« Noish and Capitalism »

A few weeks back, I had the chance to take part in a weeklong workshop on using  Pure Data for live audio-visual performance. The workshop was held at a space called N.K., was ably led by Luca Carrubba and Oskar Martin Correa, and featured about 8 or 9 people (with near Gender equity!) from different media backgrounds. At the end of the week, we were all invited to show/perform with our patches, and then Oskar was slated to play a set under his moniker 'Noish~'. It was an excellent sounding set of approximately 30-minutes, moving from massive textures to granular synthesis to manipulated field recordings, and you could tell that he was quite a capable coder and performer. 

I was of course struck by the performance dynamics - that there was no announcement of his name or set, that he didn't address the audience neither by voice or sight, that there was an implicit assumption about the role of the performer and the audience that had gone unsaid. None of this is to fault Oskar or the promoters in any way; I am just overly interested - and thus sensitive - to this from the slight amount of work and research I have done under the auspices of 'relational aesthetics' and 'social practice'.

A week or so later, my RSS feed showed me that there was a new post by Derek Morton on Furthernoise - a review of a Noish~ release … called - and based upon - the book 'Noise & Capitalism'. From what I read, Oskar had made a Shell script to take the text and transmute it into audio wavelength, then fed the ensuing audio file into Pd patches to play live (and/or sequence with Ardour, for his recorded output). Noting the date of the release vis-a-vis the date of the concert, I assume that this was the same work I saw adapted for live performance. 

I quickly read most of the book - though more of a series of related articles - and highly recommend it. Since, I have become especially intrigued when thinking back on Oskar's performance. Much of the book deals with ways that noise has sat outside and resisted, consciously or not, the classification and commodification of Capitalist musical ecologies for as long as it can, whether it is still able to and how, and details various techniques, such as improvisation, anti-digital production, and farcically copious amounts of released material in order to do so.

I find it quizzical that Noish~  did not - seemingly - rely overtly on any of these ideas but still chose to use the text as source material, that the performer, promoter, and the audience where seemingly content to be alienated from each other in the standard ways. N.K. itself claims to have a mandate to further theoretical discourse surrounding sound art and experimental music. Again, not to demean them, as they do great work.

N.K. is a great place that focuses on underdeveloped, unheard forms, and provides a safe, enthusiastic place for experimentation. Noish~ creates sound art on free, open-source software. He was performing a piece both derived from generative material, and freely improvising on top of that, purely rejecting the 'cult of the composer'… not a lot more to ask for, is there?

My query is why did I only hear of the theoretical underpinnings of this performance afterwards, and by chance? Was this not deemed important? Was it a desire to not pre-impose a particular reading of the work upon the audience? The sound was certainly abstract, and I'm sure that different members of the audience received different things from it.

Why was there no exchange at all between promoter, performer, and audience? Oskar was seated at a table, and not on a stage, so there was a small gesture of equality in the setup of the room, but otherwise I felt that the event was running blind in this sense. 

Noise is filled with 'potentials for exchange'… abstract imaging and re-imaginations of concepts, exchange of culture unmediated by monetary systems, exchange of sounds unmediated by classifications… but what about a more fluid, dynamic exchange between all the participants? If relations between musicians are dialogical in improvisation, then why aren't relations between performer and audience? 

Csaba Toth's article in the book claims that noise is 'a radical deconstruction of the status of artist, audience, and music…' If this is so, is this understood? is it adequate to sit at your laptop or gear but not address the audience? To abandon the stage, and create a 'sonorous space'? If the audience in this situation was still expected to clap, why not give back? 

It is problematic when there is music played that rejects the structural and aesthetic qualities of compositional or popular forms, but is perfectly content to use archaic modes of presentation that do not have any relevance outside of an acoustically-designed concert hall. New music needs new forms of presentation, relation, transmission. And while noise itself is not new, for it to stay relevant to experimental and artistic communities - and to stay above the subsumption of itself by popular music - it needs to be a part of a larger critical dialogue around power dynamics, activated spaces, and mutually-constructed meanings. 

Sound artists in general, and noise artists in particular, are conscious of the social sphere that music finds itself within today, and are familiar with the varied ways of resisting or negating the teleological forces thrust upon it by Capitalism and more varied market forces. By and large, they are quizzical, dynamic artists, open to experimentation with forms, aesthetics, and techniques. Many have been at the very forefront on hybrid practices, relational aesthetics, interactive, and generative work.  

The next time I see a noise show, I look forward to it going all the way.