Song of Anonymous
(a nomadic novel)
Section
III
Tunnel at the end of the light
Pedro R. Rivadeneira
(a work in progress)
III
tunnel at the end of
the light
“There is a little of everything,
apparently, in nature,
and freaks are common.”
Samuel Beckett, Molloy.
It is late on a summer afternoon, early
July, when i am, where i am, sitting in the Grote Markt Square in the Hague with
Anders, an old friend and colleague from my student days at the Koninlijk
Conservatorium: the sky, dark blue with scattered pink soon to become crimson,
deep orange and isolated gray clouds sprinkling too; the sun late to set in the
Northern European estival skies. It is here, in the square, full of the chatter
of tens of dozens of people out for the evening, drinking, smoking and
gossiping, the latter being a major form of entertainment and social control in
these parts, not much else to do, the widespread boredom setting heavily like a
wave on our heads and shoulders, on our backs, all tempered by massive amounts
of beer, schnapps, hashish and loud techno music, while some take it upon
themselves to police others, cutting them down to size, keeping each other in
their place, making sure they don’t get too self-confident, the entire scene seemingly
shaped by waves of gossip that come and go with the ebb and flow of the rising
and falling intensity of voices, all of which suddenly strike me as shouts and
calls on a boat in a stormy sea, spreading a nasty rumor or two around when
needed, the nastiness knowing no limits, it’s as thick as pea soup, you could
cut it with a knife as they say, i can see it out of the corner of my eye, like
a shadow, a fog or staticky mist silently hovering, watching, listening,
aimlessly adrift, floating above the unaware, unconscious crowd as they squirm
in their seats with excitement, anticipating the opportunity to test their
skills, to release their venom, connoisseurs of flattery, punishment, pain and
humiliation always eager to dig their talons into someone’s tender,
unsuspecting flesh. i can see it out of the corner of my eye, hanging low in
the sky, just above the roof tops, like a headache, a migraine aura, pulsating,
blurring my vision, my mind’s eye and ears, my ability to think and perceive
clearly scrambled by the static, a black static, slowly shifting shape and
place as it focuses on one part of the crowd more than another, resonating with
their fears and cruelty, seemingly feeding on them and feeding back into the
crowd such that a loop is generated between the crowd and it; the amorphous amoeba
of black static. Here, awash in the incessant talk about music videos, clothes
and newly acquired lovers, petty conquests both male and female, i sit quietly,
nursing another Belgium beer, the high alcohol content of the previous two
already setting on my brain with a gentle buzz, it is here, as i was saying, in
the Grote Markt Square, on a late summer afternoon that i meet her, Elise, as i listen to friends of a friend talking
about someone’s writing: taking it upon themselves to interpret it for me and
each other, explaining it, explaining it away to each other, completely tearing
it apart, degrading and debasing it, taking it away from her who wrote it and
in their odious boredom, tearing it down, destroying it, taking turns reading
bits and pieces of the text in mocking tones of voice, reducing it to
smithereens, convincing themselves and each other it’s not worth their while,
and it is this view, the only one worth listening to of course, and all along
the victim laughs her head off spitting out a slew of insults the likes of
which i've never heard before in this guttural Netherlandish tongue and which
shoot past me in a frenzy as she tries to snatch back the pages from her
maliciously snickering friends. Sandal, boot and tennis shoe clad feet stomp on
brick inlaid ground accompanied by table slapping laughter and chairs
screeching in a chorus of multiphonic clusters, a moment of putrefaction
suddenly waxing within as last rays simultaneously touch a far flung cloud
disappearing over the roof tops, straying away toward horizons unseen, and in
another corner of the square a group of young parents, framed by the languorous
late afternoon light as if by a spotlight, as if posing for a portrait a la
Rembrandt, they're all sitting around with their little pets, their children,
their babies, their human possessions, chattering and laughing, treating their
helpless little babies like things, possessions, objects of pride, showing them
off to each other like trophies, their prize possessions, flinging them into a
self-destructive world about which they won't be allowed to do anything. Watching,
listening to them makes my stomach turn - the idiots basking in the illusion of
a fulfillment that never really gets actualized delusional suddenly opening our blind eyes in the
midst of the black cosmic night that
surrounds everything - i think to myself floating suspended, aimlessly, like a
piece of flotsam gently rocked by mild waves, in an alcohol induced reverie -
Adrift in the
sounds from the square, Anders and i continue drinking our beers, occasionally
chuckling as we watch and listen to our friends Nadja, whom i once dated in my
student days and who now teaches Comparative Literature at the University of
Amsterdam, and Danica and her friends, drinking and smoking, snickering in
spittle filled Haagse guttural accent smirking, when suddenly i catch a
glimpse, a sideways glance, i mean peripherally, i catch a glimpse, two chairs away to my right, of two, flip
flop clad dirty feet with chipped black enameled toe nails, my gaze slowly moves
up thin long legs covered in tight black slacks past unusually long, spindly fingered
hands, also with chipped black enameled nails, at the end of long arms onto a
black ruffled blouse with pronounced cleavage, and finally, the profile of a
silently smiling face topped by an unruly mass of raven black hair, all of this
seeming to me to be a thinner, taller, vaguely female and sexier version of the
Cure’s Robert Smith. Nadja, catching me gazing at the stranger, grins through
the haze and noise, leans forward across the table and says - I want you to
meet my sister - she then leans in the opposite direction and, putting her
hands around her mouth, whispers something to the stranger who first looks at the
ground as she listens, then looks up in my direction with large sea green, gray-blue
eyes smiling, i smile back and wave briefly with my free hand and say hello
under my breath - this is my sister Elise - Nadja says smiling playfully, Elise
leans forward and says - Hola como
estás? - Oh! Spanish what a pleasant surprise - i say smiling
at her - I've heard a lot about you - she then says in English - all of it
good i hope - i wink at her and then
take another sip from my glass - but of course of course all of it good - she answers back playfully
with a big grin on her face - your Spanish pronunciation is very good where did you learn to speak it - I ask
Elise - I've travelled around a lot in Latin America as part of my studies -
she says smiling at me - oh really? what are your studies? - i inquire - I have
a doctorate in Latin American Studies - she answers - oh that's impressive! - i
say shifting in my chair a little and then ask - do you teach anywhere? - yes -
she answers - at the university in Utrecht - goodness! that's even more
impressive ! that's where the old
Institute for Sonology used to be! - i say genuinely intrigued - you should
come to Utrecht for lunch some time - she says - we can practice our Spanish
together - sure of course - I answer -
I'd love to visit and practice with you - Spanish - she says, her face aglow
with a mischievous smile - of course
of course Spanish that's what I meant . . . I'm sure . . . -
i mumble back beginning to giggle - anyway
the role of the arts music's role
in society is complex - i hear Anders say all of a sudden after a long pause,
interrupting my flirtations with Elise - it can be subversive and it can be
used to affirm the status quo this
latter kind of music commodity music has a conditioning function it plays upon certain feelings certain emotions and kinds of
thinking usually of an obsessive
nature I mean
so-called pop music serves this function it serves power by means of its utterly
conventional musical forms - he says smirking - and through the incessant
repetition of formulaic rhythmic
melodic and harmonic patterns along with highly cliched voice centered lyrics it reinforces certain psycho-emotional
limit cycles in people's minds
keeping them stuck in habitual modes of thinking and feeling keeping them in a state of dependency keeping them addicted to an increasingly
limited repertoire of fears and desires the latter of which never really get
fulfilled keeping the listener in true consumerist fashion endlessly coming back for more - he says
with increasing forcefulness and then takes another sip from his glass after
which he continues with his invective - and I mean voice centered here in the
sense it is meant in contemporary poetics - he articulates with precision in his basso profundo voice - this
inadequate mistaken notion that a
poem or in this case a song lyric is simply the outward manifestation of a
spoken or singing self-presence all
this evidently stemming from the belief that speech is
primary and prior to writing originating in the individual as ego a subjectivity that is characterized as hard and fast rigid
fixed and unchanging and whose
insights are therefore true a consistent and controlling self where the poem the song lyric expresses some kind of insight some kind of wisdom about life a kind of confession of a lived personal
experience that is supposed to be unique where the poet the
artist or in this case these so-called pop stars are somehow special endowed with wisdom endowed with almost mystical abilities and their
success their wealth their luxurious life styles are seen by society
as proof of this as if the pop star
were some kind of emissary who is in touch with the Devine so-called such a Romantic nineteenth century notion such utter bullshit! - he exclaims, a wide
grimace contorting his face - but just how unique are those insights just how unique is all that so-called wisdom when all those so-called pop songs and the
so-called stars who sing them are mass produced fabrications concocted by the
entertainment industry songs whose
messages whose oh so important
insights most to
not say all those self-centered
narcissistic pop star twits regurgitate over and over again with each
song that is touted as new? it's all a
simulacrum theater
a spectacle designed to give
the consumer what he or she wants to hear and thus temporarily pacifying her or
him until the next wave of prefabricated bullshit wisdom arrives - Anders spits
out vehemently, clearly irritated - and they are often referred to as
geniuses these pop stars or what's worse they refer to themselves as geniuses in the past a genius was someone with
uncommon talent and inventiveness uncommon intelligence and abilities uncommon passion and energy an uncommon capacity for work today however a genius is one of these prefabricated
stars who has risen to the top of the market put together by the entertainment industry
with its teams of writers producers
and marketers simply put today a genius is someone who has the capacity to
sell hundreds of thousands if not millions of cds or sound files as the case may be - he says, the
displeasure showing on his face with another grimace - at the same time you
have all those postmodernist theorists and writers from the seventies and
eighties who called into question the so-called genius position but who are
themselves individuals of above average intelligence who wrote difficult and
complex texts and whose writings back in the nineties were religiously
regurgitated by ourselves and our grad student colleagues in academe and who disingenuously glossed over or
outright tried to erase the fact that there are individuals with unique
abilities in an attempt to breakdown
the high vs. low distinction distinctions that make some people feel
uncomfortable as if negating those
distinctions was going to make class differences automatically go away the fact remains that we each have our own
unique physical and mental characteristics
though my height was an
advantage to me in high school when I was in the basketball team i still wasn't much of a runner other
shorter players were a lot
faster than me i was never very good
at track and field and forget about
long distance running and though I
seem to have a knack for music and languages and a certain kind of analytical
thinking I was never very good at maths no matter how hard I worked at it while there were others in my class for
whom maths were an effortless matter
differences and distinctions are not necessarily bad things on the contrary they can be good things to
my mind differences and diversity are not something to be suppressed - he says
taking another swig from his glass - eventually all of those postmodern theories fell under
suspicion given that common sense tells us not all works of art are of equal
value to say that Karlheinz Stockhausen is one of
the great composers of the twentieth century and that his works are
revolutionary is not the same as saying that the music of some self-proclaimed genius
pop star is great and revolutionary just what is so revolutionary about commodity
music? on the contrary it
is the music of conformity to the capitalist
consumerist and class system - he emphasizes - and functions as a
vehicle of advertisement and propaganda for that system as such it is counter revolutionary it is reactionary! - he says angrily
looking around him catching Nadja and Danica making mocking faces at him to
which he responds by giving them the finger and to which they respond by
sticking their tongues out at him followed by giggles and more mocking faces to
which Anders responds again with the finger - we fart in your general direction
- Nadja says with a snooty expression on her face while affecting a French
accent which makes Anders and I burst into laughter - well there you go! - Nadja
exclaims - I haven't seen you two laugh in years and you - she says turning to me - i've
never seen you so miserable! what is
going on with you? is that what
reading all that boring philosophy and critical theory does to you? - well it's kind of long to explain - i respond
still shaking with laughter - well yes
I've heard a little bit of what you were telling Anders but you can't be
so serious all the time you need to
get out more and enjoy yourself live
a little and all that you know eat
drink fuck and be merry - she
says now putting on an upper class British accent and batting her eye lashes -
yeah well hedonism can get rather boring pretty quickly
too you know - i respond meekly - not if you're doing it with the right person mon
cher - she counters with a big grin on her face, winking and throwing me a kiss
- yeah you might be right about that
- i admit feeling self-conscious of my gloomy mood and raising my nearly empty
glass in her direction i say - prost! - this is echoed loudly by all in our
circle who, raising their glasses, shout out the toast - well - i continue
turning to Anders with a frown on my face - going back to what you were saying
about voice centered song lyrics and poetry
it may not be an either/or kind of situation it may be more complex than that i think - i say with a drawl - i mean the role of the subject in poetry or song lyrics or whatever i
mean i think the relation
between identity and agency is negotiable
interactive fluid although less so if at all
in what you call the
prefabricated music and pop stars the entertainment industry as you say
concocts or constructs with that i agree whole heartedly - i
stammer, slightly slurring my words - but i mean i think we all bring our unique baggage to this composers writers
poets some song writers . . . i
mean we're all people with a psychology a history a biography as are the readers or the
listeners as the case may be i mean
whatever self there is may be
the product of the relation between listener or reader and the writer or
composer set off by the power of presence or
contact as Jakobson would have it anyway - i stumble on - after a while most poetry i read now-a-days begins to
sound like a Hallmark greeting card to me . . . we're not only dealing with the
death of the author but it seems to me the reader kicked the bucket quite some
time ago too just who is this reader
really? your so-called average
person on the street? one thing I
found shocking over the years when I was teaching at the college was that many to not say most of my students didn't like
reading at all and were not even remotely familiar with major writers like
Shakespeare Cervantes Borges Whitman Joyce
Dickinson or Stein writers of
complex literature let alone
philosophy and critical theory . . . and you can forget about them being aware
of any writers from other cultures like Li Po Tagore or Chinua Achebe who are fairly
well known around the world - well - Nadja suddenly interjects - at the same
time taking into consideration how
alienated we all are and how alienating our society is i have difficulty seeing how such a
relationship is possible just what is
meant by the relation between writer and reader under such terribly atomizing
conditions in which the individual is apparently
completely erased subsumed into
absolute anonymity? it seems to me that the reader the theorists
and critics are referring to isn't your so-called average person on the street
but other writers other poets critics and theorists like themselves especially in academe you're talking about a very insular a very specialized and privileged group of
people most of whom are white males -
yeah i agree with that specially what you say about how alienating
our society is that is the cause of
most if not all
my woes the crisis I'm in . . . I think . . . - i
say tentatively - then again my ideas on the subject of literature have always
been horribly confused and my
knowledge of literary theory scant I've changed my mind several times over the
years about these issues a lot of that
stuff was written in the late sixties and early seventies long before i was born - i mumble
awkwardly and then continue - on the one hand you have people like Barthes Foucault and Derrida who if i understand them correctly when referring to the death of the author
are basically talking about modes of reading how to read a text without normalizing
the author's intentions adopting it would seem a more open ended approach to
interpreting a text one where an act
of reading is in effect one possible construction of the text not
getting stuck in one hermeneutic methodology as it were - i mutter catching my
breath - at the same time i wonder if there is a limit to how many different
readings one can have? - Nadja interjects again, cigarette in upturned hand while
rocking her crossed leg back and forth gently. The way she holds her cigarette
reminds me somewhat of photos i've seen of Hannah Arendt which makes me wonder
if Nadja is doing one of her parodic impersonations she used to do in our
student days. The fleeting smirk i suddenly see slip across her otherwise
serious face leads me to believe she is, which makes me smile facetiously as
she continues speaking - are texts infinitely open ended? are texts that flexible? and is the intention of an author really that
easy to dismiss? isn't the way a text is structured and the
writing strategies a writer chooses an
expression of the writer's intent? an
expression of her or his point of view?
of her aesthetics? i mean aesthetic decisions are made while
writing who's making those decisions?
and
who is affected by them while reading the text? and these questions apply to the texts of
the theorists and critics who talk about the death of the author as well are their texts that open ended? are their intentions that ambiguous? are they that open to multiple
interpretations? don't they actually
have a message or messages they are trying to convey? specific ideas that they are in fact
trying to get across to the reader?
aren't they indeed despite
claims to the contrary trying to
communicate with the reader? if
nothing else the idea that
communication is impossible or at best that the information conveyed is full of
noise and ambiguities? - Nadja asks with impatience - when referring to the contemporary novel of
his time for Barthes language writing
seemed to have been a kind of neutral medium in which the subject
dissolves as it were the subject
disappears in the act of writing in
the act of producing language an act
in which supposedly all identity is lost and the text is
therefore far from being a simple and direct expression of the writer's
interiority but hasn't this always
been the case? I mean were nineteenth century writers just
simply and directly expressing their feelings their points of view their
subjectivities through their novels? I think it is rather simplistic and
reductive to see their works as a mere outward manifestation of their
emotions I think there is some of that to be sure I
don't think that this is an either/or kind of situation as you have already
pointed out - she says looking at me - but this idea that a novel or poem as the case may be is a conduit devoid of any kind of noise for the novelist's emotions for the writer's so-called voice seems
simplistic at best when I read Jane
Austin or George Elliott or Flaubert
I don't just hear a
single distinct central voice I hear voices many
given that the self back then as it is regarded by many today was not a fixed thing but an ongoing
process in which the I the me changes often from moment to moment I think that writers back then were very
much aware of the unstable nature of the self - Nadja says taking a sip of
schnapps from a shot glass - in one of her poems Emily Dickinson says:
And something is odd - within -
That person that I was -
And this one - do not feel the same -
Could it be madness - this?
it seems to me Emily was very much aware that what we think
of as the self is not a fixed immutable thing
but something marked by change not a thing at all - she says
emphatically - the perception that I am a fixed thing a fixed entity in time is an effect of memory memory and how we picture ourselves in
our minds this representation of
ourselves we create in our mind's eye as it were
produces the illusion that the me is a stable structure in time but then again - Nadja says putting on her
mock high class British accent again - is memory something apart from the
self? couldn't the self be a process
that is aware of its being an ongoing process and that self-reflection where
the process as it were looks back on itself be what we are actually saying when we
talk about a self? which would take
us right back to the Cartesian cogito
wouldn't it? what I'm really
trying to say is that in a sense the self is fixed in as much as it
is an aspect of the process of change which itself seems to be permanent a kind of permanent impermanence if you
will - goodness Nadja! all of this is making me dizzy! i feel like we're going around in circles here
- i exclaim beginning to giggle again - I chase my tail therefore I am darling - Nadja says
grinning at me - you Cartesian dog! - Danica exclaims laughing which makes the
rest of us convulse with laughter again - that's Cartesian bitch to you! - Nadja
snaps back mockingly at Danica, the laughter irrupts again, and then, turning
to me Nadja says - they're just swirls darling a bit of turbulence that's all nothing to get upset about - she winks at
me and then continues in her normal voice - and yet despite
all the talk about the death of the author Barthes authorized everything he wrote by
putting his signature on it his
name his mark and all his books are
copyrighted just like Foucault and Derrida did and even Cage despite his claims
of removing the ego from the creative process if he was so egoless and free why did he put his mark on his works? why copyright them at all? there's an element of hypocrisy there don't you think? and of course these were all privileged white men why not do what U.G. Krishnamurti and Abby
Hoffman did with their publications which were not copyrighted allowing their readers to use their works
freely? but as you said I don't think it's an either/or situation
either there is an ambiguity in all
this which perhaps can be best
described as a kind of irregular or chaotic oscillation between both between a more centered voice and a
dispersal a refraction through language of that voice into many voices as Rimbaud once said Je est un autre
- Nadja states with a serious expression
on her face - not to mention that when we read we not only hear the writer's
voice or voices and the voices of the characters in a
novel but we also hear our own
voices - yeah I see what you mean I think I agree with that I've thought of all that before too - i
stutter clumsily, saliva dribbling down my chin while Anders watches me with a
smirk on his face, seemingly amused - but of course you have! - Nadja exclaims
playfully - but I thought about it first and am therefore the sole and rightful
owner of those thoughts! - she says pointing a finger at me admonishingly which
makes Anders and i begin laughing again - on the other hand - Nadja continues -
you have someone like Jameson who seems to have interpreted the death of the
author or rather the subject in quite literal terms where this death is seen as symptomatic of
the social changes brought on by neo liberalism and globalization and where the
individual as an autonomous entity has been pretty much erased terminated - i tend to agree with this
latter assessment - i say with some anxiety - mainly what you said about the
effects of neo-liberalism on society and how the individual has been
erased I believe I've experienced
this collapse into anonymity in my own flesh that was my whole point to begin with that's why i've been in such a gloomy state
- i mutter awkwardly again - at the same time I'm not entirely willing to dismiss
Barthes and the others' take on the death of the author . . . but all
along throughout the years what really seems to have died to me is the reader - i find myself repeating
- not the specialized reader in academe
which you've already mentioned
but the reader as the so-called common man your so-called average person in the
streets as you said - i mutter, again catching my breath and slurring my words
- did you mean Roman Jakobson the Russian linguist? the formalist theorist? - Anders asks with
marked interest - yeah if memory
serves it's been ages since i read
that stuff i'm feeling a tad blurry
right about now - Anders chuckles and says - ja you could never handle your drink very well
could you? - naw never been much of a
drinker really though i enjoy getting
a bit tipsy once in a while - i mutter back giggling softly - well you should smoke some hash it'll help you with that problem - he says
chuckling again - oh yeah! sure that's just what i need! - i say laughing
- if i smoke any of that shit i'll
collapse on the ground and fall asleep in a pool of my own vomit sounds wonderful! - well maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing! -
Anders counters chuckling - it would for me! - i chortle back and we both begin
shaking with laughter, after a while Anders says - anyway i've
always found it very curious how so many of my so-called avant-garde
friends my experimental writer
friends my poet friends many of whom regard themselves as
Marxists as revolutionaries are so prone to listening to commodity
music to so-called pop music and
have the tendency of shunning experimental music they're aware of its existence they're aware of avant-garde music and
know some of the names but they really don't listen to it or bother to study it
its history in any depth - yeah, I know - i respond blearily
- I've encountered that sort of thing too it may be that many don't really know how
to listen to music it's ok to write
difficult complex poetry of an
experimental nature that is challenging to read and requires considerable
effort and reflection and knowledge of poetics and critical theory but it's not ok to write difficult complex and challenging experimental
music that requires close listening and reflection in typical bourgeois fashion they make music into a kind of
stimulant their morning cup of
coffee they want music to be a kind
of background noise or sound track to their lives whose function it is to be
the consoler the way your typical
male chauvinist thinks a woman's place is barefoot in the kitchen cooking surrounded by children barely seen but not heard a mere servant in
the case of music heard but not
really listened to they put music in
a position of servitude a slave to
the image like you have in film
where the music is used to support the visual narrative and the actions or
whose function is often no more than ornamental I've experienced this sort of thing also
in collaborations I've had with a couple of visual artists music is always treated as a kind of
supplement to the image - i say with increasing intensity - music is always in
a servile position to the image it's
never the other way round they privilege
the image over music they privilege
sight over sound they privilege
seeing over listening where
looking the gaze watching
and therefore surveillance all
of this takes precedence over the
other senses keeping a distance from the world from reality and this distancing this
not getting involved intimately is
extended through the various technologies
cameras video monitors television what seems to me a completely paranoid
position - i utter with increasing agitation - whereas listening involves a
kind of tactility listening is a kind
of touching it involves physically feeling sound musicking is first and foremost an
embodied a carnal activity the
ear drum is an extension of our skin
if we are really listening that is
if we are really paying attention with full body and mind . . . listening touching
smelling and tasting are incarnate bodily experiences and therefore constitute
a more intimate connection with the world
the emphasis on the visual and
the privileging of sight over the other senses in our culture is akin to the privileging of the
abstract of the conceptual over
concrete materiality the concrete
materiality of the body and the
world reality - i mutter feeling
wobbly, slurring my words again. i see Nadja, Elise and Danica staring at me
wide eyed with big smiles on their faces and then looking at each other, they
break out into facetious giggles. Shaking my head i say - can't you three take
anything seriously? - of course not darling
no one can be as serious and profound as you two - Nadja counters
putting on her mock British accent again - you are the queens of seriousness
and deep thinking - she says - ja the dark queens of the deep - shouts
Danica, which makes both Anders and I shake with laughter again - fuck you - i
say with a dismissive gesture - you should be so lucky - retorts Elise glaring
at me and batting her eye lashes. After taking another sip of beer, i continue
- for several years I've thought of making a work in which this hierarchy this authoritarian structure in which the
visual is privileged over sound over listening is overturned inverted in which the visual elements are an
outgrowth are in fact generated by
the sounds themselves where the
data from the parameters of sound you
know frequency amplitude duration texture
timbre and all that control
the parameters of the video images such
as light color tint
the vertical and the horizontal
the graininess of the
images the pixel information generating them the juxtaposing and layering of images and
so on molding and shaping them
according to the music's structures
and the visual data can then be fed back into the sound parameters
creating a chaotic feedback loop producing a work in which sound and the visual
material are coextensive and affect each other in unpredictable ways - so what
happened with that it sounds
interesting - Anders asks - well - i
respond catching my breath - that was years ago i accumulated hours and hours of
video all kinds of stuff from the
natural environment as well as urban and industrial areas I also gathered a lot of sound recordings
from those places I began writing an
algorithm for computer generated sound synthesis and computer processing of
sounds as well as processing of video images where the video was controlled by
the data from the parameters of sound as i already described but one day I just stopped one day I just had to stop one day I just couldn't go on
anymore something happened something caved in I felt a collapse - i say gasping for air
- i just couldn't go on the more I
worked on it the more video footage
I gathered the more sounds I produced and recorded the more isolated I felt the more alienated I became from people including family and friends the more I felt I couldn't relate to them
anymore in fact they all began to
get on my nerves in a big way the
acts of filming and the deep close
listening required in recording sounds changed me it changed my perception somehow it changed how I experience the
world as if I had crossed through a
membrane between worlds . . . anyway I've
found that this hierarchical structure
the subservience of music to the image
is taken for granted by visual
artists I've never heard any of them question that authoritarian
order that hierarchy which is telling - i say again feeling
agitated - why do you think that is? - Anders asks - it's a glaring
contradiction a double thingy you know - i say mumbling sluggishly - ooo
la laaa! - i hear Nadja exclaim - we want to know about your double thingy! -
ja - Elise chimes in leaning over and looking at me with a big smile on her
face - tell us about your double thingy - i hear Danica and her friends
laughing in the background and then stammer - well what i meant to sssay . . . wasss . . . a
double . . . sssstandard - Nadja rolls her eyes and waving her hand
dismissively exclaims with emphasis - boooriiinnng everyone has one of those! - more than
one - adds Elise - ja the entire world is filled with those - i hear Danica say
laughing - oh shut up - i snap back feigning annoyance smiling at them and then
turning to Anders i continue - i don't know
maybe something like a schizoid
dissociative maneuver many of
my friends and acquaintances
writers poets people in the visual arts comparative literature theorists many of whom claim to be Marxists progressives and all that turn out to be counter revolutionary
reactionary shits when it comes to their musical aesthetics and they seem to be
completely unaware of their contradictions - i spit out with a demeaning tone
of voice - go figure there seems to
be a split there some kind of
division a gap a . . . a . . . gaping crack or wound or
something . . . over the years it's
become apparent to me that in many
cases people's musical aesthetics is
revelatory I mean it reveals their true politics where they really stand ideologically and
more often than not it has nothing to
do with who they claim to be politically when they find themselves in social situations
say among friends and colleagues - i
mutter again sluggishly. The waitress has returned to our bunch of tables and
stands next to Nadja talking with her. i raise my almost empty glass which she
sees and acknowledges with a nod and a smile and after taking refill requests
from nearly everybody in our group, she quickly pivots around and briskly walks
away toward the bar - it seems to me - i start again leaning over in Anders'
direction - that all of what music appeared to promise as asserted several decades ago by Attali
in that book of his we all read so avidly
you know the subversive and
transformative power of music and all that has not really come to fruition I think that vision arose from what
happened in the sixties where it
appeared a change of consciousness was taking place and that society was
undergoing a widespread transformation and that transformation seemed to be
encoded in the popular music of that time
you know the Beatles the Stones Dylan
Hendrix but all of those
hopes were dashed in the seventies when it became apparent that those changes
were always already taking place on the stage set owned and manipulated by capital and all of
that music was assimilated and commodified and turned into a mere simulacrum of
rebellion i mean a kind of mystification
of the sixties of what happened in
the sixties a belief based on that
mystification the dream of
liberation which never really got actualized - i pause briefly gasping for air
and then continue - and at the same time
all of this was accompanied by the backlash against the various
emancipatory political movements that arose in the sixties a backlash we've seen unfold over the
decades up to our present time
why even back then in the
sixties just what did they mean by society? whose society? that transformation may have taken place
somewhat in some Western European countries and the U.S. but at the same time
terrible things were happening abroad
the war in Vietnam the
various U.S. backed right wing dictatorships in South America Asia
Africa the Middle East all backed by Western powers none of those changes that were supposedly
happening in some Western countries changed any of that nor did they stem the rise of totalitarian
capitalism the rise of globalization in fact
I would argue that much of that music has become an accomplice to the
rise of globalization and neo-liberalism and the ensuing standardization of
music has contributed to the erasure of local expressions of music in cultures
around the world whose traditional musical practices have been displaced or
outright replaced by western pop music or music modelled after western pop
music - of course - Anders picks up again - it has gotten to the point where none
of this may really matter anymore the
conquest has been so thorough and so brutally leveling that fighting back criticizing arguing against the system any
act of rebellion falls flat on its
face gets spectacularized rebellion is commodified and sold back to
the rebels as in music videos it comes across as parody you're allowed to say anything you want
because it doesn't matter it doesn't
change anything even
the intelligentsia seems to have capitulated and retreated into their ivory
towers even as they put out an
occasional publication which is interesting only to their peers for
the culture at large has little or no interest at all in any of that stuff and
looks upon them or I should say us academics with increasing suspicion those towers I'm afraid may soon come crashing down to the ground
the way things are going - he says with a sardonic smirk on his face - the bar
has been lowered so much on all levels in our society our culture morally
politically
intellectually aesthetically and so on few if any at all care to know anything
about all these issues you're talking about
let alone what you mentioned earlier
the role the function of art
in our world today or even if art
does have a function or for that
matter if it has a legitimate reason
to exist in this our consumer driven society
our consumer driven lives where art has been replaced by the products
of the entertainment industry we are
living in a time where values have completely disintegrated where
commodities products converse in place of people in an
increasingly impoverished language
all of which seems to me to be evidence of the end of aesthetic codes as
Attali put it in that book of his we used to read back in our student days -
Anders says with a sneer - still I'm
not ready to dismiss academe and throw in the garbage all their works even
if as you've said those works end up being mere academic
exercises that don't have any readily apparent practical value and don't
connect with the rest of society there still may be something to learn from
them even if the general populace has
nothing but disdain for them the
masses have been wrong before in the past
and have done terrible
but art I mean especially politicized art seems to be condemned to a certain
harmlessness in part due to excessive
explanation it's been explained
away people become inured to it by
all those boring explanations and being lectured at being talked down to by people like me -
she says giggling self-consciously and taking another sip of schnapps - and in
part due to it having always remained in the margins which it can't leave if it is to maintain a
critical distance from mainstream culture where it would become formalized and
ritualized packaged into a museum
piece and then discarded ignored and thus neutralized tamed - Anders smiles and shrugs and
begins blowing smoke rings into the air. Danica sticks her tongue out at him
and then makes a loud farting sound at him all of which elicits a guffaw from
Anders who then shrugs again and continues blowing smoke rings - and
creativity! just what does that mean
in this day and age where everything is derivative repetitive! a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy! the idea of creativity is itself derivative a nineteenth century notion as is the idea of the new! - i exclaim
again annoyed - we've been through all that already as I've already said the arts have failed us miserably art was supposed to change our minds it was supposed to bring about a radical
change of consciousness it was
supposed to teach us how to think and perceive in different ways for a long time we searched for the new
sound and soon arrived at a point where it seemed new sounds new timbres had been exhausted but this is always from the point of view
of a doer who acts upon an objective world that is seen as separate from him or
herself the doer the observer who is in reality an integral part of that
world an aspect of that world - i say
tiredly catching my breath - back in the eighties Nono
Berio and Lachenmann were already saying this that the new sound the unfamiliar sound was no longer
possible and that all that was left us was to work on the grammar of music work on finding different and new ways of
structuring the materials of music
but maybe it's time not so much for a new sound but a new listening it is time for the listener to do the
changing from within without expecting something or someone to force that
change upon her or him from the outside as it were we have to do the work ourselves in ourselves instead of waiting for someone or
something to do that work for us it is
the listening and the listener who are old for we have hardened crystalized into hardened personalities into
things hardened egos whose senses have
become blunted as if covered over by dead skin scar tissue we've become completely covered over by
scar tissue - i say with exasperation while slowly sinking in my chair - our
entire minds our entire bodies covered over by scar tissue we live in a cocoon of scar tissue - i say
breathing heavily - I mean for a
long time we thought that by changing the sounds this would change our listening change our minds our so-called insides our consciousness but this requires that we the observers change
deeply wha' I mean is we want the world around us the world outside as we like to say to change according to our desires our wants
but never do we think of changing ourselves we've become calcified assimilated into the walls of a maze like coral growth we've become assimilated into the walls of a
labyrinth that extends in all directions
radiating outward from our cities and towns like a cancer growth consuming
nature and replacing it with our calcareous growths wha' I meant to say is we've become stiff settled in our views and habits it is our senses our listening that are old not necessarily the sounds we hear - i say
feeling wobbly, slurring my words - the sound of a violin or a piano those very familiar sounds may sound utterly new if our senses were changed if our senses were somehow renewed if we could listen to them as if for the
first time wha' I'm really trying to
say is that for a long time we thought that by making new sounds finding new sounds new and different timbres this would change our listening and this
would lead to a radical change of consciousness but those new sounds soon became old once
they were internalized by our hardened egos
with their repetitive habits
once those sounds became part of our memory's repertoire of things to
hear - i mutter with increasing exasperation and unease - we want the world
outside as we are wont to say to change for us while we remain unchanged crystalized into a collection of habits we want the world outside as we are in the habit of saying to change but we don't want to look at the entire
structure of our minds which have
calcified we don't want to do any
changing ourselves we are utterly
selfish - i say nervously feeling a panic attack rising which begins to
restrict my breathing - the whole world is a mass of fortifications and embattlements
and each individual if they can truly
be called that is a mass of
fortifications and defense mechanisms - i say fidgeting nervously with my hands
- none of us are truly willing to change ourselves from the inside out to really look at the entire structure of
our minds our habits our motivations and change all that we always want the world outside to change
for us who are unwilling to change ourselves from within we are unwilling to adapt ourselves to the
so-called world outside but we want the so-called world outside to
adapt itself to our so-called insides
to our so-called world inside
we always want the so-called world outside to adapt itself to us and our
desires our whims and if it doesn't if it resists we force it we bulldoze it we pave it over we turn it into a projection of ourselves of our insides we try to force the world to adjust to our
ideals to our beliefs to the images we create in our minds and so
live in constant conflict with the world and ourselves but more often than not the world life
the universe is indifferent to our desires - i say meekly struggling to
breath - I mean back in the
eighties when I was a child Berio
Nono and Lachenmann were saying this
they were already saying new sounds are impossible and that we need to
focus our attention on the grammar of music
how compositions are organized
it's been decades since then and here we are in the midst of an
unfolding catastrophe made by ourselves - i say weakly feeling wobbly again -
this catastrophe in the making is our real true composition or decomposition if you prefer we are in the middle of a catastrophe in
the making and all you can think about is art?
there won't be any art if we
don't have a livable planet! - i somehow manage to exclaim - putting ourselves
into our work our so-called artistic
work at this point in the current context is tantamount to
burying our heads in the sand it's
utter selfishness yet another distraction more
escapism a different kind of action
is needed! - and what action would that be? - Anders retorts - well that is the question isn't it I just don't know maybe one that requires we put our lives on
the line how many of us do you think
are willing to do that? - i ask snidely - we may have to fight to save our
world - i stutter angrily - but that would lead to more destruction - Anders
answers back -
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left, aloof
in the dust
of so much
the rest can't
help themselves
shattering
alone on a roof top
at last
the least of which
begins to laugh
que lo parió,
la sputum mother!
we are who we say
we aren't,
blatantly balbuceando
a diver searches for,
come chingones
soplando la huella
de la my troka,
hashtag fans my,
discos readily apparent
where hope is
beside the point,
at the same time
escuchando la rola
what you are talking about
hablando de la nada
by the sounds failing
suppose that what not;
knots of discontent were
as if by dreams an intent,
staring in horror and
then again, some more
every day, you're
all the same, with a firm
grip, sonrisa metafora
what i means to tell you
is not necessarily the same
immersed in becoming
a babbling
by the sounds falling la huella se disipa dyspeptic speaking of which it
sounds very a lot of fun is often a whole lot of no more than rationalizations swerving by far more skeletons
in the shade embracing too late for
contact tracing the closet door now slamming shut flings us back to normal moving us forth
into amnesia did the poet laureate mentioned the war
criminals who sat behind her squinting in the sun ensconced in a comforting sea of expensive
suits and fancy dresses washing their hands minds
and faces are there no hinges on which to hinge on synecdoche cascading in the me again the thingliness of solid darkness where
the we here with
no more as soon as we call it in
us deep furrowed frowns i
keep going on like this around in circles repeating myself for fear of having the
act of into a moment are not the as a
kind where other complex connect possible includes an into laterally
exchanged disrupts us in the each sedimented seemingly primarily the babbling the
brain text pulsating with its own extraneous
turbubabulence tangentially bleeding
into
i hear an opens again gently folds the entire it the sand scribbling to burst the that is of itself over upon it no longer a gleaming even linking and in able to a stranger reading shards saying of it through meanings consuming myself nothing wants for broken light and that art mumbling to listening the darkness wanting waving translucent then curtained the edge the door long piss back to an array can say that again you my apricot from over back from about that the and walk to i take a walk with the door ok i i mumble back lands am an infinite smashing shrubs it's a long unfathomable in the cold each telling every word talking about a wobbly picture splits into a sense of highway days are aspects with a border plus this from over back from about that world shifting gently describe a bout from over back from about that every word crossing out a world suppose knots of as if staring then every all the same what i is not immersed in by the is often embracing moving us in squinting hands again i can to see of these and of the by the sound of an everyone while whispers am i able all in the into my darkness a vast into the stars listening to of the that to the in the it is only looking at last the last not about but a bout an about face without orders that disorders into off course an ebullient turbubabulence
the void folds itself over from outside according to spacing itself from a there is which is now snow the entire it upon it plus this with a light made anticipation stranger beneath forgotten it is that in the sand no longer eyes stars further patterns on and into swarming enfolded laterally exchanged text scribbling a gleaming world passing like that the tide after choked me up me up from ready to burst reading shards shifting etched in a skin that i only myself into by the thought constructed ears saying of it knowing gently and describe abouts of disorders that splatter sense of a site even through meanings of the while which i try articulation scratching for the intro the never linking consuming primarily discourse non-sense fixed in and in moment seemingly bleeding not even and in myself not myself orders that scatter what's it where? can't really beneath my being able to bridge a gap where there is not what but just passing over which passes an about face a stranger begotten reality speaking are aspects of that unknown and breath alternating a bout the that is its non-fixed surface hook up areas with a border splits into two which makes it so much forested of which and between which also stretches across a sense of sight cascading on deeply furrowed lands my final destination where words form me on rainy highway days a dam constructed dot dot dot am i words? am i worlds? a loving luminosity that pervades everything even the darkness in an infinite sea forming sentences writhing what to write what wobbly picture is i about? the wind smashing my agony nothing wants for i escapes into obscurity bemoaning a moon for the sake of shrubs twist me into broken light beneath awnings and trellises talking about the and of course it's inevitable and that art embodies a frown on my face every word crossing a world for a long time it has lost its stop briefly to catch my dreaming i'm a corpse buried six feet under snug in my coffin mumbling to myself so as not to see my surroundings the solid darkness that engulfs me mumbling and listening listening and mumbling by turns listening to the mumblings of others like me ensconced in the darkness their voices perdendosi . . . perdendosi . . . into the cold unfathomable blackness the voices of young and old women children and men muttering each telling themselves their stories each listening to my stories and the stories of others in the unending darkness the the the that the this that the is the it upon which the is upon which the succumbing to the this the that can't remember which and and in what order that which this signifies disappearing behind an endless fence made of its disappearing behind an infinite fence made of ises can't remember which an ongoing horizon alternating shifting horizons the sand the text scribbling me
i hear a knock at the door. The sound of distant traffic reaches my ears. The knock comes again, the door opens and i hear Anders say - hey man it's almost noon do you want some coffee? - yeah ok - i mumble barely audible with closed eyes - how are you feeling? - Anders asks - i don't know - i mumble back again. i hear Anders chuckle - i've got breakfast ready in the kitchen if you want some - i hear the door close gently. After a few minutes i stretch my body, open my eyes tentatively and lying on my side stare at the curtained windows across from me. The translucent curtains gently filter the incoming light. i slowly sit up on the edge of the bed rubbing my eyes and then notice i have a splitting headache. i get up slowly and walk to the door, open it and step into the hallway. i then amble down the hallway to the bathroom where i take a long piss and then standing at the sink, begin splashing cold water on my face. After drying my face i walk back to my room and put some clean clothes on and head for the kitchen. Anders is sitting at the table with an array of food stuffs laid out before him. i see a coffee pot, mugs, plates with slices of aged Gouda cheese, and roggebrood, a butter dish and a jar each of apricot marmalade and strawberry preserves. i also see the bottle of pain killers he gave me last night before i went to sleep. i immediately reach for the painkillers and sitting down, open the bottle and take out a couple pills which i then wash down with a few mouthfuls of strong black coffee - I thought you might need those - Anders says chuckling - you really tied one on last night - you can say that again - i mutter back softly, wincing from the pain in my head. i take a slice of roggebrood, my favorite Netherlands bread, my favorite bread ever, and begin applying butter to it after which i dab apricot marmalade on it with a spoon and immediately stuff it into my mouth. Still chewing, i take another drink from my coffee mug - I was thinking about what you said yesterday about the supremacy of the visual over sound over listening in our culture - Anders says - yes? what about it? did I say that? - i answer back while still munching on the slice of roggebrood with marmalade - well - Anders says after taking a sip from his coffee - I seem to recall in Attali's book Noise in the chapter called Composition that he talks about the technology of recording images as one of the soon to be main technologies of composition he felt that this new technology the recording of images would become an essential tool for composition - yeah well - i mumble back - he wrote that book back in the late seventies he had no idea what direction technology was really going to take no one that I know of back then anticipated the development of the internet laptops and cell phones . . . why? do you believe what he said about music being able to anticipate developments in society? that music has a premonitory function in society? - he said that music was once again functioning in a premonitory way - Anders continues - that it foreshadowed a mutation in technology as evidenced in the expanding proliferation of new musical instruments like your various electric instruments of that time which he compared to the development of new instruments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries predating the industrial revolution your synthesizers tape machines electronic studios and the growing use of computers to generate music and so on and that the herald of this mutation was the recording of images which he saw as eventually becoming one of the essential technologies for composition despite the fact that the recording of images was still a tool for stockpiling and repetition - Anders pauses to take another drink from his coffee - it still is - i mutter back with skepticism after taking another bite from my roggebrood slice and then continue with a bulging cheek - the technology of recording images your ever ubiquitous digital cameras phone cameras and so on has multiplied the stockpiling and repetition to a degree such that it's suffocating we are buried in a flurry of images bombarded from all directions through the various media especially so-called social media I think what's really going on is that we are burying ourselves alive in useless information we have been doing this for a very long time actually - my attention returns to my marmalade covered slice of roggebrood as Anders says - he thought that the new technology would allow people to transition from being mere passive consumers to becoming more active producers of what they listen to and would derive just as much satisfaction from the process of manufacturing itself as from the object produced he felt that the new emerging technology would find it's true usage in the production by the consumer herself of the final object - Anders pauses and lights one of his hand rolled cigarettes and then continues - in his conception of composition Attali envisioned a different political economy he said that production blends with consumption and that the stockpiling of labor which simulates sacrifice is replaced by the investment of violence in the act of doing as opposed to channeling it into an object in this manner violence is no longer channeled into sacrifice it is no longer a threat as it was in repetition it no longer mirrors itself in representation each person then assumes the imaginary and violence individually through the pleasure of making creating constructing and in this situation each person can dream up his or her own criteria in this manner time is liberated by composition it is lived time not stockpiled it is measured by the magnitude of the time lived by people which takes the place of time stockpiled in the commodity - all that sounds great on paper as they say but has that really happened? it may have happened with a very small group of individuals like ourselves but which remain utterly marginalized - i say with skepticism, abruptly interrupting Anders' monologue after which he continues unabated, mechanically - he saw most of commodity production changing to the making of tools which would allow people to create the conditions for taking pleasure in the act of composing he felt that the essential usage of the image recorder was in the private use of the manufacture of the consumer's own gaze upon the world and more importantly upon his or her self-directed gaze and the self-pleasure this brings as I seem to recall Attali himself saying Narcissus after Echo eroticism as an appropriation of the body - to a degree he was right - i answer back with a shrug - I mean isn't this what has happened with cell phones and the profusion of selfies? and people posting their selfies online everywhere in social media and so on? I'm not so sure that's such a good thing though that it has had such a liberatory function as Attali seemed to think it would have I mean what's so great about all that? the consumer has become an active participant in the spectacle the society of the spectacle as Debord would have it where he or she the consumer is completely subsumed absorbed into the society of the spectacle that doesn't strike me as liberating at all more so considering that a lot of what is being produced is imitation of the stuff your pop stars are already doing which itself is derivative in other words they are reproducing what is always already in the system the entertainment industry which is a limit cycle and are thus participating in the economy of repetition and stockpiling that the technology of recording images according to Attali was supposed to liberate us from all I'm seeing really is that the technology permits the average person on the street to play at being a pop star their fifteen minutes of fame as Warhol put it while keeping him or her stuck in place in the class system in the production consumption machine while leading them to believe they're exercising some kind of freedom it creates the illusion of empowerment an illusion that perpetually postpones the real thing - i say snidely turning my attention to the aged gouda and then continue - it seems to me that the body and the mind for that matter have been caged imprisoned in the grid of the production/consumption machinery and mutilated by that grid as has the subject the subject and his body sacrificed to the production/consumption machinery the consumer is the ultimate object of consumption snagged and mangled by the machine's gear wheels devoured by the system the body and whatever interiority it may have has been neutralized and de-realized in the virtual realm . . . by the virtual realm and therefore rendered socially and politically impotent while at the same time the subject is hypnotized by his own products he or she sees posted in the media the subject is hypnotized by its own gaze in fact the ultimate self-surveillance whose ultimate effect is paralysis we may be seeing that depersonalization and derealization you talked about last night but on a massive scale it seems to me that the body is lost rather than appropriated by the consumer turned producer abstracted in the realm of virtual reality the flesh replaced by a digital representation we've all been replaced by avatars . . . maybe that's not such a bad thing though maybe that's one way to recover some of our privacy by going completely anonymous masked by our digital representations - i mutter as i bite into a slice of roggebrood and cheese - but as Debord said somewhere the spectacle's domination has succeeded in raising entire generations molded to its laws ourselves included I mean this idea of Attali's composition turns out to have been overly optimistic it seems to me naive even this notion in which people will begin to compose for themselves and shift from being mere consumers to being producers which to some extent has occurred given that digital technologies have made the production of music easily possible for those who don't know how to play an instrument and it has made it possible for people to record their own music and affordable and able to distribute it online but the fact still remains that overwhelmingly most people in our society today are consumers of music rather than producers rather than composers - well - Anders cuts in - but as you know there is an international group of musicians performers and composers who gather informally to create music a kind of nomadic crowd producing nonidiomatic music largely improvised using computers and analogue synthesizers in combination with traditional instruments as well as new instruments some of the composers and performers build themselves they operate locally in local venues as well as globally using video conferencing and have created an international network this has been going on for quite some time now for several decades in fact you and I have participated in this sort of thing ourselves - well yes that's true - i utter back now chewing on a slice of roggebrood with butter and strawberry preserves - but not only are they a small minority in the world they are also largely if not totally marginalized what they do has not been accepted in society at large it has not had the great transformational and liberatory effect Attali predicted it may have a liberatory effect on those few musicians who practice this informal kind of music you are referring to but it seems to me that society at large is mostly indifferent to it if it is aware of it at all most of these musicians who practice this sort of musicking have receded into anonymity they hide in anonymity and share their work which remains largely in the fringes mostly with other composers and musicians like themselves most people most consumers are completely overpowered by commodity music by consumerism by the products the entertainment industry forces on them through the various media you said this yourself last night at the Grote Markt in fact their entire lives their sense of identity is completely dependent on consumerism their sense of self and their self-esteem is completely dependent on what they buy and own and this serves an existential an ontological function it provides meaning and purpose the way religion used to in centuries past - i say dabbing more strawberry preserves on what's left of my slice of roggebrood - that's just scratching the surface - Anders says - well isn't that what we're always doing? - i mutter back, as i chew on a new slice of roggebrood, this time with aged Gouda on top - I mean just when we think we've got something figured out there's another surface below or behind that one it's like a fucking onion man - i say, my cheek bulging with a mouth full of bread and cheese - the surfaces the layers never end man - i hear Anders groan as he rolls his eyes while i take another drink of coffee - are you saying there is no objective reality no cold hard facts? - he asks visibly irritated - that is a cold hard fact - i retort amused - reality is layer upon layer of surfaces man just when you think you understood it something else shows up or . . . uh . . . surfaces as it were - i say giggling lightly as i stare intently at what's left of my slice of roggebrood - something that eluded our perception our imaginations maybe your scratch is deeper than mine but it's still just a scratch - i say distractedly while dabbing some butter on another slice of roggebrood - man this roggebrood is sooo good I can't get enough of it - i say with enthusiasm licking my fingers while anticipating putting a layer of strawberry preserves on it - well no - Anders answers - what I'm trying to say is not as hopeless as the things you were saying last night - I didn't say that the situation is hopeless although that may very well be the case - i answer back - what I said is that hoping is hopeless the act of hoping is obsolete to continue hoping is a waste of time and energy a different kind of action is needed - i utter while licking my lips and dabbing strawberry preserves on my piece of roggebrood after which i continue with vehemence - it seems to me that now I mean today in this day and age this age of totalitarian capitalism and its attendant absolute nihilism and the fanatic consumerism with which people try to compensate for the emptiness brought on by that nihilism which is an existential an ontological problem an embodiment problem where the body has been sacrificed to the system it seems to me that if there is to be music I mean if one is to write music a kind of music that takes a critical position vis a vis absolutist capitalism and its entertainment machinery and a music that is authentic meaning one that truly arises from us the people as opposed to being merely the product of conditioning and imposed from above by the entertainment industry if there is to be any such music at all silence must be the most important aspect of it a music that is made up primarily of silence and incompleteness consisting also of unfulfilled gestures gestures which are discontinuous out of context a music made up largely of absence this silence this absence is the most important aspect of it the most expressive aspect of it its refusal to say anything in a sea of meaninglessness and utterly boring expressions like those produced by the entertainment industry - i now bite into my piece of roggebrood relishing the combined taste of bread, butter and preserves and then continue speaking obsessively while still chewing - it must be arid stripped of its usual expressivity I mean expression in the traditional sense as in the so-called classical tradition and it's modernist reaction the avant-garde etc. as well as the kinds of expressions or expressive clichés one hears on a daily basis in the products of the pop music machinery the utterly boring and mind-numbing ocean of inanities one is exposed to through the various media on a daily basis arid aridity is the word I'm thinking of music must be desert-like barren with very little to offer at least in terms of the old habits of listening and thinking are concerned the constant repetition that keeps us from learning anything new keeping the listener stuck in a psycho-emotional limit cycle - but to a great extent that's already been done - Anders says in a matter-of-fact tone of voice looking me in the face - you could say Feldman Cage and Lachenmann have already made silence and absence part of their musical aesthetic - yes well I was getting to that - i answer back still munching on my slice of roggebrood with strawberry preserves - the problem with all that music is that it is still about art with capital "A" it's artsy it's still about status and saving face about competition about winning and being right and this is especially true in academe it's still about mastery it’s romantic in the sense that it is heroic and all the nastiness and violence that comes with heroism we need a music that is not afraid of falling flat on its face a music that is not afraid of making a fool of itself a music that is not about mastery and saving appearances - i mutter under my breath eyeing the apricot marmalade - this reminds me of the relation between resistance and creation Agamben or possibly Deleuze can't remember which spoke about somewhere - Anders says - I like what he or possibly they said about potential and impotential - yes? what did they say what did they mean by that? - i ask taking another drink of coffee - according to Deleuze or possibly Agamben can't remember which there is something in each act of creation that opposes and resists expression - Anders says between puffs from his cigarette which he then sets down in an ashtray - either Agamben or Deleuze or possibly both said that to resist etymologically means to hold down to stop to stop oneself this power that stops or withholds potential in its movement toward the act is impotential - he says emphatically as he serves himself another cup of extra strong coffee - the potential not-to possibly Deleuze or Agamben said that impotential the potential not-to is the power that stops or withholds potential in its movement toward the act Agamben or Deleuze can't remember which or possibly both said the act of creation is a field of forces that stretches between impotential and potential acting and resisting being-able-to and being able-not-to - Anders says now taking a slice of roggebrood and dabbing it with butter and marmalade - either Deleuze or Agamben said we human beings are capable of having mastery of our potential but only through our impotential can we have access to it though because of this in the end there is no mastery over potential and being an artist means being at the mercy of one's own impotential - oh cut the crap man! creation! creativity! blah dih blah dih blah! - i spit out annoyed - as I said before the whole idea of creation and creativity is highly problematic it seems to me all we can do anymore is take the materials we already have at our disposal in our society our so-called culture and rearrange them perhaps in collage-like fashion recontextualize them and thus change their significance their meaning did they really use that worn out and loaded over romanticized word when they talked about art? I can't believe they were so naive - i say again annoyed and then pick up Anders' hashish laced cigarette and take a long drag from it after which i place it back in the ashtray - be careful with that! - Anders exclaims - you're going to make yourself sick again! - i shrug and then continue - I can't believe you still believe all those myths about art and creativity we were raised on what people care about today is buying stuff and being part of the machine that tells them to buy stuff it serves an ontological function it has replaced the ontological function religions and other spiritual practices once had it's really a kind of secondary satisfaction - i say biting into another piece of roggebrood and apricot marmalade - it's an attempt to find substitutes for a primary satisfaction of wholeness which we somehow lost and which left a large hole in its place it's an attempt to recreate a state of undivided consciousness an attempt to recuperate the primary satisfaction of unity with our environment with the earth with the cosmos itself - i utter with difficulty while chewing my roggebrood with marmalade - all of our culture is a form of substitute satisfaction an attempt to console ourselves for the loss of kinesthetic wholeness the loss of primary unity we once had with the world - or that's some sentimental false nostalgia for a time and a state of being that never really was - retorts Anders taking another drag from his cigarette - yeah well maybe you're right - i answer back feeling lightheaded - in any case going back to music it must be reticent a stuttering music in a very real sense the unmusical the malformed the fragmented the broken that which doesn't work that which functions poorly is most relevant here because it doesn't readily lend itself to being assimilated and used by the system - but for how long can one sustain this? - Anders asks - well I don't know - i answer back already feeling high and beginning to giggle - I mean no one can live in a perpetual state of resistance a perpetual state of combativeness - i say between giggles - I mean I can't you burn out - yeah - Anders cuts in beginning to laugh - that's why I've been telling you to take a break - what are you talking about - i exclaim laughing out loud - I've been on break for a long time now! for years! I stopped composing I stopped writing I hardly ever listen to music I haven't read much of anything for years I try watching films but I fall asleep in the middle I find it hard to suspend disbelief it all seems so obvious to me so transparent none of all that helps me deal with the grief I've been feeling seeing year after year decade after decade the barbarism of egocentricity and the I's the me's compulsion to impose itself on the world the brutality of power and all the senseless wars the slow death of our world about which most of us don't do anything I'm seeing death everywhere there won't be any art any music if we don't have a livable planet what I find highly problematic truly disturbing is this existence in which we can't change anything we're not allowed to there no longer are any transformational poetic experiences the arts have lost their critical confrontational power nor are there any truly satisfactory political experiences either people have become inured to what imprisons them they find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism they can't imagine the end of what oppresses them they dare not all of which leads to a generalized state of existential boredom a kind of calm before the storm - i say giggling nervously, licking marmalade from my fingers -
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