elizabeth /201 /week 8

Seems to me that the silence which concluded last week’s class addressed embodiment in its own particular way. In a sense, talking about embodiment is not sufficient. Writing about it even reveals hazardous contradictions of its own.

How appropriate then to follow those readings with this week’s selection on sound art. These readings while being interesting and informative remove writing from the center of practice and fill that place instead with music and offer up these texts as supplementary pragmatics. Music, perhaps more urgently and more consistently than the visual arts, insists upon embodiment. Its not to be forgotten-ness so long as we share music. It is clear to me that we hear with more than just our ears. That’s why I like my music live and loud, immersive. I find that I don’t have a great amount of insight to offer with respect to music, digital or otherwise. I enjoy it tremendously and it’s one of those areas where I submit my novice and non-expert status– less pressure to know or understand and more freedom to just enjoy (or not).

The distinction that Robson makes during his interactive prototyping work between the musically trained and the “non-musician” makes sense to me as he explores different kinds of musical interfaces. I enjoyed his work just as a case study for prototyping and exploring different technologies and media and his thoughtful consideration of user experiences.

Tanaka’s essays were equally compelling to my novice mind. And like Robson I appreciated how both of them necessarily include notions of embodiment in musical production and musical experience. I find that the human/instrument assemblage is among the most magical cyborg relations.

Other things I especially liked in the Tanaka piece were his analysis of music and space and his ability to convey a kind of network acoustics. That was very cool way to conceptualize digital space that has never occurred to me. I also found his willingness to shape his music to the “architecture” of the network space to be quite refreshing. Rather than becoming frustrated by the networks in ability to simulate geographic immediacy, Tanka is willing to let the network contribute to the form of the content. He says, “the musician should not expect to impose his music unaltered onto a new time/ space domain.” The further connection that he makes comparing this acoustic architecture awareness to compositions for cathedrals or the smaller intimate rooms of be-bop jazz was lovely and caused me to consider the cathedral and jazz like qualities or potential in various network spaces. It was a poetic moment that makes me wonder if echolocation is possible in the internet.