In the post-truth dystopia known as “today,” we are force-fed mediated sounds and images that are reaching hyperobject proportions. Their manifestations exceed any single act of perception. This is nothing less than an all-out appropriation of the human psyche.
^ This. ^ A hundred times, “Yes,” to this, Michael. Taking a cue from the acousmatic, what other forms could “doing things differently” take on? Because we surely need to close ranks against the devouring maws of hyperobjects. What does doing things differently look like, in our day-to-day, in all the little things? I’d like to see us host a Cosmos Café to discuss how Game C, our Game Cosmos, the play at which we engage ourselves here, is “doing things differently,” is clawing back real agency from the Machine, is using only those tools which do no harm and deserve to be salvaged from our ruined times.
Hi Dawn… thx for the excellent comment,
I’ve been thinking about the “subversiveness” of Acousmatic music for a long time and it’s actually a large claim that may need to be tempered down a bit. I’ve assigned Jean Baudrillard to be my primary interlocutor and to put him in a position to question me when I say Acousmatic music is a way to “fight the man”.
This is something I will put into an essay and explore more deeply but, the short of it is, what’s to stop someone saying that listening to Acousmatic music is still being subjected to commodification, I mean you still have to buy or stream the music, you still have to use technology to listen to it, and to make it. You still are basically a victim of a system that uses signs to create meaning but, it’s the creating meaning aspect that is being circumvented.
It’s being circumvented by witholding the sound source. We are no longer being told that this sound means I should think what the source points to. For example, a dog barking… well then it musc be a dog. Even if we know the source, with deep listening other disclosures can possibly happen.
So, Acousmatic music can become subversive when we no longer are influenced by signs that the media (for example) is force feeding us on and it’s us, the human that creates their own meaning. Even if that meaning is informed by memory that is STILL influenced by signs, we are at least choosing what memory to have, as opposed to the system TELLING us what to think.
In a way, this music is a parasite on the system. It’s still using the systems “ways and means” but, the system is unable to tell us what and how to feel. And that’s because of the witholding of sound sources that allows us to think for ourselves.
So maybe the question, for a cafe (which is an awesome idea) is, how to work WITHIN the system we are living in but still exploit it somehow, which is what I think Acousmatic music is a good example of.
Thank you this is just great hope i can invite the musician to an interview with Alasart.
Game C! I like that…
I’m also reminded of something a mentor of mine said about effectuating change, which is that all the methods—working within the system, working against the system, and working around the system—are valid, and the course one chooses (or that chooses you) just depends.
It seems to me that the music you’ve been sharing, Michael, like all good art, by its very nature (without necessarily trying to do so as a program), enacts a form of resistance against the enshitification of the human psyche by the sheer act of creating something that is non-representational and, at its best, completely itself.
Does this dismantle AI-exponentiated so-called late-stage techno-feudal hyper-capitalism? Not directly. But I think it creates conditions in the human psyche for people to think and feel differently—and for themselves. It also engages and delights people who already think differently, and this is no small gift.