“There is no difference in dimension and reality between the original sound and the recorded and reproduced sound as there is between real objects and photographic images” said Balasz (Silverman 42). So is this the case? I don’t think that it is. I believe that the prerecorded sound within cinema takes up fake space. Apparently, film theorists say that there’s no difference between recorded and prerecorded sounds (Silverman 42). To answer one of my previous questions from a blog post, this is incorrect. Of course there’s a difference—that’s why one can often tell if they’re listening to a recording or the real thing. Similarly, the real image that was photographed also has depth in a way that a photographic image can never have since when you move to look around the object in an image, you can’t see the other side. Also, a nonrecorded sound may be less scripted, especially in a movie, because it is not meant to be played in exactly that same way again. A recorded sound, however, can be played over and over again at the whim of the “author”, so to speak, of the recording.
Silverman implies that “’she’ here refers not to ‘natural’ but to ‘artificial’—or what I would prefer to call ‘constructed’—femininity (193); my question from this is isn’t all femininity socially constructed, whether dealing with feminine voice or the feminine persona?
Soundscape posting:
“The Office: Sound Only”
Layla, Mary, and I collaborated on a soundscape that focused on sounds of the office (specifically, Colson Hall room 332) on any given day. There were multiple versions, but you the one available is the final (and best) version. We recorded this with Layla’s iPhone application, where, to my understanding, you can set it and listen to the sounds going on around you while wearing headphones in an interesting way: it remixes (a bit) and adds to as well as echoes the sounds actually being made. You can probably guess which ones we made and which ones were made by the iPhone application since human made sounds are generally louder and clearer.
The pair of heels heard in the beginning and the key opening the door and the unzipping zipper all indicate someone walking to the office and entering, as do the noises of the coffee being poured and the satisfied “ah” after drinking it. The “oh crap” (my favorite part) begins one of the most interesting sections where we hear human voices for the first time; the human voice embedded in the office clatter may have startled some because it was unexpected, while it echoes the frustrations we sometimes (to put it mildly) feel in our offices as does the loud bang of the overhead drawer closing and the crumpling of paper. The second batch of voices reflects the real office—you never know when someone will pop their head into the office to say “hello” unannounced and ask you how you’re doing. The radio and bouncing ping pong ball indicate the boredom that may come during office hours, and the fade away of the noises implies dozing off to sleep (sounds like that coffee did not work).
The technology of the iPhone played a large roll in our soundscape since it added the layers of sound. Each sound’s echo fades into the next and into each other just like the real world—it’s not always one sound on its own but multiple sounds going on at once (even if at first you don’t hear much, if anything). The iPhone application may have complicated the question as to who is the author of this piece—the three of us who made the sounds happen, the device that altered their natural state, or even the process of recording the iPhone soundscape onto a computer using a free download of a program.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Recycling Materials
Dj Spooky mentions in his book an old adage that he thinks about when he writes: “Make the people think that they think, and they love you. Actually make them think, and they hate you” (116). Does his cd make people think or make people think that they think? What about the book itself? Is he saying that audience members want information just fed to them? What would a book or cd that made someone think be like? Would the book ask questions and not answer or explain them? Or just ask unanswerable or rhetorical questions?
It seems to me that Dj Spooky believes that, at least concerning djing when it first came out and some current djing, people must think more to understand newer and different forms (“People can become so unreflective in their usual media-habits that any kind of systemic renewal takes a long time to succeed” (57)). For example, if a new genre of music comes out, it’s often not in the mainstream; if it ever gets to the mainstream, it’s mimicked and the heart and soul or the original message seems to be lost.
* * * * * *
This second section revolves around copyright and recycled material.
The second link below is a remixed clip from The Colbert Report featuring the host with Lawrence Lessig ironically discussing his new book, Remix (about outdated copyright laws). The real/original interview can be seen here: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/215454/january-08-2009/lawrence-lessig). Lessig is the quoted promoter and remixing expert on the back of Rhythm Science.
Colbert stated during the original interview that no one had the right to remix their original interview to a dance beat (even though Lessig noted that they both are joint copyright owners of the interview, and he was okay with it), which of course is what people did and what the following link shows, illustrated by the many more remixes on youtube (I liked this one because it allows the audience to understand the main premise of the original interview in only about one minute): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_w1FR67AXs
The Remix website states the following about its book:
“For more than a decade, we’ve been waging a war on our kids in the name of the 20th Century’s model of “copyright law.” In this, the last of his books about copyright, Lawrence Lessig maps both a way back to the 19th century, and to the promise of the 21st. Our past teaches us about the value in “remix.” We need to relearn the lesson. The present teaches us about the potential in a new “hybrid economy” — one where commercial entities leverage value from sharing economies. That future will benefit both commerce and community. If the lawyers could get out of the way, it could be a future we could celebrate.”
This book obviously echoes parts of Rhythm Science.
Lessig and Dj Spooky seem to be saying similar things, especially when Dj Spooky says, “You can always squeeze something out of the past and make it become new” (56). He does not see anything wrong with it and neither does Lessig. As Lessig points out during the real interview, The Colbert Report uses similar tactics as peer-to-peer file sharing networks (and to what a dj does): using already existing material to make it new.
This also reminds me of “one of the first recorded copyright disputes in Western history” that Dj Spooky mentions concerning St. Columba making a copy from a borrowed manuscript from the Latin Psalter and St. Columba eventually winning the copy by literally going to war for it (73), except that the copied manuscript was probably not altered all that much for the exception of different handwriting.
Likewise, Dj Spooky remixes a taped recording of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kr3yGZR70M&feature=related
Around 6:22, there’s another remix in which former President George W. Bush’s words are reordered to say something that he did not originally say. Dj Spooky says in the clip that remixing is often about “playing with the familiar”, which leads me to my second main question: Are these two remixes original? They seem to be “texts that absorb other texts” (Miller 8), but is that original?
Dj Spooky also says that “For the most part, creativity rests in how you recontextualize the previous expression of others” (33); so, can ANYTHING be completely new? He seems to think so when he says, “You can always squeeze something out of the past and make it become new” (56). But the question still remains as to whether one actually “renew[s] the cloth by repurposing the fabric” (113). Does recycling make it new? It’s easier for me to answer this question in environmental terms: yes, by recycling plastic bottles, fleece can be created as well as a plastic bottle Christmas tree, with the bottles themselves as the branches. It all depends upon personal opinion and how much a text is altered.
It seems to me that Dj Spooky believes that, at least concerning djing when it first came out and some current djing, people must think more to understand newer and different forms (“People can become so unreflective in their usual media-habits that any kind of systemic renewal takes a long time to succeed” (57)). For example, if a new genre of music comes out, it’s often not in the mainstream; if it ever gets to the mainstream, it’s mimicked and the heart and soul or the original message seems to be lost.
* * * * * *
This second section revolves around copyright and recycled material.
The second link below is a remixed clip from The Colbert Report featuring the host with Lawrence Lessig ironically discussing his new book, Remix (about outdated copyright laws). The real/original interview can be seen here: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/215454/january-08-2009/lawrence-lessig). Lessig is the quoted promoter and remixing expert on the back of Rhythm Science.
Colbert stated during the original interview that no one had the right to remix their original interview to a dance beat (even though Lessig noted that they both are joint copyright owners of the interview, and he was okay with it), which of course is what people did and what the following link shows, illustrated by the many more remixes on youtube (I liked this one because it allows the audience to understand the main premise of the original interview in only about one minute): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_w1FR67AXs
The Remix website states the following about its book:
“For more than a decade, we’ve been waging a war on our kids in the name of the 20th Century’s model of “copyright law.” In this, the last of his books about copyright, Lawrence Lessig maps both a way back to the 19th century, and to the promise of the 21st. Our past teaches us about the value in “remix.” We need to relearn the lesson. The present teaches us about the potential in a new “hybrid economy” — one where commercial entities leverage value from sharing economies. That future will benefit both commerce and community. If the lawyers could get out of the way, it could be a future we could celebrate.”
This book obviously echoes parts of Rhythm Science.
Lessig and Dj Spooky seem to be saying similar things, especially when Dj Spooky says, “You can always squeeze something out of the past and make it become new” (56). He does not see anything wrong with it and neither does Lessig. As Lessig points out during the real interview, The Colbert Report uses similar tactics as peer-to-peer file sharing networks (and to what a dj does): using already existing material to make it new.
This also reminds me of “one of the first recorded copyright disputes in Western history” that Dj Spooky mentions concerning St. Columba making a copy from a borrowed manuscript from the Latin Psalter and St. Columba eventually winning the copy by literally going to war for it (73), except that the copied manuscript was probably not altered all that much for the exception of different handwriting.
Likewise, Dj Spooky remixes a taped recording of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kr3yGZR70M&feature=related
Around 6:22, there’s another remix in which former President George W. Bush’s words are reordered to say something that he did not originally say. Dj Spooky says in the clip that remixing is often about “playing with the familiar”, which leads me to my second main question: Are these two remixes original? They seem to be “texts that absorb other texts” (Miller 8), but is that original?
Dj Spooky also says that “For the most part, creativity rests in how you recontextualize the previous expression of others” (33); so, can ANYTHING be completely new? He seems to think so when he says, “You can always squeeze something out of the past and make it become new” (56). But the question still remains as to whether one actually “renew[s] the cloth by repurposing the fabric” (113). Does recycling make it new? It’s easier for me to answer this question in environmental terms: yes, by recycling plastic bottles, fleece can be created as well as a plastic bottle Christmas tree, with the bottles themselves as the branches. It all depends upon personal opinion and how much a text is altered.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Format Issues
How can Whitman’s quote, “The artist carries the least cultural baggage” be true (Funcke 8)? Well, I do not see it as true simply because if the author’s work seems to be far from culturally normal, then it’s still influenced by it—it’s just different from it. Also, it would have to carry baggage from some culture. Even “early in his career Whitman had pondered the issue of ‘the blurring of art and life’” (Funcke 10) which is a paradox to his quote. Life can’t be avoided in art and vice versa; the two are indistinguishable in this type of format. I feel that if the artist’s work does not reflect the artist’s immediate culture, then it must reflect another, separate culture. (My mom’s a wood/stone/other hard things carver/artist, so I have some background with this topic.)
Why does Burroughs’ piece contain so many grammatical errors and ones dealing with punctuation? Does it serve a purpose, or is it a mistake related to the document being online and having fewer mandatory editors?
My final question is about Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape.” I don’t understand quite a few things about the document. It reads sort of like a play but in a different format, like a self-interpreted performance piece. Why are sections of the piece word for word repeated within it? This is a nuisance to me because I feel as if I am a great listener/reader since I pay attention the first time I listen or read a piece—I don’t like to feel as though I’m backtracking. Is the author trying to recreate a real life feel with this method?
Why does Burroughs’ piece contain so many grammatical errors and ones dealing with punctuation? Does it serve a purpose, or is it a mistake related to the document being online and having fewer mandatory editors?
My final question is about Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape.” I don’t understand quite a few things about the document. It reads sort of like a play but in a different format, like a self-interpreted performance piece. Why are sections of the piece word for word repeated within it? This is a nuisance to me because I feel as if I am a great listener/reader since I pay attention the first time I listen or read a piece—I don’t like to feel as though I’m backtracking. Is the author trying to recreate a real life feel with this method?
Monday, February 16, 2009
Differences Between Hearing and Listening & Television and Voice
What does Gitelman mean when she states, “it was to the sheets of tinfoil that the language of print culture adhered most freely” (165)? I don’t understand how print culture can resemble the sounds on the tinfoil. Does a sound resemble another sound that is similar to it on the tinfoil? Is the answer merely that each sound has a certain look just as they conformed the alphabetical letters to match each other in print culture? Maybe I missed something from both readings, but we had writing long before this. So, what does Gitelman mean by this statement—I can’t wrap my mind around it, unless she’s speaking figuratively? Also, the term “adhered most freely” sounds paradoxical.
Sterne does not make it clear to me what the difference is between hearing and listening—since I thought the difference was what he said it was not exactly, “hearing as passive and listening as active” (98).
Also, last night while I heard a man’s voice emitted from a television from the guy’s apartment upstairs, I wondered how I could tell that it was not a real person’s voice. It’s pretty obvious from the older instruments since there could be static or it just sounds old and extra creepy (like the Lord Tennyson on wax cylinders), but how do we tell with the current technologies? Perhaps I missed something from The Audible Past or haven’t gotten there yet. Does it have anything to do with using the human ear (cadavers—really interesting) as a model? The newer technology just isn’t perfect yet since our ears hear the difference between the two.
Sterne does not make it clear to me what the difference is between hearing and listening—since I thought the difference was what he said it was not exactly, “hearing as passive and listening as active” (98).
Also, last night while I heard a man’s voice emitted from a television from the guy’s apartment upstairs, I wondered how I could tell that it was not a real person’s voice. It’s pretty obvious from the older instruments since there could be static or it just sounds old and extra creepy (like the Lord Tennyson on wax cylinders), but how do we tell with the current technologies? Perhaps I missed something from The Audible Past or haven’t gotten there yet. Does it have anything to do with using the human ear (cadavers—really interesting) as a model? The newer technology just isn’t perfect yet since our ears hear the difference between the two.
Monday, February 9, 2009
"Are you talking to yourself?" *Mouths to self* "Weird."
It seems accepted that there is a “dominance of eye over ear in mainstream Western poetics” (Tedlock 195) since the main focus of poetry is on the page and not in the performance. Is this due to society trying to break away from the perception that more primitive cultures focus on oral traditions? There is this focus on the individual within our own capitalistic society, which is indeed reflected by this focus on the written word and the ideas that “The spoken word forms human beings into close-knit groups” whereas “Writing and print isolate” (Ong 73). Curling up on the couch by the fire and reading the words is quite different from sitting Indian style around a story teller, perhaps with several others around you, interpreting the orator’s body language and listening.
Often, while riding in the car, I’ll catch my pops mumbling to himself, sometimes even moving his hands a bit while they’re on the steering wheel. When I ask what he’s doing, he says he’s having an intellectual conversation with himself (I’ve been slightly insulted by this response but to my credit, it’s often said while I’m reading). Even though I obviously know and love him, I perceive it as quite odd that he talks to himself but would not see it as odd if he were writing in a journal. Why is that?
Ong states that “Sound exists only when it is going out of existence” (70); I suppose this makes sense to a certain degree, but it also depends on the relation of the sounds. You could say the same of anything living: a dog lives but is nearing death more and more every moment.
Ong also believes that “You can immerse yourself in hearing, in sound” but that “There is no way to immerse yourself similarly in sight” (71). Are we not always immersed in both of these (unless the person is of course deaf and/or blind) already? Previous readings discussed the completely silent room where the person inside of it only hears his/her own body. Therefore, we’re always immersed in sound just as we’re always immersed in sight. However, sight cannot be louder (but could be more visually stimulating or more eye-catching, sight’s equivalent to loud sounds) just as some sounds are more ear-catching.
Ong says that primary oral culture does not focus on preserving skills (43), in which case, it makes me wonder how these people would pass along the skills they had learned without writing or telling. Were these oral tradition people better problem solvers or just better at mimicking what they’d seen once out of necessity?
I would be lost without a dictionary and the CMS (Chicago Manual of Style for the non PWE people) because I love the rules just as I love to look them up (and because my major depends on these rules). But even in primary oral cultures, there must be rules—they’re just not able to be looked up in writing but looked up, so to speak, in the minds of many or agreed upon.
Often, while riding in the car, I’ll catch my pops mumbling to himself, sometimes even moving his hands a bit while they’re on the steering wheel. When I ask what he’s doing, he says he’s having an intellectual conversation with himself (I’ve been slightly insulted by this response but to my credit, it’s often said while I’m reading). Even though I obviously know and love him, I perceive it as quite odd that he talks to himself but would not see it as odd if he were writing in a journal. Why is that?
Ong states that “Sound exists only when it is going out of existence” (70); I suppose this makes sense to a certain degree, but it also depends on the relation of the sounds. You could say the same of anything living: a dog lives but is nearing death more and more every moment.
Ong also believes that “You can immerse yourself in hearing, in sound” but that “There is no way to immerse yourself similarly in sight” (71). Are we not always immersed in both of these (unless the person is of course deaf and/or blind) already? Previous readings discussed the completely silent room where the person inside of it only hears his/her own body. Therefore, we’re always immersed in sound just as we’re always immersed in sight. However, sight cannot be louder (but could be more visually stimulating or more eye-catching, sight’s equivalent to loud sounds) just as some sounds are more ear-catching.
Ong says that primary oral culture does not focus on preserving skills (43), in which case, it makes me wonder how these people would pass along the skills they had learned without writing or telling. Were these oral tradition people better problem solvers or just better at mimicking what they’d seen once out of necessity?
I would be lost without a dictionary and the CMS (Chicago Manual of Style for the non PWE people) because I love the rules just as I love to look them up (and because my major depends on these rules). But even in primary oral cultures, there must be rules—they’re just not able to be looked up in writing but looked up, so to speak, in the minds of many or agreed upon.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Wouldn't It be Funny If My Blog for Today was Blank?
A blank blog would certainly be appropriate and brilliant.
Was Henry Flynt trying to merely promote creativity by including the following on his Fluxus score: “The instructions for this piece are on the other side of this sheet” with the other side being blank (Dworkin 1)? Was it purposely a very open prompt just to get people thinking deeply (even though I’m not sure how inspired I’d be after an obvious lack of direction)? This is my only possible explanation at this point; what else could it be? It couldn't possibly be that he thought he was being creative, could it? The instructions seem similar to some of the answers I sometimes have given my students when they ask me how long a document should be (“however long you think it should be” often being my answer). I wonder if they’re as frustrated with me as I would be with Flynt had he left me the blank instructions.
I don’t understand how Cage’s publisher could have possibly sued Mike Batt for copyright infringement (Dworkin 3) “One Minute Of Silence” because, after watching both of them, I could not see any resemblance (other than a general lack of noise even though the pictures were different). Even if there were, if Mike Batt was just poking fun of Cage’s 4’33”, then that’s permitted because Batt was sort of parodying (allowed under Intellectual Property Law) Cage’s (which is allowed: think of Weird Al Yankovich’s work—he’s allowed to do what he does/did). How could Cage’s publisher sue Batt for using a bit of Cage’s SILENT piece in his own parody; how could the publisher even tell that it was in fact Cage’s?
The Language Removal Excerpts sound creepy and often sexual. The “60 Second Anthology of American Poetry” nearly made me gag from all of the repulsive licking of lips. Gross!
Was Henry Flynt trying to merely promote creativity by including the following on his Fluxus score: “The instructions for this piece are on the other side of this sheet” with the other side being blank (Dworkin 1)? Was it purposely a very open prompt just to get people thinking deeply (even though I’m not sure how inspired I’d be after an obvious lack of direction)? This is my only possible explanation at this point; what else could it be? It couldn't possibly be that he thought he was being creative, could it? The instructions seem similar to some of the answers I sometimes have given my students when they ask me how long a document should be (“however long you think it should be” often being my answer). I wonder if they’re as frustrated with me as I would be with Flynt had he left me the blank instructions.
I don’t understand how Cage’s publisher could have possibly sued Mike Batt for copyright infringement (Dworkin 3) “One Minute Of Silence” because, after watching both of them, I could not see any resemblance (other than a general lack of noise even though the pictures were different). Even if there were, if Mike Batt was just poking fun of Cage’s 4’33”, then that’s permitted because Batt was sort of parodying (allowed under Intellectual Property Law) Cage’s (which is allowed: think of Weird Al Yankovich’s work—he’s allowed to do what he does/did). How could Cage’s publisher sue Batt for using a bit of Cage’s SILENT piece in his own parody; how could the publisher even tell that it was in fact Cage’s?
The Language Removal Excerpts sound creepy and often sexual. The “60 Second Anthology of American Poetry” nearly made me gag from all of the repulsive licking of lips. Gross!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
White Space as Noise
Similar to many questions asked last week, here is my first question (but, don't worry, I'll try to answer it): Is there a distinction to be made between whether a performance is good or bad and whether or not someone likes it? Similarly, is there a sort of rubric to a reading (that the expert reading audience members may adhere to) where audience members can somewhat objectively gauge a reading?
Concerning my first question, I believe that whether one thinks that a reading is good or not is, as Tony said, subjective. I mean, Quartermain believes that a very theatrical reading is awful, but, from what he said, I thought it sounded much more engaging than some of the older recorded readings we listened to last week (perhaps one reason is because I enjoy theatre and used to do it in high school) (219). Then again, I didn’t witness the reading, so I could also see how that type of performance has the potential to be annoying. But also, it could be widely accepted that one reading is good if the majority of the elitist reading attendees think it’s good, akin to the literature canon, right?
Also, going back to last week, we discussed noise and sound. I agree that noise is more of a “ruckus” as Dr. Baldwin stated. Just like how too much white space in a document can be distracting (or the opposite with not enough white space), it seems that the same goes for readings: too much of a pause could be considered a problem due to a lack of noise (I’m using the word noise because it would be considered annoying), or, again, too much going on can also be distracting just like how I imagine that Mac Low’s “The Young Turtle Assymetries” would distract me because there are so many voices going on at once, like at a party (if you knew me or had me as an instructor, you’d know that I am easily distracted anyway). This ties into the seeming subjectivity as to whether a performance is good or bad because, as I believe someone mentioned in class last week, noise (ruckus) to one person could be just sounds to another person (while some of the performances we listened to for tomorrow’s class may be considered noise to some and mere appealing sounds to another). I hope that this serves as a partial answer to the first question I asked today.
Concerning my first question, I believe that whether one thinks that a reading is good or not is, as Tony said, subjective. I mean, Quartermain believes that a very theatrical reading is awful, but, from what he said, I thought it sounded much more engaging than some of the older recorded readings we listened to last week (perhaps one reason is because I enjoy theatre and used to do it in high school) (219). Then again, I didn’t witness the reading, so I could also see how that type of performance has the potential to be annoying. But also, it could be widely accepted that one reading is good if the majority of the elitist reading attendees think it’s good, akin to the literature canon, right?
Also, going back to last week, we discussed noise and sound. I agree that noise is more of a “ruckus” as Dr. Baldwin stated. Just like how too much white space in a document can be distracting (or the opposite with not enough white space), it seems that the same goes for readings: too much of a pause could be considered a problem due to a lack of noise (I’m using the word noise because it would be considered annoying), or, again, too much going on can also be distracting just like how I imagine that Mac Low’s “The Young Turtle Assymetries” would distract me because there are so many voices going on at once, like at a party (if you knew me or had me as an instructor, you’d know that I am easily distracted anyway). This ties into the seeming subjectivity as to whether a performance is good or bad because, as I believe someone mentioned in class last week, noise (ruckus) to one person could be just sounds to another person (while some of the performances we listened to for tomorrow’s class may be considered noise to some and mere appealing sounds to another). I hope that this serves as a partial answer to the first question I asked today.
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