noise"...to reveal the space in which a critique of culture can arise,free of any determinable 'ideological' character, wanting to burn bright with spiritual rebellion." Gorazd Kocjancic, On Anarchism At a certain point in time and space, or maybe for a period of time, there existed the idea of a musical work as a monument, a testimonial for the generations to come, a work of genius that outlived its creator, as time alone could tell the true [absolute?] value of a piece of music-accepted by the crowds, music critics, historians, and the musicians themselves. Currently, there is the idea of music as a language trapped in a host [multitude?] of other, equal languages, customs, histories, childhoods, nostalgias, and changing signs. It is not about fluidity and indeterminacy being the only common denominators, but about a mode of communication with its own specific characteristics and, consequently, a core that is proper only to music/sound. It is also about duality -dare we almost say schizophrenia-of the totalitarianism of the internalized emotional-mental force (inspiration/expression) and of the intuitive desire for exchange, for action by all collectively and by each individually. Like Bey's TAZ, instantly dominated by the media, a temporary sound originates as a sum of energies, as a need for a cut of the totality of the simulacrum, as a movement toward a community-not a refuge, but reality in a single point [which is at the same time multipoint], with fluid references in the pasts and the seen/potential futures and with simultaneous concrete realities. Perhaps this is the moment to pose the question whether contemporary [electronic] sound, not taken out of its contexts, has not defetishized the character of music, thus reinstating the possibility of listening. Perhaps this is also the right moment for the question of to what extent a composition is ubiquitous as the final[?] stage in the new noise cycle [what is the new noise?], noise as a subversion, social emancipation, in the political economy of sound. It almost seems as if this were a borderline between the state of being satisfied with the virtual production of culture and the state of searching, exploring, and discovering emotionality in the plasticity of "reality." It is, however, much more than that: it is an emerging culture of [technological] tools [producer/programmer = user/consumer] intertwined with the fall of the modernist work of art in a time of digital reproduction. More precisely-in a time of the digital reproduction of knowledge, tools, and works. In this abundance there exists the possibility of "rousing" the consumer [in a non-totalitarian, but, when necessary, militant way], of de-Frankfurt-izing their passivity, so that they may react actively to the feelings of sweetness and gentle sinking into consuming, and take home (as well as leave behind in the space/sound) something real. In this context, the sound/noise has long been merely one of the media we try to see/use/create as a subversive tool against the fascism hidden under the simulacrum, which had caused the ritual of the soul to be banished long ago. Luka Princic |