it the longest hour of my life. Each scream unlike my friend and yours Jean-Luc long ago and enjoyed it very much, if and took it as a joke, but others didn’t: was like the sharpest knife slicing your Guionnet. Talking of Jean-Luc, how did you that’s any consolation. Had Radu heard Jean-Luc Guionnet told me that along brain, and the more the people left the meet him? M: I first heard him with Hubbub at Most importantly that you don’t need to tion, economic and social status, a certain and fragmentation. What is contemporary Freedom Of The City in May 2003, and be a musician to improvise. Musicianship education, race... . If we compile a few class consciousness today? Nowadays we then he set up a concert for Tim Goldie, isn’t all that important. How much can statistics we might find that the general often contain within ourselves different myself and him at the Instants Chavirés. you expand the notion of improvisation? reader of this website only represents social classes; it’s very difficult to I remember that gig, Tim with his mirrored Get rid of the roles. Who is the philosopher a tiny part of society, probably quite relate to each other in general terms, we sunglasses saying: ‘this is fucking cool!’ here? Who is the musician? privileged and perhaps well inserted within can only relate either through very specific the dominant culture. Of course, it’s interests – an interest in a specific form DW: It was fucking loud. DW: Have you always felt the need to difficult for us to care about that of improvised music such as EAI, for example explain what you do in words? which we are not, or about what we don’t – or through extreme mediation with the M: Well, we like to have fun (laughs). identify with, but we have to acknowledge use of social network software such as Is playing loud the only way I know how M: I’ve always seen musical production as that there are a lot of people living in Facebook and MySpace, while somebody else to have fun? No no, I also like to be part of social production, linked to dif- much more difficult conditions that we are, makes a profit out of our interaction. soft. Did Jean-Luc tell you about this ferent elements of society. Like I said, and that what we do might help them, or If you’re talking about the improvised project that we’re doing? We’re about I grew up with punk, and the lyrics of might help them to remain marginalised. scene, well of course it has lost that to release this concert we did in Niort the songs I liked were about reality, and I don’t think we should forget this, or political edge. People seem so claustro- with Seijiro Murayama last summer. We’re young people were expressing themselves forget about the people that we have phobically interested in a few little fucking all interested in philosophy, and Jean-Luc by playing music. It’s always been more above us who make our life miserable. sounds that a few ‘great players’ pro- saw certain connections between the about attitude, for me. Expressing your- duce. I’m not interested in that, I’m not non-philosophy of François Laruelle and self within society. What does it mean to ‘NEEDLESS TO SAY NO SCRATCH MUSIC IS interested in being in a fucking little non-idiomatic improvisation. I already knew produce sounds in this society? In the COPYRIGHT’ niche. For some time I was part of one, philosopher Ray Brassier in London, who’d ‘60s there was more discussion of that, -CORNELIUS CARDEW 1971 and now I don’t give a fuck. I find allies, organised some conferences on the subject of the politics, and I want to return to people I work with and they’re the ones of noise at Middlesex University, and he that. Music production is political in and DW: What was it about the shot of that matter. I could criticise people as told me he did his PhD. on this obscure of itself. I’m interested in exploring Tilbury that interested you? much as you like, but what good would French philosopher, who turned out to that. that do? Don’t get me wrong, I am inter- be François. So, Ray was the man to work In this regard I find the Scratch Orchestra M: The fact that he was in the street, ested in critique, but I just think that with. We thought he’d want to do some- extremely interesting, in the sense that not a professional context but an open there are more important things to critique thing with language, a kind of commentary, everybody was welcome to participate, framework, a social and public space than a few great improvisers. I want to something like that, so we met up in and there was no unified sense of aes- where all types of different people pass know what this music means and whether Paris for a couple of days. And he said, thetics. I’ve been listening to the 1969 by, and there he was, taking risks without making it might be a way of changing our ‘I don’t know what I want, but I know 10” mini LP and it’s so rich in ideas. Just being afraid of looking utterly ridiculous! immediate environment. that I don’t want to be the “philoso- the other day I went to see an exhibi- It reminds me of something that hap- Do these people care about that? pher“, I want to be up there with you.’ tion on Cornelius Cardew at the centre pened during the recent riots in Athens, Why don’t they care? I care. So I was like, well what can you play? He d’art contemporain (CAC) in Brétigny, and where journalists came across a gang said, well when I was about ten years old they were showing the film Journey to attacking places that represented STOP WRITING AND ORGANISE BLACK BLOCK this nun taught me a couple of chords the North Pole on the Scratch Orchestra neoliberalism to make noise, using breaking CONCERTS! on the guitar... and Jean-Luc was saying, made in 1971. There were two amazing glass and burglar alarms as instruments. ”fuck, I’ve played with too many bad gui- moments that really impressed me. One Improvising in the city. That’s so inspiring, DW: So you play the agent provocateur, tarists. What’s going to happen?” Then with John Tilbury lying in the street like the Futurists, the Scratch Orchestra the bad boy of music? we had this opportunity of playing the playing a bird whistle and a melodica at and Black Block joining forces in an NPAI festival in Niort, and Ray picked up the same time while tied to five other extreme form of sonic dérive! Imagine M: Well that says a lot about this scene, an electric guitar for the first time in people – imagine seeing that in your street! using police sirens as your instrument! doesn’t it? In other scenes what we do his life. We had a basic structure worked – another with Keith Rowe quoting Mao; Imagine what a beautiful drone twenty of would be normal (perhaps like punk or out so that he would play solo for the basically saying culture is produced them would make! The urban space offers noise), but here in improvisation if you first 15 minutes. So there he was, this either for the benefit of the bourgeois so many possibilities for noise produc- do something a bit out of the ordinary guy who’d never played an electric guitar class or against it. Who are we doing tion, let’s use the city as our venue – they just call you an agent provocateur. in his life, playing in a festival of impro- this for? Class distinctions might be we’ll always have an audience! The bad boy of music or whatever stupid vised music. The whole concert was very more blurred today than they used to term they come up with. intense, amazing. Many musicians who were be, but I still believe that what you do TAKE IMPROVISATION TO THE STREETS! I’ve never described myself as anything there didn’t like it at all, because there either serves the dominant culture or like that. I have a set of interests that was something else going on other than counters it. In improvisation there’s DW: Do you think the music today has I want to explore and try out. Sometimes just music. Other people really liked it. a false understanding that we’re doing it lost that political edge? that pisses people off, but that’s not What we set out to do was to make people just for ourselves. What do we actually my problem. cry. And one person did! So that’s what represent? If you imagine the general M: This connects to the previous question I’ve talked to several people about the we’re going to release. We learned many reader of this website you can think about class. Capitalism has developed experiences they’ve had in the improvised interesting things from that concert. about specifics: gender, sexual orienta- very sophisticated forms of alienation music scene, and how conservative it is in some aspects. In the beginning, when framing the silence, and it’s very formal. approach rather than a formal one, and cultural capital, which adds recognition I started improvising, there were so many There are many sounds that are produced that’s great. Like Lucio Capece’s piece and reputation to me as an improviser taboos: you were supposed to improvise during that hour, but because they’ve (about The Society of Spectacle by Guy and to you as a journalist with a specif- just with your instrument, not your not been made by the musician, they’re Debord) on Wedding Ceremony, which you ic knowledge in improvisation. So maybe in voice; moving around the room was con- not perceived as having the same musical criticised so much in the Wire. the future it’ll be easier for me to get sidered strange, and interfering with value as Sugimoto’s note. I find that invited to festivals, or for you to write other people was out of the question. problematic in the sense that we accept Debord’s critique of the ‘public’ is as for other magazines that might actually So many things were like, oh you mustn’t certain hierarchies de facto, while in devastating as it is accurate. In girum pay you. As Paolo Virno says of the do that! You have to respect this, you reality we might be producing more sounds imus nocte et consumimur igni, his last general intellect: ‘They are not units of have to respect that! And that maintains than he is. Does our condition as audience film from 1978, is probably the best film measure; they constitute the immeasurable a certain status quo. For me improvisa- preclude us producing something interesting? I’ve ever seen. I think his critique of presupposition of heterogeneous effective tion is about taking risks, not alone in Somebody might say: ‘not now, this is not alienation, though it might be a bit dated, possibilities.’ It’s not that we are producing my living room but out there on stage or your time, this is not your framework, is really helpful. It’s time we developed a value in a very concrete way, but instead with other people. I have a problem with we’ve paid to see and hear somebody more updated version, now that we have we’re producing the potential to produce the notion of respect: you have to else, if you want to express yourself become the spectacle of society. We’re value. That’s why improvisation is so respect each other, you’re playing too get a career, and show us you’re serious no longer contemplating our life through important right now: our ability to react loud, you’re playing too quiet, you’re about what you do.’ But you can be very certain forms of representations. We’ve quickly to new situations, to be inventive taking this idea from here or from serious about disrupting a concert, and internalised the spectacle to such an and imaginative, to be ‘original’, has there... respect what? Normality? That why not? It might also make it more extent that we, the way we relate to greater value in post-Fordism, where we normality that shapes and constrains us interesting. each other, our interactivity in everyday no longer produce objects but services, every fucking day of our lives? I’d In many ways I think improvisation is lagging life and experience, are reproducing it knowledge and experiences. rather piss a few wankers off than get behind other disciplines like visual arts. not with a feeling of passivity or distance depressed at home. For example, in the visual arts when but with an intense desire to enjoy our- As improvisers, the way we combine thought Minimalism came after Abstract Expressionism, selves, be ourselves and be connected. and action, and our personalisation of STOP READING AND ENGAGE IN URBAN context became relevant: the artwork Have your say, produce, write, listen, subjectification – for example when we WARFARE! was part of the space that it was pre- start your own blog, comment in online play our instruments – might well make us sented in. Dan Flavin’s everyday object forums, express yourself.... not avant-garde musicians but avant- DW: You mentioned earlier that you had fluorescent lights is not only about the garde capitalists! a ‘basic structure’ worked out for your light itself but the way it affects the Never before have we had so much access Niort concert. That seems to be some- space: the artwork isn’t just trying to to self-representation but never before NOW IS THE TIME FOR SELF-DÉTOURNEMENT! thing you do quite often. I wanted to hold your attention, like a Rothko painting, has our subjectivity been such a product ask you about the gig I saw in Paris but make you perceive your environment of representation. The distance between DW: The idea of anti-copyright is an [Comète 347, April 21st 2008], where differently. Clement Greenberg’s idea producing and consuming is decreasing – issue that’s important to you. Why? you started off normally enough and that the work is self-contained became we consume our own production, no then suddenly stopped playing for ten problematic, as it failed to take into longer passive consumers of our life but M: The people I have affinities with politically whole minutes. You actually went to the account the context and the forces of active participants in developing new are all interested in these issues. bar for a beer and sat down next to me production behind the making of the forms of alienation involving our feelings I was reading these critiques of author- in the audience! What was the idea work. So conceptual art, and later insti- and emotions, thinking we are freer than ship, Barthes’s Death Of The Author and there? tutional critique started to investigate ever. We no longer live in the society of Foucault’s What Is An Author?, and the the framework and take into account all the spectacle, we are the spectacle our- idea of authorship seemed pretty fucking M: I’m interested not only in performing the conditions in which works were made. selves, generating what Marx called gen- rotten, totally linked with capitalism. How but in all aspects of the concert. What For me, reductionism really opened the eral intellect or general social knowledge, can you attribute an idea to a single is the framework of our improvisation? way to reflect on the context of the which is not only knowledge shared by individual, with all the kind of influences What if different notions of silence are production of this music. There are great many people, but also a capacity to think that give rise to it? It’s bourgeois ideology. played out in a concert? There are many records that bring contextual sounds to and be more self-analytical. Before I said Now technology is able to fuck with that, kinds of silence. There’s the Radu the surface, like dach or the live disc of how these days we contain within our- and it’s very interesting. More and more Malfatti silence where you stay with it, Futatsu, but they’re still perceived in selves different social classes, and this people are appropriating things from the listen, but if people see you go and get formal terms. And that’s my problem with is because we’re increasingly in charge of past. How far can you explore the concept a beer, you know, it becomes a very dif- a lot of the reductionism going on now: putting out our imagination, knowledge, of authorship? It’s all very problematic, ferent type of silence. People approach rather than use silence and space to desire, our ability to express ourselves, and there’s a lot to explore. For me silence differently. The interesting thing analyse the context of production, and in other words our potentiality in order improvisation goes against the idea of for me was how our silence that night enable us to experiment with a different to be more visible and more social. And in authorship. And yet once a record is differed from one of Radu’s silences. relationship with the audience, it’s still doing so we gain more value in this produced it has a kind of authority, it’s For example, when Taku Sugimoto plays about looking at silence in formal terms. economy of attention. Right now, in this a kind of statement. I think we should one note in one hour, there’s a lot of There are people who are trying differ- interview, even if there’s no money have the same kind of openness with silence, but he’s there, the musician ent things out, taking a more conceptual involved, we know that we’re producing making records as we do in a concert situation. People try to frame and limit sort of ‘quality’ music. I thought that with conceptual art and still try to show with the feedback themselves, putting the exploratory aspect of improvisation, was very strange, and pretty stupid. the political connotations of what we’re their mobile phones and coins on the and I think it should stay in motion; elusive So promoting free software is also dealing with? I was interested in trying speakers, (like Taku Unami does). We were and unstable. Why set limits? about leaving things open, letting other to put aspects of noise making into theory, all part of something. In Washington the Of course you can understand limits: a people access it. It’s a way of moving and bring them back to music. What could day after, I stopped playing after ten concert has a beginning and an end, but the debate on intellectual property for- feedback mean in conceptual terms? minutes and sat down in the audience and many people discuss the concert before ward. I am so behind with the Free I also wanted to incorporate the discussion started to criticise myself. It’s impor- it starts, and after it finishes. Software releases, I want to apologise of intellectual property and make that tant to be able to criticise one’s own The framework is always troubled by to Loty Negarti, Taku Unami, and Martin part of the piece. I was very inspired by position. When Marx said: ruthless criti- social considerations, and it’s the same Howse, I hope to have the records out those pieces by Xabier Erkizia [Spam cism of all that exists, surely he was with records. Once one person plays it this summer. I am very sorry about this! Detect] and by antyology ‘0’, an electronic including himself? on a different stereo it’s a different chemical sound poem by Aitor Izagirre experience. We talked about that in email DW: How do you see the next five or ten (Loti Negarti) and interested in the way IN CRITICISING OURSELVES WE ALSO CRITI- about your review of Seymour Wright & years of this music? Are you optimistic? in which our conversation was an important CISE THE STEREOTYPES WE REPRESENT Keith Rowe’s 3D. You and I see things part of the process. There were several very differently. For me the most inspiring M: I could criticise the blandness in a lot things going on at once, and it became a DW: Tell us about the concert with comment I read about that release was of what we see, but that’s not where I big melting of pot of language and explo- Radu Malfatti at Erstquake in New York Brian Olewnick’s, who played the discs in get inspiration from. I’m more interested ration. Discussion also has its musical in September 2006. three different machines at the same in people like Emma Hedditch, Karin Schneider, qualities, in the same way that music time. Of course he couldn’t press play on Julien Skrobek, Mathieu Saladin and Miguel produces discourse. M: I wanted to talk with Radu beforehand the three players at the same time, and Prado, different people with a lot of even if he had been able to, the players about what we were going to do, but we energy, pushing things. And people in the DW: I can’t understand what you’re on would have had different start up times. only had a brief discussion over lunch. Basque country are doing very interest- about because it’s all in Spanish. So by playing the three records at the ing stuff, like Xabier Erkizia, Loty Negarti, I wanted him to play one of his own com- same time, he was not recreating the Xedh and everybody connected to Arto positions, and I would record the sounds M: So then listen to it as sound. Why concert, but producing something unique Artian (www.artoartian.org). during the silences and play them back. for him. What’s inspiring is that he should it be in English anyway? Most of For me it’s possible to bring composition the discussions of this music you see played around, he experimented with the DW: Tell me about Feedback Conceptual. into the context of an improvised con- online are in English already. The record release itself, avoiding any sense of How am I supposed to listen to a six cert, because the reception of the com- I’m working on is a follow-up of Attention. objectivity, instead of claiming as you did hour piece? position itself becomes the improvisation. that one or more of the three record- Another essay CD trying to combine the But the soundcheck was a disaster, and ings was more accurate or better. making of a CD with language, a constant IT’S MADE TO BE LISTENED TO AT WORK I had problems with my sound card, and it dialectic between noise and language, and ended up as a total improvisation. I could IF YOU WORK EIGHT HOURS A DAY YOU STILL the way that language might change the NEEDLESS TO SAY, NONE OF THIS INTERVIEW see him looking at me while we were playing, HAVE TIME listening environment and the perception IS COPYRIGHT like, this is not happening at all. It was FOR A BREAK of space. I want something that fucks very intense, and people felt uncomfort- DW: And the Free Software Series also FOR FOOD with my mind, that really questions to able because they knew they were part ties into this, I suppose? MASTURBATION the core what judgement itself is; a social of it (actually one member of the audi- AND A NAP thing, an ideological thing, not something ence fainted). Next day, Radu and Klaus M: Of course. I was back in Bilbao in 2004 IF NEEDED that reaffirms my own ‘very good taste’. played a very, very beautiful concert in and there was this hacklab in a squat I’m interested in exploring the conceptu- Brooklyn, which kind of confirmed something there where they were promoting free M: There’s no proper way of listening to al side of things, blurring or making I’d thought for a long time: that there software, with a very political conscience. things in the same way that there’s no problematic the distinction between per- I was interested in the free software proper way of improvising. If you want to former and audience. At Future Tenant are people who make far more beautiful thing, but I’m not the most technically listen to Feedback Conceptual in one go in Pittsburgh recently I played this con- music than I do. Radu is interested in minded person. They were giving free you can, but if you want to do something cert with very loud laptop noise for calmness, but I’m not. I’m interested in classes in GNU/Linux, so I went there else at the same time that’s fine too. about half the set, and then I stopped transformation, trying things out, even every Wednesday and it was the most The good thing about file players is that and said, ‘I find what I’m doing very con- if they don’t work. I’d rather test ideas progressive community I’d encountered. you can put a cursor at any point and ventional and the way you’re reacting to in improvisation as a way to explore the About the same time Julien Ottavi was listen to it from there, just like a it very conventional too. Let’s try some- limitations of the context we find ourselves working with GNU/Linux and he introduced record player (but if you try to cut six thing out: I want us to take the com- in than confirm or reaffirm a ready-made me to things too. I saw that there were and half hours into a record you’re puter down to the basement’ (where understanding of what music is, or what a whole lot of people making music with going to get hardcore reductionism – there was another PA system). So we car- playing an instrument is, or what politics is. GNU/Linux, but for some reason the and probably quieter than Francisco ried everything downstairs including the music made using proprietary software Lopez’s release on Mego!). PA system, and it was feeding back all the IT’S EASIER TO HAVE AN IDEA THAN TO was somehow supposed to be ‘better’, How can we mix noise and improvisation time, and people started playing around PLAY AN INSTRUMENT then by the other material with his elec- now half past twelve, enter and leave the the meaning of this build up a sense for able to escape from Taku Unami one. You can say that tric guitar, sometimes now one o’clock... . room, but there is elusive event. yourself. But not them for now, but the sound doesn’t with the guitar Most of the people something that is What exactly happened? just any sense. it’s in the way we and Mattin: meet the expectations plugged to the amplifier have left the room. held, there is some- It is not clear. After We can go back to face them that we of the audience, but at very low volume Time itself becomes thing that is not speaking with some of Mattin’s questions can mark the path of anyway that’s what is and sometimes with it important. The situa- possible to be under- the people that were (Why are you here? a new understanding. Improvisa- going on. directly unplugged. tion becomes already stood and transmitted. present, it is possible What for?), but you Mattin and Taku forced After a while, Taku Always playing repeated an event. From inside For the most part to say that many of have to want them; the audience to ex- tion in the Unami stops playing notes for a short the room it’s possible the speculations them were receiving otherwise best to perience this problem the laptop and starts while and then leaving to hear how the peo- that are made out- something violent: forget these and make by making a slight form of an to scrape it with his long silences. The ple are arguing in the side – ‘this is just ‘Why was he asking new questions that displacement in the fingers, making an long silences between bar at the entry hall, a provocation’, ‘this me all these ques- are better for you. way a performance is almost inaudible and what he was playing trying to understand is a never ending tions? Was this a Nothing is going to supposed to be. interrogation even poorer sound and what Mattin was what’s going on. Some game’ – are just not provocation?’ Some of happen. Everything is And besides this, they Performance as part than the one he was shouting become of them are complaining. satisfactory. them just got bored. happening all at once showed how difficult of the Labor Sonor making through the longer and longer. Nothing is clear. At 02.00 there are Some others felt right now. Maybe this it is still for us to series at KuLe computer. Then he Somehow everything Inside the room the only four people left uncomfortable and bothers you. You attend an event with- (Augustr.10 unexpectedly closes is out of the blue. lights are off but in the room besides exposed. Some were wanted to reach a out carrying expecta- Berlin-Mitte)* his laptop, picks up The audience becomes the performance has the performers. left disappointed. point. Maybe you had tions and how hard his electric guitar more confused. not formally ended The people that were But no one could say expectations and now it is still to accept By Diego Chamy and plays only one Everyone looks at one and there is still a speaking in the entry exactly what it was you are offended. an event the way it is. note, repeating it for another. Some people part of the audience hall already left the all about or what the You have paid the a while. goal of the performers ticket, but what did On Monday the 5th laugh. Some keep on which perseveres. place and now there *Previously published of November 2007, Then he picks up trying to answer the A person – maybe is calmness and silence. was. you get in exchange? Taku Unami (a Japanese another note and does questions that Mattin drunk, maybe angry – After a couple of Was it only a provo- You came with your December 2007 in improviser musician the same, and then he is shouting, but starts to throw hours of complete cation? There was no expectations and Whitehot Magazine who plays laptop and makes silence. Mattin never enters peanuts at other silence coming from provocation. A provo- someone put them www.whitehotmagazine.com/ guitar) and Mattin (a While this is happening, into an argument with people in the audi- the performers, Taku cation is not some- out because you didn’t performer and musi- Mattin faces the them directly. The ence and also at the Unami plays one more thing confusing but get what you wanted. cian from the Basque audience and turns people are strongly performers. Another time the repeated quite clear: people After the perform- Country who is cur- on a spotlight point- effecting each other person wants to notes that he made know what it is ance someone from rently living in Berlin) ing to the spectators, with a nervous, leave the door of before with his gui- about, how to behave the audience said performed in KuLe, as if the situation uneasy and jumpy the room open, but tar (why now?). It is in those situations that if the perform- a room that is well- was a police inter- feeling. After a while someone else closes too late and the and what to think. ance would have been known for regularly rogation. He starts a person leaves the it again. This situation people in charge of A provocation works free, he wouldn’t hosting experimental to say: ‘you’re a room. Mattin asks him with the door repeats the place don’t know more as an act that have gotten upset. music and perform- very polite audience, why he is leaving and itself several times. exactly what to do. desires to cause a Does this make any ances as part of a you are so quiet’ in the person answers People come in and There is hesitation. reaction. In this case difference? How does series called Labor order to continue with an outraged out, concerned about You can hear them it’s not sure that money-flux compel Sonor. shouting: ‘Are you voice tone – that he what’s going on, but trying to decide what the performers would and limit the way we Taku Unami and Mattin always so quiet, or doesn’t know. The it seems that there to do. They don’t have wished for any conceive and are occupy the stage is it just when you situation continues is nothing to do to want to interrupt specific reaction. affected by events? sitting at a small pay?’ ‘Why are you like this. After some help the situation. the performance, but Mattin was somehow Mattin and Taku Unami table one in front here?’ ‘What for?’ minutes some more A woman in the first by now they have to asking the audience put under question – of the other. Each ‘Why are you so people leave the row wants to leave leave the place. It’s to accept what was and perhaps also of them has a laptop. quiet?’ The audience room. There is rest- but she does this, late and in the room going on as it is. fooled – this The lights go off. is confused. A certain lessness and even incomprehensibly, try- there are only 4 And both artists were exchange-based logic The screens of the tension fills the worry. Kule’s audience ing seriously not to people left. Finally exposing themselves that we are used to: laptops, which now room. Mattin keeps on had other expecta- make any noise when they enter the room whilst an agent pro- the logic of the right become the only repeating these ques- tions when Taku Unami, the gesture has no and turn on the vocateur will never exchange. lights in the room, tions. Some people try from Japan, was sense at all because lights. The performers really expose himself. There are no right only just prevent to answer and some announced. the whole situation are still there, on But if the whole thing exchanges. Such a complete obscurity. others try to argue A 45 minutes concert is already a mess. stage, in silence. One was not a provoca- thing is not possible. A sound starts to with him, but he keeps would have been better. One person from the of the KuLe organiz- tion – because it Every exchange oscil- come out from the on repeating this After an hour Mattin audience starts to ers decides to start cannot be – what was lates in time, liberating loudspeakers. It’s a sort of questions turns off the spotlight. mumble in a bizarre sweeping the stage. it? Why was it like and catching forces very simple and poor and then making very At 23.30, in total way for a while and It is the end (is it?). that? These questions that promote changes sound, as if someone long silences. When obscurity, the audience then he stands up, Now Mattin laughs, show themselves to of speed in the fluxes was timidly hitting a the audience makes is still waiting for goes onto the stage, and the four-per- be insufficient. that constitute our table with a small noises he forcefully something to happen. stands there for a son-audience starts We need to find other bodies. This oscillation object. Coming from asks for silence. And Nothing else will hap- while and all at once to clap. The applause questions. There is prevents the ex- musicians devoted to when there is anxiety pen, but at the same sneezes loudly over continues without no ready-made ‘why?’, changes from being electronic music, it’s he asks: ‘Are you now time so many things Mattin. A lot of other stopping for the or even a specific right. Exchanges are an almost ridiculous asking yourself are already happening. small things continue next 10 or 15 min- goal. An action is unfair by nature and sound. It is performed what’s coming next?’ Time passes. to happen. Like a utes. A disoriented defined more by its unstable de jure in a somehow stupid But nothing is coming More and more people variation of Buñuel’s journalist runs into effects than by its when they are seen way first by one of next. Taku Unami kept leave the room. Now Exterminating Angel, the room unsuccess- intentions. On that in a temporal per- the musicians and on playing the same it is already midnight, here everyone can fully trying to catch night you had to spective. We are not – and over-played – pantomime of The proximity of ‘normal’ behaviour and trated writer in The Shining, but Karin Schneider & excretion.) The feeling was one of con- assigned ‘routines’ was one immediate rather contained a detailed real time finement and also of ethical ambivalence revelation, intensifying the performance’s transcription of all the events – should one play along or refuse, talk power as a discloser of convention and transpiring in the room - and, contra Mattin’s performance to the other participants or get on role play. Having determined that there to my impression/projection during the with one’s task? Acquaintances and were no more new players coming onto performance (another Rorschach as part of Melanie friends seemed estranged by their the ‘stage’ of the gallery through the moment of self-revelation through roles and hard to approach, the strangers curtain from the street outside, I was misrecognition) Melanie had not known Gilligan’s exhibition oddly more intimate and easier to discussing with a friend whether we her role in advance any more than the address than moments before outside should make a break for it and if indeed other players. This had been her on the street. Like a continually evolving the performance’s architects would assigned task, and she had carried it at Transmission Milgram Experiment, one was not only ever call a halt to it. (It had been out, apparently, quite sedulously. confronted with one’s willingness to unfolding for an hour and a half at I haven’t read it over yet but all par- Gallery, Glasgow, obey commands, and forced to examine this point and I was, having been inside ticipants were given a print out copies the basis for this, but also, again for 40 minutes, starting to feel weary of her screed on completion of the 26 April 2008 depending on the role assigned to one, of my Dantean circulation). Ambiguity piece and perhaps are now finding out to overcome embarrassment or scruples was so deep that when one of the how, from a central – panoptic? – By Benedict Seymour about participation and articulation in former door persons called out ‘enough’ point, the madhouse/playroom/prison such a confined and uncanny space. or words to that effect I felt that appeared to its passive architect. As a participant it struck me as a lot Inevitably, as well as reflections on the this too should be treated as a scripted The other devisers of the piece never like being on Ketamine at a free rave, paranoia/possibility inherent in this speech and subject to assessment. It saw any of it, remaining behind the but with the difference that at a free situation, one considered possibilities was simultaneously scripted and sincere, black curtains at the back of the rave nobody asks you to vocalise into of solidarity and exchange with other yet another moment in the game and a gallery, and the whole event was a microphone your impression of taking prisoners/players; thinking of Melanie’s statement which, if followed, would at undocumented but for Melanie’s report a painful shit. As a whole it was like a works but also of my own adventures once confirm the hold of and dissolve and the testimony of participants such free improv version of Tino Sehgal, with in late capitalist ‘fun’ houses such as the game. as this one. a Dantean crowd of strangers and raves and clubs one couldn’t help the Did one want to stop on these terms? Franz Kafka’s ‘In the Penal Colony’ came acquaintances circling or vegetating in almost de rigeur feeling of being in a And would it be right, given the contract to mind often during the performance, the empty white space of the gallery microcosm of post-Fordist immanence, between performers and scripters, to and the only once broken paragraph of while performing Reichian ‘loops’ of a continuum of watching and acting in call it off or make an escape? A friend Melanie’s report resembled not only activity; some transient and free/ which critical distance and escape are of mine had already run out screaming The Shining’s scroll but the flesh of doomed to observe while orbiting (like impossible, solidarity hard to imagine, ‘I can’t take anymore’ but it seemed the harrowed convict in that story. me) others slumped at the side of the and the confines of the system radically stagey to me. But of course here the machine was gallery gazing into mirrors and indeterminate i.e. what part of the I reckoned I knew Mattin and Karin well activated by its subjects/objects and mouthing ‘I am so wonderful’ to them- human ‘events’ unfurling around one as enough that they wouldn’t script in a their movements were at once page and selves, and a host of variations on if from a computer code were scripted, determinate ending, and I later found writing. Like Agambenian sonderkommando, futility including counting to 600, and what part improvised or simply out that the performer who called the victims were victimisers, perpetu- climbing up and down a ladder and diversions? Was the girl who had been ‘enough’ had been left absolute discretion laughing unnervingly at other partici- ating the game. This thought, naturally, drifting round in narrow circles in the as to when to do so. As it transpired was hard to shake off as one navigated pants/victims of this incrementally we were all spared a long night in an developing system as they passed by. far left hand corner now chatting on the city-wide ‘art safari’ which the the phone pretending to be talking to abstracted, sensory deprivation ver- Glasgow International festival was pleased Each participant was let into the sion of the Big Brother cells, but it gallery one at a time from the street, someone or was this her ‘real life’ to bill itself as – one more bourgeois imposing itself onto the queasily magi- would have been intriguing to see how we bohemian circulating in the enchanted with no foreknowledge of what would guinea pigs would have responded to an cal space? Was Lisa still ‘on script’ as game of art appreciation/production/ ensue (hence the feeling of having even more drawn out incarceration. criticism on which this city (like thousands been slipped an unknown drug) and, she started to rove around the As the performance collapsed into after wandering disoriented through gallery posing questions and, later, applause, a little predictable and yet of others) has floated its now serious- the developing human flora and fauna clapping us into clapping the show appropriately stagey in its own right, ly stymied chances for survival. for a few terrifying/fascinating moments, over, or was she wildcatting? And, more I remembered the closing scene of As the tramps stumble scabrous along being lead into a curtained backroom uncanny, had they allotted us roles on David Fincher’s The Game, as we stood Sauchiehall street and the hordes of where Karin and Mattin would tersely the basis of their knowledge of our around discussing with strangers and girls (un)dressed as policemen disgorge assign them a task to perform. personalities, or had our roles been (other) acquaintances our roles and from stretched limos onto the teeming Once released back into the tank, the arbitrarily assigned, acting instead as complementing each other on our per- beaches of Saturday night, the looping visitor/participant became actor/ a Rorschach-like prop prompting us to formances (‘you were supposed to be implications of the performance unroll voyeur, some immobilised flat on their confront the habitual attitudes and taking a shit? I would never have in my head, up to and including the backs, others, like myself, having to behaviours which constituted our guessed!’; ‘you were brilliant at ”stop recognition, as the closing night party perform more obviously to the rest of identitities? talking”, a real natural’, etc). hosts thank the corporate sponsors the zoo. Someone was shouting out at I was struck by how much I maintained Throughout the piece, or at least for for their generosity, that this game regular intervals ‘Stop talking!’ though my interest in, and hence obedience to, some time before I entered the room, accurately reflects the sense of passivity it was unclear if this was a response the game by analysing it, my passivity the artist who commissioned it, Melanie, and complicity which already structures to any particular act of communication, while orbiting and ‘taking in’ the event sat in the centre of the room typing ‘artistic’ production in the wider open while a woman at a microphone was making (of which I was of course one compo- into a laptop. Looking at the screen prison. odd ‘huh’-ing noises (I found out later nent, like a moon in an orrery) making one discovered it was not covered in Not news, but something made news by that she was supposed to be evoking continued repetition of the assigned rows and rows of ‘All work and no play this piece – one criterion for a valid some kind of erotic moan or groan, role endurable. Critique as the highest makes Jack a dull boy’, like the type or at least half critical art work in perhaps a counterpoint to my anguished form of integration. written screeds of Nicholson’s frus- the age of compulsory participation? and demineralise the as within the tortured austerity and simplicity was bent on their mutual turb, or at a minimum A Fearless obvious. However, despite screed of the theatre of these restraints disintegration. Such is expose the mechanics of its many virtues, it could of cruelty. Mattin’s served to condense the the end of all vital col- aesthetic refinement, not but be a hopeless cerebrally focused machi- critic’s great contempt laborations. reminding himself as much Foot and an substitute for the inse- nations introduced a new to the muscular exercise Mattin’s interventions, as his listeners of that curity and the prevailing tension into their per- of the foot – a blow I like my own, proceed at now ancient adage: To be Unscrupulous sense of threat that formances that could not delivered like a nerve spasm times with surgical preci- done with judgement! pervaded their perform- but be perceived as a that suddenly cut short sion and others with the One must treat List of Mind ances – an impossible threat to Drunkdriver’s the life of the organism, crudeness of a cranial Profound Insecurities as record of their essential organic integrity. opening the band to blow from a battleaxe. a literal record, a docu- cruelty, their hunger Sometimes the critic must unforeseen contingen- There are no doubt times ment not simply to be (A Scream after life and cosmic risk destroying the object cies. This simple exercise and situations appropri- listened to, but read. If strictness, to which I of one’s love. shifted control from the ate to both actions. At most improvisation labours from the lent a piteous foot. The The integrity of Drunk- band to the audience and the Silent Barn, he swung over the introduction of many joys of the album driver’s sound depends suddenly Drunkdriver the battleaxe. Yet, the a little necessity into Extremity)* poorly convey the shear upon their ability to (Mattin included) had to failure of the performance contingency, obsessing effort of their collabo- generate a momentum that confront head on the exposed the radical dif- over compositions per- By Ludwig Fischer ration, its difficulty and careens centrifugally, intensities that their ficulty, the inhuman effort ilously perched at the antagonism. Let us recall, always at the limits of sound had engendered. required of us critics very edge of disappear- One reason for the invoking one of my many control. And Berdan’s By suddenly cutting all who seek to question ance, Mattin perverts asphyxiating atmosphere masters, that effort pact is to place himself amplification except to structures of mastery. I this procedure, acceler- in which we live without means cruelty, existence at the mercy of this limit, the microphone, the band’s for one share the con- ating the contingent, the possible escape or through effort is cruel. affirming the dangerous sovereign, Michael Berdan, viction that the present random, the chaotic in recourse – and for which It is important not to vitality of a ship manned was cut loose and had to state of society is iniq- order to make thought we are all responsible, let the antagonism engen- by a drunken master, kept reel independently of the uitous and ought to be coincide with actions. One even the most revolu- dered and internalised on course by its own noise colossus that nor- destroyed. should attend to those tionary among us – is between Mattin and forward momentum. mally steers him. The crowd If Mattin’s unflinching moments in the record this respect for what Drunkdriver, whose faint Mattin’s interventions grew restless as the time commitment to improvisa- when the machinic crackle has already been written, echo can be heard on the that night took aim at unfolded, each second tion is a certain gust of of Mattin’s laptop oblit- formulated, composed or recording only with this pact by tactically being felt, their ire stoked fresh air, situating his erates the difference performed, what has been immense effort, fade interrupting the momentum, by L.F.’s aspersions. experiments in the inter- between foreground and given form, as if all into indifference. severing Berdan from the By ratcheting up the stices between perform- background, the struc- expression were not Let this little text, how- sound that acts as his cruelty to ascetic pro- ance, punk-rock, noise and ture swallowing that finally exhausted and has ever insufficiently, serve rudder. portions, Mattin designed electro-acoustic improv, which it structures, the not reached the point to amplify this echo. For all appearances Mattin a perilous situation, let- it is no doubt due to master exposing his bloody where things must fall For those familiar with integrated himself quite ting loose forces that the innocence with which head. apart if they are to Drunkdriver’s refined well into the band. However, the band itself could not he leaves formal concerns In such rare moments the begin again. – Ludwig malevolence doubtless he set strict temporal endure. The drummer broke to the aesthetes, to guiding proposition of Fischer and Mattin know that the brute parameters on the devel- his commitment to follow those eardrum sophisti- Drunkdriver’s and Mattin’s materiality of their opment of the perform- the parameters. He began cates whose erstwhile short but intensely ago- For all those interested performance buries all ance. These restraints to drum, deploying a rit- commitments amount to nistic collaboration in the perfidy of critique, pretension, especially to served to construct a ualistic and clichéd drum- little more than the becomes discernable: let me recall an event, an sense, forcing language situation that forced roll to anchor Berdan’s institution of a new form Ah, that’s it, that’s life! intervention, a date, to reside somewhere the band, Mattin included, chaotic meanderings. Mattin, of decorum. Well, it’s a mess. January 3rd, 2009 – in between thought and to react to conditions struck in the head by which I, Ludwig Fischer, gesticulation. Michael that were artificial and the swinging microphone With an untroubled insis- *First published in Machete was less a collaborator Berdan’s microphone designed to challenge the and bleeding, momentarily tence Mattin refuses the Magazine, 2009. www.marginuality.org/ than an accomplice, a seems an extension of groups organic integrity fled the scene, not before autonomy of the audito- category/machete-group/ participant in a kind of a striking fist, a weapon by interrupting its smearing audience mem- ry, inscribing it at all cerebral crime. Through that he frequently development and exposing bers with his blood. The times within a social appa- a mixture of friendship, swings like a ball and it to the vicissitudes of performance continued, ratus that the musician convenience and comradely chain or hurls into the contingency. but now under conditions whether consciously or commitment, Mattin crowd, convinced that My role was clearly defined. that were unpredictable, unconsciously performs. solicited myself and one a performance, like a Ten minutes into the flawed, botched. Decorum is not merely an L.F. to play the part of dream, must be bloody performance I had to step The collaboration went external ornament, but the critic, to be respon- and inhuman in order to onto a pedal that cut awry. But by maintaining an affective regime that sible for introducing a unforgettably root in the amplification to the oneself within this pro- one internalises and then critical incision into his the audience an idea of guitars, signalling the longed laceration some- performs. And music, as performance with Drunkdriver perpetual conflict. Yet, drummer to stop. Only the thing was touched upon with all of the arts, is at the Silent Barn. the addition of Mattin microphone was left on. that no party could really worth little if it cannot The occasion for this and his fateful instru- At fifteen minutes, the sustain or maintain. interrupt this process reflection is the recent mentalisation of my foot amplification was to be Mattin was less a transient that leads to new forms release of Mattin’s and that evening at the turned back on and the member of the ensemble of consensual judgement, Drunkdriver’s album, List Silent Barn, served to performance was to con- than a rogue particle, a to new forms of mastery, of Profound Insecurities reveal that the precedent clude at twenty. In the foreign agent that MUST serving as a new stimulus by Philadelphia’s Badmaster of their performances interval, as if to intensi- be expelled by its host. to good taste, confirming label – a potent document and the source of their fy the cruelty of the The violent intensity that rather than challenging of their shared commit- vitality seemed to lie less situation, Mattin planted their collaboration the established order. It ment to those sonic within the annals of punk a heckler, one L.F., to fomented could neither is thus above all in the experiments that trouble rock and the prolifera- critically malign the per- be sustained by Mattin performance that Mattin classificatory regimes tion of its sub-genres, formance. The extreme or Drunkdriver, for it seeks to dislocate, dis- Mattin’s Performance at No Fun Fest Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, #16 May 2009

By Marcia Bassett White Male Hetero sexual Now I don’t know about Phil Minton But according to the post-modern way Mattin & Taku (I sure hate that Toot record NOISE & CAPITALISM: a of thinking one knows as well: it’s not though) but this allowed me to take this in as music and realise it so easy, it’s neither the one thing nor Unami, Rigoletto, was some kind of free music after performance on being the other. Everything is highly complex, all. I have read and heard so many interwoven and always in the process of Paris, 14th people talk about how Ayler or and doing. change, which makes it so difficult to Coltrane could make their saxo- phones cry, I guess I was ready speak about precisely or even to do December 2009* to hear some music in this crying In search of new forms of thinking and something differently, something that tonight. performing society. makes a difference. What is the relation By Julien Skrobek The effort of concentration is between noise and capitalism? And why is visible upon their faces, until There are two wooden chairs on another peal of crying can be By Janine Eisenaecher there a need to publish a book about the stage, each of them bathed brought up. You can’t escape the this? in the pool of light of a white fact that those men are focusing Berlin, January 21st 2010: The artists spotlight. Mattin and Taku sit on crying, and this puts the whole Noise & Capitalism gathers several essays down and quietly look at the audi- idea of sadness at the forefront and researchers Mattin, Anthony Iles, ence. As always with those two, no in the venue. Howard Slater and Ilya Lipkin were invited written by academics, practitioners and one knows what is coming. Their Mattin has tears in his eyes, but to discuss the book Noise & Capitalism1, philosophers about noise and related position resembles the one evoked I think this is mostly because of music scenes such as free jazz or free the white spot directed at him. which had been recently published (edited on the Attention record, a improvisation, analysing the particular favourite of mine. However, Taku is Maybe the absence of real abun- by Mattin and Anthony Iles), at Basso, not holding a guitar, and as a dant tears shows the artificiality a studio founded by a collective of practices as well as their potential to matter of fact, there are no of the performance to some Berlin-based artists that occasionally subvert capitalist economic structures instruments on the stage. I think extent, but it doesn’t undermine and power mechanisms. The need for this of what Mattin told me earlier the fact that the sound comes hosts art events and publishes a magazine about making ‘simple things’. I must from the feelings they can bring regularly. Around 40 people wanted to analysis arises from, as Anthony Iles admit what they did tonight may be up and arouse within the audience. hear what these four men would have put it this evening, Mattin’s inner simple in its means, but it’s surely To some extent, the sound of to say about the question Mattin desire to discuss the noise scene and quite complex in its implications. crying is severed from the act. its problems. He often experiences the After a while, they start sobbing. I’m sure they are not so sad, or announced on his website www.mattin.org: It is not clear at first if they at least not for the same reasons ‘Can we use noise as a way of disrupting noise and improvisation scene as very are crying or laughing, so the and not to the point of crying so the normalisation process that stops patriarchal and oppressive, with audience sort of takes the easy much, but the sounds they produce regards to its structure and forms of communicates a feeling even though us from abolishing this economic system?’ way out and assumes they must production as well as its ingrained be laughing. They take it lightly it is decontextualised. I am very and some people are laughing too. impressed by the amount of ideas The performance took place within the aesthetics, it’s distribution of particular However, the sobbing gets more they brought up with, well, nothing framework of the one-week workshop languages and forms of behaviour. but ideas. intense, and they begin to make ‘Going Fragile’ lead by Nils Norman Altogether, this book does not give the most heart-wrenching crying. This lasts for an hour. Some people I remember thinking they must be have left, others seem devastated (artist, currently teaching at the Royal a definition of noise music and it is not reminiscing over sad memories until by sadness. There is even one guy Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen/DK), dealing with noise music only. It is rather the tears come to their eyes. who is crying himself. At the back Anthony Davies, Howard Slater (writers a reflection on society and (collective The audience began to feel uneasy. of the venue, a couple of girls as well as individual) identity, on power You can really feel it. All the are giggling nervously, and I can’t and researchers, Mute magazine) and laughing stops. You wouldn’t laugh help but think that they are trying members of the Walls and Space course relations and the connection between at someone crying in front of you, to get rid of this strange feeling at Royal Academy of Fine Arts, artistic practice and economic struc- would you? What would you do? they are experiencing. tures in general. In doing so, it displays What would you do if you saw Copenhagen/DK. Most members of the To come on stage and comfort the search for a new consciousness them or ask them what is wrong somebody crying in the metro ? audience were participants of this would probably interrupt the per- Either you’d comfort them, or workshop, coming either from an artistic and an alternative practice of perform- formance. How would they take it? you’d ignore them. Here this is an and/or left-activist background from ing society. We will never know, because nobody impossible alternative. No one will walk on stage, and everybody paid different countries. dared to ask them anything. After Consequently, it was not a surprise all, this is a performance that we to see this, making for a very are watching. Two men are focusing uncomfortable but questioning that the majority of the audience had on their inner darkness enough to situation. Intro high expectations of the supposed book make themselves cry in front of After an hour, I start clapping presentation which turned out to be a an audience, and this audience is (as Mattin and Taku had instructed paying for it. me to do) soon followed by the A book entitled Noise & Capitalism must book presentation-concert-discussion- The performance works on many rest of the audience. The end. be provocative, especially to people performance lasting about two hours levels. Sonically, the voices are no Later on at the bar I can hear producing or consuming noise music, which made everyone in the space feel different from instruments. Mattin Mattin explaining to someone that irritated and quite uncomfortable. To me and Taku’s voices are quite different, he had asked me to clap after an suggesting that there is a particular so I am reminded of two reed players hour, because the guy thought it relation between the two. It could be a it seemed that clear answers and concrete with different tones. Mattin cries was so rude of me to interrupt similar one, so noise and capitalism would directives were expected from the four this crying! like a baby, slowly rising waves, have something in common. Or, they could performers, some programme one could while Taku’s body is completely note in five points and then go outside shaken by sobbing, making a more A very very strong performance. be in opposition to each other which, of percussive sound in a way. It took course, sounds great if one is against and enact. This did not happen in the me a while to realise that this usual way of using (only) verbal language. *First published on the ihatemusic message capitalism or has a critical opinion about actually worked as music. My neigh- the capitalist system and is interested It was instead a rather subtle and also bour told me this was better than board, www.ihatemusic.noquam.com/, December Phil Minton as far as abstract in possibilities of how to change or more interesting way of formulating vocal performance was concerned. 2009. break it. questions and giving answers – they were performed. These questions At the one end of the room there was sense. He is not interested in producing mostly men; on the other hand, you have and answers came into being through a table with four chairs arranged around meaning at all in terms of being under- four male artists and researchers the circulation of the uttered thoughts, it. On the table one could see some stood on the basis of consensus. sitting at a table and discussing, who bodies, actions and noises in the space. bottles of beer, cigarettes and matches, He examines the process of speaking belong to the era of the ‘new capitalism’2 It was a physical experience and a challenge. different notes and papers, two copies for himself as much as the material of with its introduction of a much more of the book Noise & Capitalism and a language. The things themselves are put individualised, competitive and flexible The reasons for taking this approach Macbook connected to a mixer and the in the centre and into question, working structure, and who represent are the complexity of the issues Mattin, sound system. Clearly, that was the stage. regarding their coming into being and the so-called ‘knowledge society’ and Iles, Slater and Lipkin are attempting to The place of power, the place for their qualities. Slater performs some of the ‘creative class’.3 There’s alienation deal with and the difficult task of trying speaking. And this was accepted as a the most important and also precarious in both systems of work. And alienation to deconstruct everything that was fact. The rest of the space, which might questions of post-modern and post- is exactly what the audience starts happening in situ and to make exactly have been as much as eighty percent of colonial discourse: (How) Can I speak to feel at this time of the performance. this visible while performing. Our identities, it, was the audience’s space with a bar about something at all without repro- They get the impression of being one’s own ways of being and doing, of in the background. Arranged looking ducing certain ideologies and power excluded. They are interested in what thinking, talking and behaving are towards the stage, half of the audience structures? In what ways can I speak is discussed but they can’t hear what structured by the capitalist system sat, the other half stood. or communicate without producing some- is said (except for those sitting in the and that creates a state of ambiva- thing that is going to be incorporated This is a decision. This is an order. first or second row). There is an invisible lence, an in-between which at the same and commercialised by the market immedi- It structures the communication of but perceptible border that forms a time means a process and struggle of ately? How can I speak about something thoughts and the energy flow between ‘we’ and a ‘them’. The noise ends. Pause. ongoing de- and re-construction (at that is outside of my personal perspec- the bodies. Here, negotiation needs to Mattin asks: ‘Who is we?’ least for those, who criticise this system). tive or experience, or about something begin. The four performers raised questions, that is so complex? Can I speak for And so on. This continues for quite made connections, tried to behave and Four men sitting around the table, par- someone else (solidarity)? From what some time. Different sorts of speaking discuss things free from patriarchal tially with their back towards the audi- position am I speaking? Are my voice and and discussing interfere with each ideology and power structure, considering ence, talking so quietly that almost no what I say heard in public? other and are again and again overlapped each element in the space as equal. one could hear or understand a word. by noise. When Anthony Iles stands up At the same time, inescapably, they were Also present in the space, voices from Noise music from the CD overlaps the and reads out a passage of the book in reproducing and establishing elements the audiences, sounds from the bar. men’s voices again. It’s like big industrial manifesto style, the noise music sud- of this ideology and power structure, Then: noise. Loud. For the duration of tools working and destroying the floor denly comes together with his voice. You provoking the audience to confront one and a half minutes, while Howard you sit upon underneath your chair. cannot understand what exactly he is this and to claim the space. The challenge Slater, Anthony Iles, Ilya Lipkin and It disrupts one’s own feeling of where saying, you just listen to a voice talk- was not to expect anything within a Mattin simply continue what they do and one is and what one is in. It definitely ing, a voice with a claim. When the noise given structure that has constructed are: four performers sitting at a table, does not fulfil the expectations of is over, he continues reading... and ‘we’ those who came to hear something. your desire and is accepted, but to do drinking beer, smoking and talking. as the audience apprehend the develop- All impressions get estranged and re- everything that is possible in order to As this noise ends (we are going listen ment and context of the book. Probably, arranged, you’re thrown into something create a different structure that can to much more during the performance at this point, some people felt relieved unknown and it is disgorged before it always be changed, at least newly discussed. because it is one track on a CD, with and thought that we would begin a can become too comfortable, before its noises and its silences that appear anything can make sense. Mattin, Slater, coherent presentation, but no. So here we come to noise: I’ve chosen and are part of the performance) we Iles and Lipkin continue talking as The attitude was clear while a lot of five elements (n.-o.-i.-s.-e.) that I consider switch to another form of communica- before, no one can hear them at all. things in the space just were. tion, to a more usual form of address- essential for noise in relation to capitalism, They might be talking about how to con- organised in five parts that are linked ing the audience. But rather through tinue the performance, or they may be One could experience negotiation already with each other. This is not a definition, the volume of the voice than through reflecting upon what’s going on just up to this point of time on different and I don’t raise the claim of this being addressing the audience face to face. now in the space. It could be a joke as levels (and this continued until the end). complete. It is an essay in the very literal Short welcome. Introduction. With long well. They let the noise be what it is In questioning the very basic elements sense of trying something out, and my pauses between each sentence. Listen. and let it do what it does. They pay of a system or society one lives in, subjective overview of what happened, Another sentence. Then again: noise. attention to it as if it’s another voice considering all its structures and how combining aspects of my experience of Then: three men sitting at the table speaking but not one more or less they developed, lies the urgent need to the performance and a theoretical and one man standing, all of them read- important than anything else. It is some- re-start, re-locate, re-structure reflection of the issues addressed. ing, writing, thinking, making noise; trying thing that is in the space like them, like everything from anew, but from within. Quotes that appear without names in to just be there in time and space, who the audience. Like the table they are Which means to negotiate in common – brackets are things the performers or how they are. Suddenly, Slater sitting at. They are aware of everything. and here again: Who is we? – e.g. what said during the performance. starts to utter in a kind of stuttering, They are present. kind of society do we want to live in like speaking in fragmented, disrupted and how it should be structured. This words. Not really syllables, that one Now, writing about it, it also appears is not only the wish for a change just N. – NEGOTIATION could put somehow together in one’s to me as a simple but impressive image because capitalism is obviously not imagination to create meaning, rather for the changes of working structures: working for most of the people on this From entering the space at Basso one single letters in an unordered order. On the one hand, you have noise that planet and for the planet itself. This was immediately confronted with a standard He produces noise. He creates another one can associate with industrialism and is moreover a call to everyone to re- hierarchical set-up in the space: language. Another meaning, a different masses of physically hard-working people, claim and participate in the process of discussing and reshaping society. Secondly, ‘Mama!’ as visible product any more after it has The quite cynical power structure set the form of having a discussion within a been performed, it won’t be repeated or up and executed by the performers re- performance or making the negotiation By talking about aspects of organisation, stay the same, and you can’t buy or produces the same structure within the of different opinions and attitudes I talk about economic structures and sell it like a painting or a sculpture, you audience. ‘They’ are there to talk and within the performance itself is another power relations, about gender and class don’t makes copies of it like of a film present, ‘we’ are there to sit and hear aspect. It comes into being throughout issues, and about how important it is etc.), I am anyhow at the very margin of what they say. But because ‘we’ couldn’t what they do. It is not only human beings under what conditions something is pro- economic or financial success in terms hear everything, reactions of people which negotiate, everything does. Words, duced. A product can’t be separated of making ones living from this. And by transformed... maybe also because of the sounds, noise, architecture, space etc. from its process and conditions of pro- this, I am kind of automatically within a noise music, they started feeling agitated are equal elements that need to be duction. And so it goes with the repro- discussion of capitalist structure. and slightly aggressive. When Mattin said taken into consideration. This demands duction of ideologies, economic structures that it was ‘...a very strange feeling to an awareness of the necessity of put- and power relations. ‘The capitalist society ‘Mama!’ be in between this kind of trying to be ting oneself always and everywhere in which is a patriarchal structure by natural and fucking around with either relation to what or who surrounds you. itself always reproduces patriarchal But more important, in fact, is the role doing a book presentation, or a concert, On top of everything, negotiation also structures,’ says Mattin. And right he of art and culture in capitalist society or some performativity.’ I still had the describes the state I am always in. I is, though one should add that there in general. Capitalism always tries to impression that most people in the space expected something to be delivered. always negotiate (with) myself in relation exist examples and/or at least experi- suck everything in – yesterday under- THE answer or THE solution. Or a change to someone and something else. Not only ments with non-patriarchal structures, ground, tomorrow mainstream. And who in the power structure and form of via verbal language, most of the time working on a small scale. But still: what becomes an artist or decides to be invisibly. Being a citizen in a capitalist communication... which, of course, is a the audience experiences in the begin- one? It is clear that this is mostly, if society whom at the same time criticises good sign and an interesting potential ning of the performance is ‘...four men not always dependent on privileges – and appreciates what it is or does, dis- of being an audience. talking about noise, mastering and marketing it may be the economic situation, the plays something of the ambivalence the the discourse on noise.’ (Mattin) access to education, language, critique evening is all about. And we all have to and exposure, or the social capital one deal with this situation. Interesting has. ‘Culture is very much part of the I. – INTERRUPTION ‘Mama!’ though that the verbal negotiation engine of capitalism. The transition from between the performers and the audience noise as something that was probably During the past years, developing out Looking especially at the role of art or started a bit later when the physical really fucking annoying and damaging to of academic discourse, interruption as culture and the artist’s work in relation experience of power and exclusion – something you can now almost consume act and aesthetic concept became really to economic structures and conditions perceived through not being able to as a form of high culture ... this mostly important within the performing arts as of working, we enter a precarious field 4 hear what the performers were saying – comes from a privileged background, it’s a means of problematising representation. and important discussion. Because it is made the audience feel slightly aggressive. mostly privileged-background people In short, it is understood as a means to not that different from other fields. Let’s sum up for now: negotiating is consuming noise. And there’s a class and break with the spectators’ expectations, The art market as well as the funding reflecting the frame you’re in as well as gender issue going on which I’m trying the conventions of perception as well as with the norms and power structures its norms, and what structures and policy is a capitalist, patriarchical to understand.’ (Mattin) I still wonder that a given space (a theatre, for power relations they (re-)produce. structure. The artist, who in general if the noise scene is particularly more example) is constructed of. By inter- Negotiating is putting yourself in relation always has been connected to economy patriarchal than other fields of art or rupting these structures the usually to, claiming what you consider important and money and never was outside of artistic practices. I have no answer to invisible mechanisms and rules are made (and maybe in danger) and taking this cycle, nowadays is regarded as this, yet. responsibility for that. Noise as art or the future model of the perfect worker. visible and can be experienced differ- ently. In our case here, we find inter- as artistic practice can trigger off Due to his/her way of working he/she is ‘I wish my mama was here.’ negotiation, and/or can contain negotiation trained in ‘enjoying’ exploiting him-/herself ruption on different layers again. First of all, we have the frame of an alterna- as one of its elements. and in being flexible, and by now he/she That’s why reflecting upon all sorts of is his/her own company. Enjoying no tive art context and an event that is structures is important. That’s why it announced as book presentation. separation between work and life or is necessary to deal with language and Additionally, there’s the context of the O. – ORGANISATION work and leisure – he/she likes what to deconstruct the power that struc- workshop and the participants from he/she does, puts as much time and tures language and thereby our identi- According to what Mattin said later, the artist or left activist backgrounds. effort into it as necessary, and as ties. Fighting representation, which is, The expectations they might automatically noise scene is mostly a very patriarchal, much money as possible (which for the of course, very difficult. But the only have are interrupted by the performers white and heteronormative social field. majority of unknown and especially thing there is is trying it, doing it. enacting a mixture of a performance, So forget about the always-subversive freelance artists is obviously not much The rest will develop throughout the a concert, a discussion, a book reading... quality or effect of noise. It is as and becoming less). And here again, it practice. Not surprising that this is a and by doing this also putting power in ambivalent as everything in capitalist depends in which structures you work, challenge for an audience who expects place. The performance was continuously society, it derives from capitalism itself. what attitude and artistic practice you representation, or is used to it. shifting its own frame, and thereby it Going back in time and history, noise was have and what kind of art you produce. suspended itself as well as the expec- inspired by industrialisation and the Speaking from my own perspective of The performers change their positions tations of the audience continuously, noise industrial workers produced with being a performance artist who deals at the table, reorganise themselves. or made it even impossible to expect their tools or machines whilst working. with process much more than with pro- But it is still the quite closed space anything at all. It is connected to exploitation and ducing a product as such (by this with four men mostly talking to each There was complete irritation about alienation, to speed and mass production. I mean, the performance does not exist other, to themselves, producing noise. exactly what is going on while also a lot of things actually take place. Then, of responsibility. But if people are bored S. – SILENCE course, noise interrupts the performers they should do something to entertain Considering all the elements of the per- speaking, noise interrupts the audience themselves. formance as equal, whether it is the who can’t hear any longer what is said, space, the audience, a human voice, a noise interrupts language in its very And here it is, the gap. Performance sentence, a word, the table, the book sense of creating representative meaning suspended for a short while. No one or the noise, is an empowerment of that can be easily consumed; the per- knows what might happen now. Something those (things) that were not listened formers interrupt noise as well as each is circulating in the space. Lipkin, as if to before. In artistic terms it is an other but with a very special way of he would never speak again, simply empowerment of material that has been giving each other the space and time to remains seated and starts pushing and freed from its inherent hierarchies and communicate, more like layers and inter- pulling the table in constant noise and conventions embedded in a patriarchal acting comments. Finally, members of the rhythm. Slater is hitting a broomstick system. In this sense, empowerment goes audience interrupt the performance, against the window and the radiator. along with emancipation from a given not in its very basic structure, but Iles is already somewhere in the audi- power structure. through asking questions, giving comments, ence listening and Mattin sits aside on complaining and talking aggressively, a chair discussing with some spectators I’d like to end with the description of they have influenced the course of the from time to time. At some point, several two moments in the performance that performance. Interruption is the condition people in the audience produce a rhythm were really crucial for me because they for negotiation. It creates a gap or by hitting the bottle caps against their reveal the necessity of reflecting and an empty space that at the same time beer bottles. This runs for quite some deconstructing the economic structure becomes the arena or stage for time. Then, the experts offer their of one’s own behaviour and ‘capitalist negotiating conflict. chairs at the table to people in the identity’. And they display the inability audience. Only one man, Karl Lyden, a Woman: ‘Can you speak up? I can’t hear to deal with conflicts or with power in Swedish writer based in Berlin, has the you about noise.’ such a direct way as well as the effect courage to do so, and from his position of Western national states’ contemporary he starts talking about Jacques Mattin: ‘You can move closer, too.’ policies of incorporating any kind of Rancière’s concept of police and politics protest or resistance and drowning Woman: ‘Can you speak up? There is no in relation to democracy and the per- their citizens in a state of harmony and more than noise! There is only noise! formance situation we are in, which trig- paralysis. That’s kind of boring! gers off a short discussion only among You have to speak up really.’ members of the audience.5 1. One young man in the audience, eager to know more about what the editors Mattin: ‘Is this about transparency of That was definitely a moment that of the book think about noise as practice information or is this about noise?’ opened up the space and had the in relation to capitalism as well as in potential to become more, something relation to the music production within in which everything would be possible. the free improvisation scene, addressed The performers open up the(ir) space But astonishingly, that didn’t happen. Mattin and Ilya Lipkin with a question. towards the audience and Ilya Lipkin After some time Lyden wanted to leave Listen. When Lipkin turned away to read or asks ‘So what do you think about this? the ‘position of power to speak’ again, research something in the book while You see us here, four white men sitting he might have felt the audience’s powerful Mattin was still listening, this guy in front of you talking about noise.’ gaze on him. stopped asking because he felt offended Question. Answer. Interruption. Comment. E. – EMPOWERMENT by Lipkin not paying attention to what Back to question. Interruption. Comment. And now: an empty stage. A sudden fear he said. He silenced himself instead of Interruption. Confusion. Question. People or numbness lay over the whole space. Relating to everything said so far about claiming his voice, the space, the respect in the audience are moving. It becomes The audience was hoping either someone the connections between noise and capi- and his interest to know something. Only more and more uncomfortable. This one would take over and do the job or that talism as well as about the performance, at the repeated request of myself and woman from behind comes to sit next everything would end. I’d like to put empowerment as the a few other people in the audience did to me in the first row and accuses the fifth element in discussion. As a socio- he ask his question again a bit later. performers of being arrogant, patriarchal logical term it is understood as a) the and boring, telling them what to do. process of giving power to (groups of) 2. Before the strange and slow fade-out They were still sitting at the table and people who were excluded from decision- of the performance, where the four looked at the audience. Then Lipkin made making processes and not in the posi- performers were at different spots his final verbal statement: tion of power (to speak or to be heard) among the audience and no one was sitting due to e.g. social discrimination, that is, at the table which was still considered I am not sure what I am here to deliver, helping them develop confidence in to be the place of power and speech, to be perfectly honest. I don’t know their own capacities and increasing their everyone was waiting for something to what to make of this situation. I think spiritual, political, social and economic happen or for someone to take over it is what it is and I don’t feel it’s my strength; and as b) a methodology and continue, Mattin invited the audience, responsibility to make it any more than often associated with processes of whoever wanted, to come in front and it is, any more than it’s anyone else’s consciousness-raising. take the position of power. Nobody came. He asked out loud: ‘Who For further information about the book wants to take the authority?’ No reaction. Noise & Capitalism as well as on the What a Reflection But then there was another young man Works by Mattin, Anthony Iles, Howard coming up to the table and asking the Slater and Ilya Lipkin see: Supposes* audience: ‘Please, can someone take the authority? I can’t take this situation www.mattin.org of nothing happening and no one being www.metamute.org 11 general observations, and about one in charge. Please.’ I asked him to do it performance in particular himself, he said ‘I can’t, I’m German’. No one wanted to be in charge. NOTES By Loïc Blairon (translated from the French by Ray Brassier) To not choose the table as the place 1. Anthony Iles and Mattin (eds.): to speak is completely fine. One doesn’t Noise & Capitalism, Donostia-San Sebastián: need to and one shouldn’t choose the Arteleku, 2009. A form gives time when it does not let position of power one considers wrong. 2. The term is from Richard Sennett and his itself be framed by its mode of manifestation. But it was possible to speak from any analysis of the changes in US culture and other position in the space. This didn’t identity through the changes in capitalist happen either. Even in a frame of no working structures. Richard Sennett, The material that resists formalisation serious danger or risk no one wanted The Culture of the New Capitalism, generates a time which cannot be counted to take responsibility. Was there nothing Boston: Yale, 2007. and which is not durational. to say anymore? No statement. No comment. No claim. Nothing? 3. This term is from Richard L. Florida who writes about the connection between the A form whose time cannot be counted economic strength of cities/urban regions establishes multiple points of observation Certainly, imposing power on the audience and the number of highly engineered workers, (looks), ceaselessly displaced by the form. in such a direct way that forces them artists, musicians and homosexual people who to identify or disidentify with it completely, live and work there. The Rise of the Creative is a quite cynical and painful approach. Class. And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure Multiple points of observation generate It made almost everyone in the space and Everyday Life, New York, 2002. a time without borders. feel uncomfortable and numb. But out of that feeling aggression arose, and it 4. In the field of theatre (texts and per- A time without borders implies that the is positive that this aggression exists formances) there is one important book to mention by Hans-Thies Lehmann, a German theatre scien- (public) points of observation cannot be and was triggered off. This can count tist, who analyses in this book experimental the- counted. as proof that there is negative energy atre since 1960 and thereby refers to the and aggression produced by the capital- French philosopher Jacques Rancière when A form whose points of observation cannot ist-patriarchal power structure we live talking about ‘interruption’ as aesthetic and in. It is in our bodies but oppressed in political strategy. Hans-Thies Lehmann, be counted reveals, not the absence of everyday life because the structure Postdramatic Theatre. London, New York, frame, but rather the stakes of an itself is not visible, and we have already 2006. absence of frame. incorporated it in ourselves. And only 5. The contemporary French philosopher by confronting it, which is already the Jacques Rancière understands democracy not The stakes of a form are synchronised interruption of the ongoing process to as a form of governing and organising a within a point that structures it as a produce (economic growth), and because state or country, but as a principle of car- whole: the figure of it is a physical experience, it can be rying on negotiations in a public arena, sub- an unpronounceable struggle. made visible and negotiated. The book is ject to the condition that everyone has the definitely worth reading, but the rela- same rights, the access and possibilities to tion between noise and capitalism can’t do so. A form calls for the overcoming of a fixed be experienced in a better way than Something ‘political’ occurs or happens in the point as time that counts for nothing. the four white men have performed it. moment of an interruption that suspends the conditions of the supposed-to-be reali- ty and the norm(ativity) by which the status A form (apologies to Kaprow) is not life. quo is usually maintained. In this very moment of interrupting something invisible is made A form that is not life (apologies to Godard) OUTRO visible. Rancière calls the governing, every- owes its borderless frame to the observation day-business of politics ‘police’, and negotia- points (looks and public) that cannot be I don’t know exactly what I want, but tions ‘political’ or ‘politics’. Jacques Rancière, I do know exactly what I do not want. The Politics of Aesthetics: The distribution counted. – Radu Malfatti of the sensible. London: Continuum, 2006. A form is what escapes number.

*Text commissioned by Mattin on a solo performance 26 February 2010 at KYTN festival, DCA Dundee ruined cultural edifices, into mative social conditions and their transmuted into stylistic and sessions and subsequent shorter strict time frame of 60 minutes, A SIMPLE, BUT homogenised and occulted alternatives, of modes of listening empty gestures. The Noise or meetings it opened up ideas of each member spoke; initially stylistic bonds that hold scenes (or not), enquiry or interaction.3 Improvisation scenes in experi- noise and improvisation and col- they each ‘checked in’ COMPLICATED, together. 6.2. It is a pedagogical stance, mental music today seem to me lectively investigated those in (a process from counselling in and it’s insulting to say that it to have little to no fidelity to the relation to how members of the which people introduce them- BEING 5. For example: I would argue can be adopted freely – it’s not original conceptual (political, group found purchase on those selves to a group and focussing that the power1 of Noise music difficult or specialist and it can be philosophical, social) propositions ideas from their own personal primarily on how they are feeling TOGETHER as it was developed in the 1970s popular, but it does take time and or force of thought those move- experience or learning. Without at that moment in time) and stems from the conceptual a (political) commitment. ments once mobilised. a predetermined hierarchy or hesitantly started to develop a Unstable, fragile but daring propositions it made; ones of 6.3. It is very rare to come across structure, this immanent process kind of phenomenological con- together super-abundance, a focus on anybody practising (free) improv- 9. These notes are not some collectively produced explor- versation about how they were KYTN 10, Dundee Contemporary the unwanted in a situation, the isation today who has not implicitly vague nostalgia for a (perceived) ations, language, vulnerability, experiencing the situation as it Arts, 28 December 2010 practice of exceeding normative and reactively transposed the more radical past. But maybe subjectivity, of ungrounding one- developed, unscripted and limits and so on… . perceived notion of freedom and they’re a plea to take seriously self, of the body and expres- improvised. Everybody was hesitant, By Barry Esson 5.1. This force of thought (if allowed improvisation into a self-satisfying what we find to be genuinely siveness; it attempted to create considered and careful, but also to direct your action), obliged practice of stylistic and tasteful radical in a movement or idea, and a collective environment for this clearly exposed within a musical 1. Music is never just about people to act in a certain way. It is handling of sounds and an to act as that idea obliges us to. exploration in full cognisance of context with apparently nothing music. We may like to think other- this obligation to act that produces enquiry into their purely sonic the group’s extended situation, musical to offer. As the performance wise, or choose to ignore the actions that included extreme qualities, and more often than not 10. So: I would rather promote a as strangers working together; developed, members of the wider, specific structural and (unwanted) volume, bodily risk a pretty weak willed idea of con- qualitatively different step, to not it took the material of specific audience started to ask questions, social, philosophical and ideolog- and behavior traditionally consid- sensual interaction. just add a few more styles, but to artistic practices, treated them as pose problems and react: the ical factors that produce any and ered unacceptable by the prevailing do something of consequence; symptoms of the problem, disor- power dynamic in the room shifted all music. But to do this is to society (it’s language, laws and 7. Both of these examples4 a practice that recognises and ganised them and tried to find and several of the audience refuse our obligation to think and symbolic order), and so on. depict self-deluding movements names something as a force of some new arrangement of core members positions started to to cut short any possibility of a 5.2. From this radical (imma- in music that today still adopt thought of music, even after the ideas that might have some rel- become clear (from cheery con- music of consequence. nently political, philosophical, postures of radical otherness to fact. A practice that excavates evance today. sensualism, passive enjoyment, social) proposition, how have we the mainstream while at the radical ideas and asks how we to irritation, boredom, a sense of 2. If experimental music ended up with a conservative same time stripping away any can think them now. I consider 12. As the very final action of the ‘creepiness’). After a predeter- abstracts itself from it’s wider and occulted Noise music of relation to concrete everyday this an act of fidelity, a process festival, members of this collec- mined period (an hour) of situation, then it can have nothing standardised aesthetic values life, reducing their outlook to led by rational obligation to an tive group (Emma, Anthony, (increasingly uneasy) dialogue, to offer back to it. That is to say, (extreme volume, stasis…) and considerations of style, and to all idea, which allows us to clearly Mattin, Howard, Liam Casey and I brought the performance to a close. if we deal in sound-as-sound, macho posturing?2 intents and purposes embodying measure success in stark terms, Laurie Pitt) staged a perform- then we produce music that has as values exactly the individual- in relation to how that idea ance. The large gallery space 13. The more I think back to this nothing to say about our wider 6. Or how about UK (free) istic credo insisted upon by that requires us to act. In this way had been rearranged so that performance, the more I feel it social situation. Improvisation: I’d put it to you that same capitalist mainstream. new ideas and practices are small groups of audience mem- has consequence. I’ve spoken to what we can recognise as the 7.1. The prevalent notion of generated, situated specifically bers were unevenly clustered people who found it relaxing and 3. By embracing this abstraction force of thought of Improvisation, freedom I see in use in Free within their current wider social throughout it. A ‘house of safety’ open, and to others who found it into sound, a great deal of as it was developed in the UK in Improvisation or Noise right now is context. had been constructed in one to be unlike music at all. One experimental music reinforces the 1960s, is a clear proposal no freedom at all; do whatever corner (to which performers could person told me it felt like a group the status quo, which we might based around notions of the you want, right now, in any way 11. At our Kill Your Timid Notion retreat at any time). Each of the therapy session. I’d like to argue agree is defined by a prevailing possibility for alternative modes you see fit: this is the injunction festival in Dundee this February, six performers had a microphone, that it was all of these things, but false notion of freedom, and of for the construction of social of the Super Ego (I can! I will! Emma Hedditch, Anthony Iles, connected to a speaker some also, in its radical fidelity to the a possessive individualism. space, via a learned process of I must!), which is of course also Mattin and Howard Slater initiated way from where they were sat, force of thought of both Noise and Experimental music all too often immanence, and in its widest the injunction of modern capitalist a short collective process involving together, in the gallery. Improvisation5, entirely musical. is the practice of perceived cultural context, insisting on our society (‘Be all you can be! Have a changing group of about 20 In response to our normal prac- It seems to me that an attempt unique individual expressive obligation to think and to consider it now! Enjoy! Be free to choose!’). local artists and art workers, tice of documenting each per- was made to collectively investi- subjects trading in sound-as- the consequences of our actions. education workers and some of formance at our festivals, Vilte gate the radical core concepts of sound; a (meaningless) process 6.1. I don’t think there was any- 8. All of that is to say: radical our festival audience members, Vaitkute (one of the filmmakers Noise and Improvised music; to of stylistic innovation. thing ‘free’ about this, to engage propositions obliged people to act culminating in a performance. we were working with at the fes- rethink both in terms of today’s in this kind of production requires in certain ways. Those ways of Titled Unstable, Fragile But tival) was asked to move about situation and from the specific 4. These tendencies can be an awareness of power relations making and doing, saying and Daring Together, it proposed ‘a the space and record what hap- situations of the people taking seen in the recuperation of first and ability to encourage, enforce interacting have slowly been simple, but complicated, being pened, at times interacting with part. A genuine fidelity to those radical, then venerable but now or choose preferred ones, of nor- stripped of their context and together’. Over two day-long (in particular) Emma. Within a ideas was established, which took little regard of how those 16. Their obligation didn’t pro- NOTES There is precisely a substantial difference 1 The philosopher François ‘Humorismo Extremo’ between a gig and a rehearsal. The same kinds of music are supposed duce some finished article. sounds, the same relation between musi- to be created today, but which I don’t think it drew any conclusions, Laruelle would call this it’s Notes on the concert Mattin | Loty cians, but a difference in the continually instead rationally obliged a or was a perfect realisation of ‘force of thought’: the point Negarti + Jon Mantxi repeated ‘intensity’. In a rehearsal, you certain kind of action in the some form or music to set in at which Noise is boiled down Guardetxea, Donostia, 8 July 2010 stop for few seconds, make a comment, to a radical core concept; the continue, or even speak without ceasing performance. stone, or indeed a perfect By Loty Negarti to play. In a concert, though, your process to be repeated unique point at which it meets behaviour is different, less agile and 14. It was Improvised music. unchanged. It didn’t change and offers something to reality. This text is nothing more than a few more constrained. I think that these 2 There seems to be a striking open notes on a gig. The memory of restrictions plays an important role in In that, it created a social space music in its entirety. But it did something which pretended to be a concert this process of making the moment resemblance between this reac- which was produced as a process make a modest, but significant and ended up being a kind of monster; a stronger. And we wanted to experiment of mediation between all the tive process of recuperation deviant creature. I thought I had been with these restrictions (modifying mini- addition and contribution: a col- taking part in this day, both as a member people invested in that space into the mainstream and the mally but not necessarily cancelling them) lectively developed (initial, kind of normalisation and rein- of the audience and as a musician. But in order to observe what happens and (importantly, this started out now I guess, by a certain point, I was no how this changed our experience as emergent) mode of being tegration into a predominant seemingly as the construction of longer an audience member any more, even performers. together, and a process of critical field that typifies reactionary if I was in silence, even if I did nothing In improvised music one doesn’t only try the performers, but over time, consciousness-building leading politics – the kind of ideological more than sitting down on a chair. Or at to make unexpected sounds or to get as the audience asserted their to public action. I felt it to be a conservatism that wants to least, I cannot find a way of reviewing away from preconceived modes of playing investment in the situation, this what happened that day whilst taking your instrument. One also tries to concrete strategy for effecting return to a real or imagined old upon myself the traditional distance establish a kind of acute relationship social space was explicitly modified (real, however modest) change, order of things, not out of usually attributed to spectators. with the partner and the audience, one by more and more actors), and suggesting another set of cultural nostalgia but out of self-interest The venue was the Guardetxea (Donostia, tries to find something shared, it could Basque Country), an old 18th century it’s means of production via a i.e. Conservatism incorporates be a consensus or a dissensus, but gen- arrangements, other topographies gunpowder warehouse, now reconstructed erally something under some form of rethinking of specifically musical and other mappings. And however new ideas by divesting them of and adapted for cultural purposes. The negotiation. And it seems that this kind ones (improvisation), filtered unlikely and unmusical it might their political content so that gig opened a series of experimental music of ‘rehearsal behaviour’ is not the through the experiences and they palatably reinforce the performances each weekend throughout favourite form of engagement, for the have seemed, (and I found to be August 2010. The supposed program audience at least. But why? additional context (both brought to almost unrecognisable as Noise, status quo; this seems to hap- that day was a first performance by Jon Maybe because the relationship of atten- it and immanent in it) of the people or as Improvisation as we hear it pen to radical music too, the Mantxi and myself (as a duo), Mattin fol- tion between the people involved in the involved. It took the force of today), it was radically, immanently sad thing is that people don’t lowing us with a second solo performance. event is, in a sense, sterilised. So our seem to notice or mind. When I was asked to write a review of main idea proceeded from this path of thought of Improvisation seriously, and exactly that; it was a noise Mattin’s performance, I started remem- permitting speech if needed or wished, and applied it afresh. concert, it was improvisation, and 3 Here’s a good quote from bering that night, and in the end I trying to avoid this ‘stage’ restriction. it was music. Esther Ferrer, it’s not explicitly realised the impossibility of writing any- Why not introduce common dialogue within 15. It produced a Noise concert. about improvisation, but it’s thing less than a detailed memory of our the performance, not only in terms of apt in it’s proposing of a dif- own performance. I’ll try to explain why. the sonority (or musicality) of the In that it engendered a sense 17. Something was put at stake, The idea for our gig was quite simple, speech but as a tool to negotiate with ferent (anarchist) notion of of peril – people were genuinely and I’ve not felt that in music for and we wanted to proceed directly from other musicians? nervous, hesitant and affected freedom: ‘Our liberty is only limited this idea in the improvisation. Basically we As I said, we were supposed to be the some time. by the personal decision to were worried about the tacit norm among first playing that night. But at the last by the situation, and made musicians of not speaking to each other moment Mattin asked us if we could uneasy by it (which is to say that employ liberty intelligently, that during the ‘sacred’ time of the performance. invert the order because he wanted to a self-created situation obliged is, to consider others as beings Not only on the audience’s side but, be first. So, we changed the order. beginning with the musicians, these kinds them to act in ways that put them who practice liberty too... . The audience consisted of a mixture of To follow a way of thinking that of unspoken rules strongly determine people, people from different places and at risk) ; the group presented what you are doing and how. It often different ages. Not exactly an homogeneous does not demand anything, that something within a specific con- happens that one doesn’t feel comfortable audience. Some rows of chairs were lined simply proposes the possibility with something: a sound, how the space up in front of the stage, and everyone text (a music festival, to which that you have the courage to is ordered, or another aspect of the took their seats. Mattin stood up on people had paid to come, with assume the decision and the situation. It’s true that these uncom- the stage with his arms stretched out. certain expectation – for enter- fortable elements could move you to an No speaking, no movement, no music. Only consequences of your own acts, interesting situation. It is during these the quiet sounds of the room in silence. tainment, for provocation, who without protecting yourself in critical moments that one has the real After a few minutes looking extremely knows…) which was in stark con- the imperatives of an ideology, opportunity to react unexpectedly and perplexed he started whispering quietly displace one’s prefabricated behaviour trast to what was expected and a religion, or an authority, which some words. It was difficult to under- for something else; even perhaps some- stand what he was saying because it was which focused on the all too convert you into an irresponsible thing more singular. But it is no less almost imperceptible and because it took often overlooked and unwanted person, first in regard to true that one of the aspects that the form of responding to some questions remainder of music today – it’s yourself, and then in regard to functions to increase this intensity is which had not been verbalised. There on the stage as a social device. Not neces- the stage, he looked like a crazy man foundational ideology, it’s social society.’ sarily in the literal sense of a ‘stage’ responding to questions from an imaginary mechanics, it’s relationship to it’s 4 And countless others I could but in a broader sense of all the cul- friend. After a moment we could begin to situation. It took the force of give. turally instituted aspects underlying understand some of the words, and link 5 In its apparent un-musical such events. Basically, a space and an them with each other. He was trying to thought of Noise seriously, and appointed time to focus social attention dialogue with the audience, giving sketch- applied it afresh. nature. in a specific way. es of answers. ‘I don’t know, lets see’, ‘We can do what we want’, etc. We could a stage, but with a degree of difference. The defects, the errors and the Why not break with this convention as conceive some idea of the kind of imagi- At this point we entered into a second detours had finally ended in something well and pass radically to another level? nary questions he was answering: ‘So, and stage in the performance. blurred, as beautiful as Frankenstein’s In what sense do you need as an artist now what?’, ‘What’s next?’, ‘What are we The first stage was characterised by monster. All of us went to the venue bar the kind of privileged attention of the doing here?’, and so forth. After a time Mattin responding to questions from an and continued with the conversation, name, the poster, the stage, the audience? responding to questions he started formu- absent interlocutor. This moment now this time in a fragmented manner. In material terms maybe? In terms of the lating them: ‘Why are you there and me passed into second stage characterised In the meantime many of these conversa- ego? In terms of cultural-symbolic value? here on the stage?’, ‘What do you want by Mattin asking questions from the tions were concerning the ‘concerts’. There was a high degree of expectation to do with this time?’. A big silence floor to a supposed performer who is Someone commented that they were really after a long time without performing amongst the audience. It was as if a now absent. If in the first stage he was discontented. He said that it had been solo in the Basque Country. Many people dense curtain of ‘nothing’ was growing a performer, in the second he was now an ambitious experiment with a poor and were expecting something linked with the between us and him, as if a deep cliff more a member of the audience, an active bad result stemming from a paternalistic work he has been doing in the last was suddenly appearing. one, but a member of the audience. approach. I didn’t think so. Mattin does years. These expectations are built up I was in silence, I didn’t want to answer There is a big division between the stage not have clear ideas about what was from the information you can find for any kind of question formulated in this and the audience. A big fence, something happening. Even if at the beginning it example in his personal web page, in his way. I wanted just to enjoy that big that miscommunicates these two sides. could seem that the contrary was the last essays, in his last works. All this silence, that making explicit of the basic Even if you think that you are connecting case, the truth was that he had no clear stuff is signed with a proper name. structure of that social space. Suddenly with the performer, it is quite common to ideas about what was exactly happening Almost all of them are developed because a girl in the audience entered into the observe a painful isolation from ‘the nor about what could happen. For this there is an institutional recognition of game. She answered one of the questions, other’ side. Things are so predictable reason I said he was not acting as a his work as being ‘artistic’. Thus, he falls after, another person came to speak, and tested that rarely can the specific father who speaks looking down to his into a form of accelerated feedback. and so on. One person asked Mattin to elements of the concrete situation enter children being in the possession of the So, for instance, when that name appears leave the stage. So, he came to us slowly and determine or modify radically the truth. I felt he was thinking about the in the poster and in the promotional and leant on the wall. Following the pre- performance. This concert was great situation itself in the very moment of information of the gig, the potential vious girl, other people entered speaking because here was the same division but the performance, making questions to audience for this day could link information in a series of soliloquies. I remember one inverted: a mere audience in front of an himself switching the role performer- together and form an idea of the kind of them clearly: She was a woman. empty stage. The situation had no end, audience almost until the end, including of ‘spectacle’ they might expect find She started speaking about Power (with only if the people from the audience the time of ‘our’ concert. Maybe it could there. Mattin, as many of us, is constantly capital P), the spectacle and boredom. decided to do something to stop or be said that he was experimenting with accepting and using these expectations Actually she made a plea for the raw extend it could the situation change. himself as well. to his advantage. As a kind of offensive boredom, as a kind of exercise against This was very similar to Graciela Carnevale’s Some boundaries had been expanded, or strength set against you but which this ubiquitous Power and his (sic) tech- famous exhibition but with the doors of maybe reduced, who knows. It was not eventually you may turn towards the niques for distraction. Then Mattin the venue open.1 clear at all if we were performing our fulfilment of your own aims. started a brief dialogue with her. Jon and I felt free to act so we went own gig (separated from the previous However, in the circuit of these expec- He asked if what he was doing was a on stage and started playing. The situation one as it was supposed to be) or carrying tations and attributions, the noise power exercise. ‘No this is an exercise of was strange because the typical boundary on Mattin’s performance, bringing it enters as well, bringing you the opportunity counter-power’ she replied. And she was between one concert and the other had somewhere else. The fact was that during to enjoy the unexpected and chance not wrong. There were these people become so distorted. It was not obvious all the time of the ‘event’ some usually misunderstandings. I remember now a gathered in a small room, almost in silence at all if those sounds we were making on assumed devices were changed, distorted, young boy in the audience. He was evi- and facing a sort of situation that is the stage were ‘the concert’ or only one detoured, even broken. There was an dently without knowledge about who we antagonistic to entertainment. She relat- more part of Mattin’s performance. I didn’t incorporation of noise, considered as a were, and what kind of music we could ed how worrying was the fact that from know at all myself but I didn’t care either. distortion affecting a preconceived clear make. He was Italian and coming with the childhood ‘they’ want us to be amused. I just wanted to play. After some minutes signal. From the very beginning of the son of a man linked actively to experi- From the very beginning, we have the I felt that our idea of speaking on performance (from the first moment of mental music making. Before the concerts, sound of the rattle working, lights, stage was not very relevant because these understandable whispered words), this boy asked the man which kind of sounds and colours, to keep us distracted. these ‘stage devices’ were absolutely there was a high level of noise in effect. music Mattin makes. ‘Rumorismo extremo’ So, to escape from this, we have to face dislocated. In a moment Jon came to me Starting from that spoken language that (extreme noise) the man replied. boredom without fear. After her short and asked the people to go up onto the was noisy and not clear at all, continuing He attended the performance attentively manifesto, silence came again. stage, because we wanted to speak. So, with the lack of communication between with this idea in mind. He found everything The atmosphere was really rare. people from the audience came and took all of us, going to the distorted cate- really funny and he was sometimes laughing I personally wanted to do something, their place on the small stage. I don’t gories of time and space, almost every- without cease. In the second part, when but nothing which fell into the pantomime- know why, but I stopped playing. Jon was thing was corrupted. we were at the stage speaking together like environment the performance had not playing at all, but speaking to the But ‘almost’ is not ‘everything’. There is he said that he had enjoyed this kind of established. I wanted to play music. After people about ‘speaking’ and the stage. an intermediate game between accepting ‘humorismo extremo’ (extreme humourism) a long silence, Mattin changed his role. People started talking amongst themselves. conventions and rejecting them. You music. Yes, he was right. He was not longer the artist but he was We were included and I didn’t feel myself must deal carefully with this equilibrium, now looking from the space of the audi- as a musician or as an artist any longer an equilibrium that is really dangerous. copyleft ence to a totally empty stage. We were but as one more in a strange group of This is always present in the Mattinian looking there as well. Then he began people speaking about different things. approach to making music. A kind of ambi- addressing an imaginary performer, asking After a long time discussing we decided guity which moves you to question what 1 See ‘Interview with Dan Warburton’ in this book questions back and forth. that the concert was finished. But is happening, what he, as performer, and ‘How long will you continue with this?’ what concert? Our concert? Mattin’s you as part of the audience are doing. and things like that. This was great, the performance? Were both the same thing? And this is great. But at the same time he most interesting point of the perform- Did we determine or modify his perform- is always giving you the required elements ance for me. The feeling was one of total ance? His action had clearly modified the to make a criticism and that comes from absurdity. Nobody was there on the course of our gig. Nobody knew properly the contradictory nature of his practice. stage so the conversation was nonsense. how to classify the time, and the cate- You could put the questions far away, But at the same time there was something gories of the space were dissolved. disintegrating many of the suggestions interesting in it, because it was the This was something more like a monster put on the table. same feeling one usually has in front of than a well developed sane creature. Why was his name written on the poster? BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Next thing was to get a band. I found out Drunkdriver He also plays in Billy Bao. the most primitive drummer in Bilbao, Alberto Arsecore band from Brooklyn consisting of: www.arteleku.net/audiolab/ ” Å“ [sic] Tim Goldie Lopez (ex-La Secta, ex-Yogur, ex-Atom- Michael Berdan (voice), Kristy Greene ” Å“ [sic] Tim Goldie is one Rhumba), and the noisiest guitarists around, (guitar), Jeremy Villalobos (drums). One of Esther Ferrer of the most original noise musician/performers Mattin and Xabier Erkizia. The band was the most ferocious bands that I have ever Esther (born in Donostia/San Sebastián, on the European scene. His double album formed under my name, it could not have seen, perhaps too much to survive for a Basque Country in 1937) is a Spanish inter- ABJECTOR [sic] is a violent and considered been any other way. These songs go beyond long time. The project came to an abject disciplinary artist and performance art examination of the fragmentation of language, what rock and roll is and what it could be, end last spring over internet rumours. teacher. In 1966, Esther Ferrer joined the de-composition of instrumental research in fact they are the degeneration of Rock Drunkdriver share the same label with Billy Walter Marchetti and Juan Hidalgo in the and the painful suffering that accompanies & Roll against the regeneration of Bilbao.’ Bao (Parts Unknown) and like Twin Stumps Spanish art performance and contemporary it. Valerio Tricoli, Netmage Festival, Italy 2009 Billy Bao, Bilbao Dec 2004 they were part of a great noise rock music group Zaj, famous for its radical and scene that emerged in recent years in conceptual performances. Their pieces were presented in Spanish concert halls (origi- addlimb Loïc Blairon New York City. nally devoted to the production of classical Collective addlimb was formed by a small group Loïc used to play double bass in improvisation music) despite the difficulties of carrying of people based in Belgrade, Serbia, with a contexts. Now his interest is turning Janine Eisenaecher out such experimental practices during shared interest in experimental music, and, towards theory and language and his practice Janine (1983) is a conceptual performance Franco’s fascistic regime. in particular, contemporary improvisation. is moving closer to performance and art. artist, freelance researcher and curator, Amidst the global atmosphere of rejection based in Berlin/Germany. She works solo and I released his first solo record on w.m.o/r. Ludwig Fisher and suppression of what we believe to be in various constellations, mostly on the www.loicblairon.fr/ The bastard child of G.W.F. Hegel. democratic and genuinely critical qualities of topics of identity, work, gender-specific www.ludwigfischer.blogspot.com/ this music, it is intended to try and open questions, (post-)colonialism and economic the door towards its theoretical grasping, Ray Brassier structures in artistic work itself. Margarida Garcia extending the scope of its practice, and Is a member of the Philosophy faculty at Eisenaecher is a founder member of (e)at_work Portuguese musician and artist based in its promotion, primarily on the local scale. the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. and of Emanuelle (Berlin n@work), and she Lisbon. She plays electric double bass and He is the author of Nihil Unbound: works as co-curator/-organiser for Performer she often collaborates with Barry Weisblat Anthony Iles Enlightenment and Extinction and the Stammtisch and as tutor of the art associ- and Marcia Bassett. Anthony is a writer, pamphleteer and editor. translator of Alain Badiou’s Saint Paul: ation Flutgraben e.V., in both with the focus www.margaridagarcia.blogspot.com/ He is a contributing editor with Mute magazine. The Foundation of Universalism and Theoretical on speaking and writing about performance Writings, and Quentin Meillassoux’s After He and I co-edited the book, Noise & Capitalism, art (practice). Eisenaecher studied Theatre, Jean-Luc Guionnet Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of published in September 2009 by Arteleku- Comparative Literature and Philosophy at Is a French electroacoustic music improviser Audiolab. www.saladofpearls.blogsome.com/ Contingency. Freie Universität, Berlin. and composer with a long running interest and www.metamute.org in philosophy. www.jeanlucguionnet.eu/ Lucio Capece Barry Esson Marcia Bassett An Argentinan saxophonist living in Berlin. Along with Bryony McIntyre, Barry runs Arika, Josetxo Grieta Artist and musician based in Brooklyn. We played together since 2005 as NMM which produces some of the most cutting A noise rock band consisting of Josetxo She was involved in bands such as Double www.luciocapece.blogspot.com/ edge festivals in terms of experimental Anitua, Iñigo Eguillor and myself. It was Leopards and Hototogisu (with Matthew music and films such as Instal in Glasgow formed in Bilbao in 2006 and it ended up Bower). Since 2003 she has recorded solo and Kill Your Timid Notion in Dundee (soon it Diego Chamy tragically in April 2008 when Anitua decided as Zaïmph. I put out her record Emblem will move to Edinburgh). www.arika.org.uk/ to end his life. An Argentinian artist living in Berlin. on w.m.o/r. www.zaimph.org/ www.mattin.org/Josetxo_Grieta.html He used to play percussion but now is Xabier Erkizia working within more performative territories. Billy Bao Musician, artist and curator very important Emma Hedditch www.diegochamy.blogspot.com/ ‘When I came from Lagos (Nigeria) to San in promoting experimental music and sound Artist and writer based in South London, Francisco (Bilbao) life was tough here or art in the Basque Country. He runs Audiolab who often works collaboratively with other there. I did not mind, I had a purpose in Deflag Haemorrhage/Haien Kontra in Arteleku (which published the book, Noise artists and groups of individuals with an my life: to fight the system that fucks up A group I play in with ” Å“ [sic] Tim & Capitalism). He also directs the experimental interest in process over products. Heavily everyday of our life. Back in my home town, Goldie. It was formed at the end of 2001 music festival Ertz in Bera, which was the influenced by politicised conceptual practice I was an unknown songwriter but, as soon in Hackney. The beginning of Abject Music. first festival that I ever played in 2001, and feminism, her work often forms collectively as I arrived to the streets of Bilbao, Our complete discography (Luxury & and is also where Emma Hedditch, Anthony produced films, fanzines as well as ‘social I discovered Punk Rock. It had energy and Humiliated) are released by Tochnit Aleph. Iles, Howard Slater and myself performed situations’ such as workshops, screenings attitude and was exactly what I needed. www.mattin.org/DHHK.html together for the first time in 2009. and events. Michel Henritzi laborated with the French philosopher cassettes and a few records. Russell then Taumaturgia French writer and musician. He often writes Jean-Luc Nancy. founded the Corpus Hermeticum record label. Taumaturgia was conceived as a label devoted for Revue & Corrigée. Member of the bands www.seijiro.murayama.name/ Xpressway released only music by New to improvised music and experimental practices. Dustbreeders and Howlin’Ghost Proletarians. Zealanders, usually song-based. Corpus We are against copyright policies and the idea He runs the label Élevage De Poussière (which Loty Negarti (Aitor Izagirre) Hermeticum releases, by contrast, may feature of intellectual property, thus we try to share released Junko’s Sleeping Beauty) and Uneducated passenger. Improvisation, graffiti, New Zealand or international artists, and and maintain freely the potencies of such A Bruit Secret releasing a lot of minimal writing, poetry... . Originally from Getxo (like they eschew song forms in favour of free- activities as abstract forms. Taumaturgia is Japanese improvisation. I published his infamous me) but now living in Donostia/San Sebastián, form, experimental, usually improvised sounds. based on A Coruña since 2007. record ‘Keith Rowe Serves Imperialism’ on w.m.o/r. Aitor is one of the most active agents www.michelhenritzi.canalblog.com/ in the Basque underground scene. His activi- Matthieu Saladin Taku Unami ties include running the zines Soliloquio and Matthieu is musician and researcher. His Taku is a musician based on Tokyo. Pidgin (experimental and concrete poetry) Junko music-making takes the form of a concep- He plays objects and things which he finds and Hamaika, one of the best labels I have Legendary screamer of the Japanese group tual approach to music. He is interested in to hand. He heads two main projects, the encountered in years. Aitor is completing his Hijokaidan (the English translation would be the history of musical forms and the depressive easy listening project HOSE PhD in philosophy at the University of the something like emergency stairs). Hijokaidan relationships between music and society. He and chamber black metal Totas Causas de Basque Country. www.gabone.info/ described themselves as ‘Kings of Noise’. has a PhD in Aesthetics (University of Paris 1 Malignitat. He runs the label hibari music, – Panthéon-Sorbonne): his research focuses www.unami.hibarimusic.com/ Her solo record Sleeping Beauty is probably Eddie Prévost: on the aesthetics of experimental music. He is the most horrific and beautiful record ever Percussionist, writer and founding member a lecturer in the history and aesthetics of Dan Warburton made. of the group AMM, Prévost has devoted his musics (20th century) at University of Lille English writer and musician based in Paris. life to improvisation. Since 1999 he has He often contributes to The Wire and runs Alessandro Keegan (FLSH), and co-editor of the academic journal been running an improvisation workshop in the online improvisation and experimental Alessandro is a musician, artist and writer Volume! (about popular musics). London every Friday. People like Tim Goldie, music zine, Paris Transatlantic, living in Queens. He was part of the noise Anthony Guerra, Denis Dubotsev, Romuald Karin Schneider www.paristransatlantic.com/ rock band Twin Stumps. Wadych, Seymour Wright and myself met Karin is a Brazilian artist and filmmaker living www.akeeganart.blogspot.com/ there. He runs the label Matchless recordings in New York. She was involved in running the www.matchlessrecordings.com/ Orchard Gallery on the Lower East Side Alexander Locascio (2005-2008). Roman Pishchalov & Andrij Orel Formerly active in the U.S. labour movement, www.karinschneider.com now living in Berlin. Recently completed a Writers and translators based in Kiev, Ukraine. They used to run the experimental translation of Michael Heinrich’s Critique Benedict Seymour music magazine Autsaider, www.autsaider.org/ of Political Economy, and now working on Ben is a writer, filmmaker and musician based a translation of the same author’s How Acapulco Rodriguez in London. He was the Deputy Editor of Mute To Read Marx’s Capital. Writer of the most fucked up rockers magazine and he is a member of groups Antifamiliy around and member of the legendary 15 and Petit Mal (with Melanie Gilligan). Radu Malfatti year old band Chinese Restaurants. Trombonist based in Vienna. He used to play I produced their first single ‘River of Shit’ Julien Skrobek free jazz but since the ‘90s he has released this year on SS Records Julien is a musician based in Paris working focused upon ultra minimal composition and (Sacramento). He also runs the label Azul with a conceptual approach to improvisation. improvisation (what some people might call Discográfica, www.azuldiscografica.com/ I released his record Le Palais Transparent reductionism). He is part of Wandelweiser in Free Software Series. He runs the label group of composers and he runs b-boim Bruce Russell Appel Music, www.appelmusic.org/ records: Bruce is a New Zealand experimental musician www.timescraper.de/b-boim.html and writer. He is a founding member and Howard Slater guitarist of the noise rock trio The Dead C Howard is a London-based writer and Seijiro Murayama and the free noise combo A Handful of Dust researcher and editor of Break/Flow. Percussionist with a deep interest in (with Alastair Galbraith). He has released His texts have appeared in Mute magazine, improvisation and philosophy. He was the solo albums featuring guitar and tape Datacide and Noisegate. He is currently first drummer of Keiji Haino’s band manipulation. He established the Xpressway working on a book, Anomie/Bonhomie: Notes Fushitsusha. He often collaborates as a duo record label, which was active from 1985 Towards the ‘Affective Classes’, forthcoming with Jean-Luc Guionnet and he has also col- until the early 1990s, releasing mostly from Mute. MATTIN DISCOGRAPHY - November 2004 Sakada, Askatuta, - November 2006 NMM, Universal - June 2009 Consumer Electronics, CDr The Rizhome Label (Adelaide). Prostitution, CD iDEAL, absurd, Crowd Pleaser, LP Hand to Mouth - July 2005 Billy Bao, Bilbo’s 8mm (Sweden, Italy, Greece). (Berlin). - February 2001 Mattin, Betzain, Incinerator, 7“ w.m.o/r (Bilbao). - November 2006 Mattin, Proletarian - July 2009 Billy Bao May 08, LP CDr w.m.o/r 00 (London). - July 2005 NMM-No More Music at of Noise, CD hibari (Tokyo). Parts Unknown (New York). - March 2001 Mattin, Tinnitus, CDr the service of capital, (Lucio - December 2006 Josetxo Grieta, - July 2009 Billy Bao I am going to w.m.o/r 01 (London). Capece & Mattin) CDr Why Not LTD Euskal Semea, CD w.m.o/r (Berlin). kill all the rich man, cassette - June 2001 (Kuala Lumpur) Rereleased by No - May 2007 Matthew Bower & Mattin, drone errant (Philadelphia). Mattin/Prévost/Parlane, Sakada, CD Seso (Buenos Aires) in Aug 2006. A New Form of Beauty (1975), CD - August 2009 Alan Courtis, Bruce w.m.o/r 02 (London). - September 2005 Deflag Bottrop-Boy (Berlin). Russell, Eddie Prevost & Mattin, - July 2001 Mattin, Higu, CDr w.m.o/r Haemorrhage / Haien Kontra, - July 2007 Ryu Hankil, Jin Sangtae, The Sakada Sessions, LP Azul 03 (London). Luxury, CDr w.m.o/r (London). Taku Unami, Mattin, 5 modules III, Discográfica (New York). - September 2001 Bi Rak - September 2005 Mattin, Songbook, CDr manual modules (Seul). - August 2009 Drunkdriver/Mattin, (Mattin/Dennis Dubovtsev), CDr hibari (Tokyo). - October 2007 Claudio List of Profound Insecurities, 12“ Betzain, CDr w.m.o/r 04 (London). - November 2005 Billy Bao, R’nR Rocchetti/Mattin, Long Live Anti- Badmaster/Suicide Tax Records - May 2002 Mattin/Rosy Granulator, CD w.m.o/r (London). Copyright, Death to Intellectual (Philadelphia). Parlane/Xabier Erkizia, Mendietan, - December 2005 Dion Workman / Property, CDr Troglosound (Italy). - October 2009 Mattin & Malatesta, CD w.m.o/r 05 (London). Mattin, S3, CD Formed Records - October 2007 Mattin split with cassette Ozono Kids (Barcelona). - November 2002 Sakada, Undistilled, (San Francisco). Analoge Suicide, & GEN 26 [&] 3“ - February 2010 Mattin & Taku CD Matchless Records (Essex). - January 2006 CDr (Ljublijana). Unami, Distributing Vulnerability to - March 2003 Mattin, Gora, CDr Francis/Guerra/Stern/Mattin, 7“ - October 2007 Mattin/Taku Unami, the Affective Classes, CDr Rumpsti Twothousanand (London). cmr (Auckland). Attention, CD h.m.o/r Pumsti (Berlin). - April 2003 Mattin/Rosy Parlane, - February 2006 Billy Bao, Auxilio!, (Tokyo/Berlin). - March 2010 Billy Bao, Urban Agur, 3“ CDr Absurd Records (Athens). CDr Herbal Live Series (Vienna). - November 2007 Billy Bao, Disease, LP PAN (Berlin). - April 2003 Belaska, Vault, CD - February 2006 Mattin, Songbook Fuck Separation, EP S-S Records - April 2010 La Grieta decisión, CDr w.m.o/r 06 (London). vol.2, CDr Ausaider Magazine (Kiev). (Sacramento). Black Petal (Tokyo). - September 2003 Sakada, 3“ CD - February 2006 La Grieta, Hermana - December 2007 Mattin, Broken - May 2010 Ray Brassier, Jean-Luc Sound 323 (London). Hostia, CDr w.m.o/r (Bilbao). Subject, CDr Free Software Series Guionnet, Seijiro Murayama, Mattin, - February 2004 Radu - March 2006 Mattin & Cremaster, (Berlin). Idioms and Idiots, CD w.m.o/r Malfatti/Mattin, Whitenoise, CD Barcelona, CDr Audiobot (Antwerp). - February 2008 Billy Bao, Dialectics (Visby). w.m.o/r 07 (Bilbao). - May 2006 of Shit, LP Parts Unknown - December 2010 Mattin, Object of - April 2004 Taku Sugimoto, Yasuo Guionnet/Denzler/Unami/Mattin, CDr (New York). Thought, LP Presto!? (Milan). Totsuka & Mattin, Training Fargone Records (New York). - February 2008 Billy Bao, Accumu- - May 2011 Mattin, Exquisite Corpse, Thoughts, CD w.m.o/r 09 (Bilbao). - May 2006 Mattin, Songbook vol.3, lation, 7“ Xerox Music (London). (with Margarida Garcia, Keving Failure - May 2004 Margarida Garcia & Black Petal CDr (Tokyo). - March 2008 Josetxo Grieta, and Loy Fankbonner) LP w.m.o/r, Mattin, For Permitted Consumption, - May 2006 Radu Malfatti / Mattin, Sonrisas vendo, Donde nos llevan, Azul Discográfica, Ozono Kids CDr LÅLimnomable (Ljublijana). Going Fragile, CD Formed Records CDr Taumaturgia (A Coruna). (Stockholm, New York, Barcelona). - May 2004 Mattin & Tim Barnes, (San Francisco). - June 2008 Junko & Mattin, LP Live at Issue, NYC, CDr Quakebasket - June 2006 Josetxo Grieta. Tochnit Aleph (Berlin). (New York). Reminder of a Precious Life, CDr - June 2008 Josetxo Grieta, The Audio files available at: - May 2004 Radu Malfatti, Klaus Filip, Audiobot (Antwerp). Art of Disctraction, LP Ozono Kids http,//www.mattin.org/discography.html Mattin, Dean Roberts, Building - June 2006 Kneale/Mattin, con-v, (Barcelona). Excess, CD Grob Records (Cologne). CDr (Madrid). - August 2008 Junko, Michel - May 2004 Sakada, Never Give Up in - August 2006 Axel Dörner & Mattin, Henritzi & Mattin, JE T’ AIME!, CDr the Margins of Logic, 3“ CD Antiopic Berlin, CD Absurd Records/1000+1 Absurd (Athens). (New York). Tilt (Athens). - January 2009 Josetxo Grieta, - August 2004 Sakada, Bilbao - September 2006 Lene Grenager, Distancia #2387, CDr Hamaika Resiste, Resiste Bilbao, CDr Harald Fetveit, Lasse Marhaug, (Euskal Herria). Fargone Records (New York). Lucio Capece & Mattin, cdr,CDr - January 2009 Josetxo Grieta, - August 2004 Junko & Mattin, The Seedy R! (Riccarton). Hitzak, Eginak, Animaliak, Pertsonak, Pinknoise, CD w.m.o/r 13 (Bilbao). - September 2006 Mattin & Tim Barnes, DVD Discos Crudos (Bilbao). - September 2004 Mattin, Basque Achbal al Atlas, CD Little Enjoyer - May 2009 Billy Bao, Sacrilege, CD Rd, CDr Document (Sydney). (New York). Afterburn (Melbourne). - October 2004 Mattin / Dion - October 2006 Mattin, Songbook - June 2009 Deflag Haemorrhage / Workman, Via Vespucci, CD vol. 4, CD Azul Discográfica Haien Kontra re-issue of Luxury, Antifrost (Barcelona/Athens). (New York). CD Tochnit Aleph (Berlin). - October 2004 Mattin & Taku Unami, - October 2006 Tony Conrad, Tim - June 2009 Deflag Haemorrhage / shyrio no computer, CD Barnes & Mattin, CD Celebrate PSI Haien Kontra, Humiliated, CD w.m.o/r/hibari (Bilbao/Tokyo). Phenomenon (Lower Hutt). Tochnit Aleph (Berlin). BIBLIOGRAPHY Ray Brassier, ‘Axiomatic Heresy: The Non-Philosophy of Francois Laruelle’, available at http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/CRMEP/STAFF/brassier_axiomatic%20heresy.pdf Theodor Adorno, Prisms, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction, Basingstoke and Giorgio Agamben, The Coming Community, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 1993. 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Taking as a starting point the book Noise & Capitalism and the desire to explore noise and improvisation in social and political terms, the CAC exhibition context will become an improvised concert lasting for two months. Going through different degrees of intensity, nothing will remain static; the production and reception will take place simultaneously. By collapsing the formats of exhibition and concert into each other, the potential of the different usages of the noun Noise will be explored rather than simply perpetuating Noise as a musical genre. Playing with different levels of visibility and invisibility, some activities will be more formal than others. Interventions by different people will take different forms, such as an improvised zine, a continuously generated performance programme, an open invitation to improvise with the material conditions of the exhibition... Historically, Noise – in its many forms – has disrupted established codes, orders, discourses, habits and expectations, aesthetics and moralities. Noise has the potential to exceed the logic of framing, by either being too much, too complex, too dense and difficult to decode or too chaotic to be measured. At first encounter Noise has the power to suspend values of judgement such as good or bad or right or wrong. To think of it in moral or ethical terms seems ridiculous. Noise, with its epistemic violence, brings into crisis the division between activity and passivity, and between knowing and feeling. By making us aware of our incapacity to decipher it, Noise can expose to us our alienated condition, making us question our own subject position. Can the practice of Noise and improvisation help us in any way to understand or even counter the level of commodification that our lives have reached under the capitalist mode of production? Can we use Noise as a form of praxis going beyond established audience/ performer relationships? Can we push self-reflexivity to the point of positive feedback?

Mattin en collaboration avec Loïc Blairon, Ray Brassier, Emma Hedditch, Esther Ferrer, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Anthony Iles, Matthieu Saladin, Howard Slater, Jarrod Fowler, Taku Unami, Zibigniew Karkowski & Evil Moisture, Diego Chamy, " "[sic] TIM GOLDIE, Malin Arnell, Ilya Lipkin, Barry Esson, Loty Negarty, David Baumflek, Daniel Lichtman, Maija Timonen, Anne Duffau

CAC Brétigny 1 September – 30 October 2010

Curated by Pierre Bal-Blanc

These pictures were selected by Dan Warburton to accompany the interview in Paris Transatlantic. These pictures were selected by Dan Warburton to accompany the interview in Paris Transatlantic.

CAC BRETIGNY