Kim Cascone’s article “The Aesthetics of Failure: Post Digital Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music” talks about the art of glitch in music and raises many interesting points about the evolution of this concept in electronic music as well as the computer devices available to people.
In a world that can no longer be shocked or surprised, what are the loop holes? Interesting music can still be made that is outside the confines of the industry and pop music. Sure there is nothing new under the sun, but not all of us have been around for centuries and are always up to hear cool, random, unique variations of what sounds exist/have existed yet not always appreciated. In no way is embracing the mistake a “new idea,” but it is still a concept that goes ignored by many people. As a student I have often found that something beautiful often arises from the unexpected mistakes that are made in art, etc. So I always love what musicians can come up with. Through editing, many interesting things can be focused on and made musical. I still think that it takes genius to “mess around” with glitches properly. I don’t think that any old joe can do what Aphex Twin does or what have you, but it is nice that the tools are out there for anyone to experiment with. The art of technology and music should be widespread and available because there are so many things to draw from, share, and create.
chrisvogel
May 7th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Considering the pastiche, it blows my mind to think we’re in an era where technology is being refined, solely to deconstruct or slice up work. I think that’s especially interesting. Cascone’s dead on in describing that glitch music, or any mashed up minimalist recording, demands that listeners take an active role in giving it meaning. It’s abrasive where people really enjoy it or can’t stand it. I’m actually surprised there isn’t a larger market for glitch considering it’s derived from techno.?
Stephanie Sorth
May 8th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
In “The Aesthetics of Failure: Post-Digital Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music”, Cascone’s examples concern composers who are deliberately using vinyl crackling, digital clipping, and digital compression artifacts as foreground elements of their compositions. Cascone’s main conclusion, which I think is quite reasonable, is that failure is more interesting than success, especially insofar as it is a progenitor to further discovery and evolution, and that artifacts reveal the true nature and limits of a medium. So I agree that it’s quite natural for artists to explore the imperfections and artifacts of a well-understood medium because it gives the listener a new appreciation for a system which is otherwise all-too-often assumed to be perfectly transparent.
Jennytam
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
the idea of de-constructing sound to its “atomical level” to create music that almost requires an active audience is interesting-almost like pointalism meets surrealism. or one of those “hidden image” pieces. i also think the article was an appropriate end to the postings as it goes back and revisits briefly some of the subjects we’d been going over this semester. Cascone’s glitches in her article were quite effective as well.
at first, the hyphens where hyphens were not needed confused me. i thought “maybe it was to help with pronunciation?” (nope) “maybe it is how some of the words are supposed to be according to a specific dictionary?” (if it were, all the words that had been hyphanated once would be throughout the article, so no) “maybe it is because it is an article and hyphens are needed to fit the text to the available space?” (maybe, but very doubtful). it occurred to me that she was being playful with the word “glitch” in that a “glitch” can mean a skip in information. cds often have scratches that make glitches if the anti-skip is not activated. so the words in her article were the bits of information with a skip (glitch) in it every now and then. sometimes the reader head will go back to re-read the glitched section to see if it can be read (usually just skips with no anti-skip) *ba-dump-bish* one effective out come is that she knows that the audience (reading head of the device) is paying attention.
Cassandra Sechler
05-07-08
Kim Cascone’s article “The Aesthetics of Failure: Post Digital Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music” talks about the art of glitch in music and raises many interesting points about the evolution of this concept in electronic music as well as the computer devices available to people.
In a world that can no longer be shocked or surprised, what are the loop holes? Interesting music can still be made that is outside the confines of the industry and pop music. Sure there is nothing new under the sun, but not all of us have been around for centuries and are always up to hear cool, random, unique variations of what sounds exist/have existed yet not always appreciated. In no way is embracing the mistake a “new idea,” but it is still a concept that goes ignored by many people. As a student I have often found that something beautiful often arises from the unexpected mistakes that are made in art, etc. So I always love what musicians can come up with. Through editing, many interesting things can be focused on and made musical. I still think that it takes genius to “mess around” with glitches properly. I don’t think that any old joe can do what Aphex Twin does or what have you, but it is nice that the tools are out there for anyone to experiment with. The art of technology and music should be widespread and available because there are so many things to draw from, share, and create.
Considering the pastiche, it blows my mind to think we’re in an era where technology is being refined, solely to deconstruct or slice up work. I think that’s especially interesting. Cascone’s dead on in describing that glitch music, or any mashed up minimalist recording, demands that listeners take an active role in giving it meaning. It’s abrasive where people really enjoy it or can’t stand it. I’m actually surprised there isn’t a larger market for glitch considering it’s derived from techno.?
In “The Aesthetics of Failure: Post-Digital Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music”, Cascone’s examples concern composers who are deliberately using vinyl crackling, digital clipping, and digital compression artifacts as foreground elements of their compositions. Cascone’s main conclusion, which I think is quite reasonable, is that failure is more interesting than success, especially insofar as it is a progenitor to further discovery and evolution, and that artifacts reveal the true nature and limits of a medium. So I agree that it’s quite natural for artists to explore the imperfections and artifacts of a well-understood medium because it gives the listener a new appreciation for a system which is otherwise all-too-often assumed to be perfectly transparent.
the idea of de-constructing sound to its “atomical level” to create music that almost requires an active audience is interesting-almost like pointalism meets surrealism. or one of those “hidden image” pieces. i also think the article was an appropriate end to the postings as it goes back and revisits briefly some of the subjects we’d been going over this semester. Cascone’s glitches in her article were quite effective as well.
at first, the hyphens where hyphens were not needed confused me. i thought “maybe it was to help with pronunciation?” (nope) “maybe it is how some of the words are supposed to be according to a specific dictionary?” (if it were, all the words that had been hyphanated once would be throughout the article, so no) “maybe it is because it is an article and hyphens are needed to fit the text to the available space?” (maybe, but very doubtful). it occurred to me that she was being playful with the word “glitch” in that a “glitch” can mean a skip in information. cds often have scratches that make glitches if the anti-skip is not activated. so the words in her article were the bits of information with a skip (glitch) in it every now and then. sometimes the reader head will go back to re-read the glitched section to see if it can be read (usually just skips with no anti-skip) *ba-dump-bish* one effective out come is that she knows that the audience (reading head of the device) is paying attention.