Support
Looper's Delight
|
Support |
|
|
Well... The anthropologist is me hehe...well, honours degree level anyway. I am doing a practical project on implementing live-looping in my percussion setup but since I have found myself in the ethnomusicology department I'm sort of building bridges. Trying to keep to the loopy concept of the project and still comment on society, technology, identity and the like. Since my my research is largely self-analysis,documenting the learning progress produces a strange dilemma. The participant-observer researcher who finds himself researching himself...as "I" am my main informant. one finds oneself in a feedback of reference since I am referencing my own ideas and thoughts on learning etc.. Very strange. So this is where branch off into perception of the self and consiousness manifested in the form of a feedback loop. Douglas Hofstadter has new book entitled "I am a strange loop" and he goes into this quite deeply.His best seller, Godel, escher, bach has ben captivating me. Really indepth look at feedback loops in every sense. As an anthropologist "Identity" is such a large discourse and I just think its fascinated to explore identity in relation to a feedback loop. how much of this I will do i this essay is still up in the air, but I did find a great book called y Cultural Software J. M. Balkin Yale University Press 1998 Online version at website at http://www.balkin.com He goes into theories of culture using the metaphor of software. Us being endowed with "toolmaking tools" and this being a basis for his theories of conflict and other anthropology type discouses mainly related to Ideology and everything surrounding the conceptions of that.Got some great stuff with regards to self reference in there. . "Feedback Processes: An Investigation Into Non-linear Electronic Music." Master's thesis, Middlesex University. URL http://knut.klingt.org/docs/Knut%20Aufermann%20MA%20Sonic%20Arts.pdf. pdf. Another paper I found has got some good feedback loop philosophy. What if consiousness manifested itself as a feedback loop? exciting metaphorical realm for a poet or commentator but also for the hardcore cognitive scientist. One friend of mine described it rather well when he said "so your trying to write a very technical thesis but you have fallen in love with metaphor" Feedback, delay, Live, Looping are great root words to go on a metaphorical tangent with. In steve reichs 'three tales' he says that our "fall from grace" or "exit from eden" was because he was to hasty in eating the apple. But there were three options he could have chosen. Either the grape, fig or wheat, the text didnt specify the apple. The grape representing altered consiousness, the fig representing sexual relations and wheat representing that seed and root of all technology. If he had not been so hasty the text says that he would have broken bread and drunk the wine and had his marital relations at the designated time for doing so but because he way so hasty....etc. If he had used a tad bit of delay :) It is interesting that wheat is representative of technology because since the industrial revolution most wheat has been so tampered with that it is now close to being simply classified a poison hat assaults our endocrine system. And our body is a sacred site of positve and negative feedback loops. highly processed wheat causes the endocrine system to be out of balance. and balancing the feedback loops is the art of the healer in many respects. rambling a bit....but its still in the making. but it does relate to that question of whether technological advancement is for the betterment of art or not. Big, big discourse that with purists of different sorts. We have many anti amplication types around but it is a valid question to dissect. Is technological advancement for the betterment of music or is it leading it down the road to becoming simply "product". In this respect live loopers really are untiing traditional performance aesthetics with the height of technological advancement for the betterment of music! hence the excitement in my making these metaphorical connections. Just add delay man, some really fancy expensive delay. I'd be very interested in what you do find in your procrastination time. Feedback is so integral to the creation of this particular text. Byron On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 5:22 PM, stevenguerrero <mesquamacus@yahoo.com> wrote: > Who is this anthropologist you speak of? I happen to > have a BA in anthro...intersted in reading this I am. > I'm currently not pursuing anthro further, so... no > need to fear for stolen ideas. > > I'm off to google things about it now. Thanks for > giving me something to avoid work with! > > > > --- Byron Howell <howell.byron@gmail.com> wrote: > > > ...Been exploring the > > > concepts of > > self-reference and the feedback loop nature of the > > world as related to an > > anthropologist investigating technology as a > > phenomenon in music/society > > etc...thin thread connecting it to live-looping but > > such is academia. > > Anyway..looking forward to reading your work. > > > > Byrono > > > www.myspace.com/mesqua > www.reverbnation.com/stevenguerrero > > > > >____________________________________________________________________________________ > > Be a better friend, newshound, and > know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. >http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ > >