Towards an Inhuman Critique of Represent

-4- -5- Welcome to the 2014 NOW now festival. This is the zine. It is a small publication we have put together that extends some of the ideas explored on the stage a festival that embraces blurry distinctions between sound, music and art. A festival that looks at and in the gallery at this festival to the written page. how sound generates meaning through interaction, how the sonic arts can be both physical and eqpegrvwcn"cpf"jqy"ctvkuvu"etgcvg"pgy"oqfgnu"cpf"tgeqpÝiwtcvkqpu"qh"vjg"yqtnf"yg"nkxg"kp"vjtqwij" the NOW now has been and continues to be many things: a celebration of exploratory, experimental, vjgkt"ctvkuvke"rtcevkeg0"Yjcv"uvctvgf"cu"c"hguvkxcn"qh"urqpvcpgqwu"owuke"cpf"gzrgtkogpvcn"Ýno"jcu" (insert growing list of generic descriptors here) music and sound, a concert series, a festival, an become a festival of arts with a sonic focus. exchange of ideas, a “discourse about and throughout the music”1 and a community. It is a space where a multitude of individuals have come together to form a commonality, one that embraces This zine brings together 11 contributions from 11 distinctive voices. In itself, this zine is inherently both exchange and dissent. It is a space in which collective authorship and collective organisation sonic and begs the questions: what constitutes a sound work? Do sonic works start with the brain are integral and vital to the mode in which events are presented. This is an organisation that is and or the ear? Is it sound if it is imagined? We asked the contributors to consider such questions and always has been artist run, an organisation that falls in and out of favor with the funding powers to explore sound as a conceptual idea and to ask, what do the sonic arts reveal that others don’t? that be, yet continues to present the mind-blowing artistic output of a community of dedicated The responses are varied and provocative and they extend the discursive element of the festival, practitioners. proposing ideas of a political, social and aesthetic nature to be taken up after and during the event, in vjg"ugv"dtgcmu."qxgt"c"ncvg"pkijv"dggt"cv"vjg"Vqypkg"qt"oqtpkpi"eq♭gg"cv"Cffkuqp"Tf"octmgvu0" Within these pages and throughout this festival, you will come across numerous voices and perspectives. You will be part of a celebration of discourse and dialogue and part of the community We hope that this festival will continue to be a celebration of sound, art and community. It is our that this multiplicity of voices engenders. Through its continual evolution of personnel and its intent that it will interrogate and question the nature of this art that we are involved in, that it evolving curatorial focus, it becomes apparent that this is a community with a multitude of histories, will continue to provoke discourse and discussion amongst artists, audiences and critics alike and narratives and trajectories. Generic genre descriptors appear and disappear, trying to keep up with that it will continue to present a multiplicity of artistic narratives. What you will see and hear are the changing directions and interests of the artistic community this organisation embodies. At works created from the sound of our worlds and the implications that those worlds hold: politically, times these threads are complementary, at other times, contradictory. The one constant is that this materially, socially and historically. Simultaneously, you will see and hear the modeling of imagined community has continued to evolve: its focus shifting and re-shifting as new blood has taken on yqtnfu."vjg"tgeqpÝiwtcvkqp"qh"uqekgv{"vjtqwij"uqwpf"cpf"ctv."vjg"etgcvkqp"qh"rquukdknkvkgu0" the challenge of facilitating and organising events. In 2014, you will see/hear music, sound works, kpuvcnncvkqpu."fkuewuukqpu."vjku"¦kpg."ukvg"urgekÝe"rgthqtocpegu"cpf"c"itqwr"ujqy0""[qw"yknn"cnuq"ugg" 1 Ben Byrne, 2013 NOW now festival zine

-6- -7- Ulrich. We are all of us surrounded by fields equally as we are those fields that surround us. Yew Grotesques, preceded by try i bark and wild horses think of nothing else the sea, is the last in a series of books written by Patrick Farmer. It was written during his sporadic trips to the Lake Fkuvtkev"kp"Ewodtkc"yjgtgwrqp"jg"uvc{gf"kp"c"nqi"ecdkp"cpf"ycvejgf"cu"ocp{"Nwku"Dw‚wgn"Ýnou"cu"jg" could. The book concerns itself with listening. With that so-called act, as myriad as veins and weak as steam. The characters, all previously existent in works of East European literature, fall upon each other in their willingness to embrace their own ideals. Tumbling like water from open mouths comes the premise that; just as one would hear with one's body, one can only listen with one's history. Yew Grotesques will be published late 2014. Konrad. If it’s all the same to you my dear… this is all dry hay and sore cod fucking. Whenever we speak of field bats fly right out! A huge pile of shit flies out! A pile that dwarves the field. The field solely responsible for such stink! And yet.. is also surrounded by it. Why can we not piss over fields in silence! Comprehend your meadow, your speciality, a cage full of babbling and spitting nomenclatures, coiled and naked, as a pit of festering concupiscence that never the less has no lock. As you can see, they come and go as they please. Settembrini. Though remember, there is no one employed or capable of cleaning up the shit! Konrad. Well quite, but at least we can smell their faeces. We can fling it, but this, field… the… Aegean stables; exist in a world where our man was laid waste at the singing foot, and was, would you believe, never mucked out. Settembrini. The man was never mucked out? Konrad. And the smell was endless! It plies us with our inherited certainty. We think thinking, it is not our job to speak a thought that has no real empirical counterpart.

-8- -9- Ulrich. Show me a world that only exists. Konrad. What do your sirens sound like, in there… are they cheap? Konrad. Eh? Ulrich. If it were only possible, I would remain this way until I drop. Ulrich. It seems to me that this field, whatever it means or is to you my tempestuous little existence, would have us dismantling all elements of linguistic dichotomy, creating language a new, bereft of the word, language, indeed! A work of madness and love that is as impossible to imagine as death. That at its height would reconfigure, would render impossible such giants as anatomy, physiology, continents, the atmosphere, worms! Field and paradox are giants in their own right, enormous figures, bellowing at their own undoing. Konrad. Would that it were so. Konrad. What was it that Schwob used to say, my little fig? Tell our dear friend here, let’s push his plumb a little. Settembrini. Those among them who are merry sometimes turn their behinds toward the sky and cast their excrement in the face of other men… Konrad. That would be you, my sweet rupture. Settembrini. …then they strike their own bellies lightly. Ulrich. Your cochlea must be trembling like a telegraph pole. In sweats of delight do I receive you my sweet lime. Like the Narcissus I must now plunge my fingers in my ears, and finally know peace. Talos. But why field? Konrad. Boy! You aching aching boy! Have you grown tired of your circles? Ulrich. It has always existed in containment and plays at being containing, playing both sides against themselves, civilisation and nature, those feckless misanthropes, just like our friend here, who perhaps I should call a misomaniac eh? Konrad. I believe the word you’re looking for, you ironic hell of a mouth, is logomisia… Ulrich. You really are quite beautiful my friend. Going to such trouble to uncover a word just to shroud your inconvenience. Talos. Ulrich? Ulrich. Yes. Quite, my apologies. You see, it promotes, thrives even, in continuity, and hides behind the confusion it has created. A

- 10 - thing that, during its escape from us, as we forever forget, is actually a perfect refutation of what it has come to stand for and so is a suitable template for what we are dreaming to achieve… it already exists! But; it will always whimper in our own voice that it does not, cannot, breathe. And so we will continue to create yet more interpretations, as we are doing here, nonemore-so than in the abundance of more movement to add to that which infinitely moves, copy upon copy that is always our reality, the only reality, slightly slipping and slipping and slipping until… And there, underneath, is the heart; a field of poppies. Konrad. Delightful. You could even make me think Sisyphus was happy. Open this would you? Ulrich. What are you passing me? Konrad. Tautological luncheon meat. Settembrini. We must keep our trousers from getting too wet gentlemen. We must all make regular trips to toilet. Just look. Field is so very red, there is one just outside our window, connected to others via an intricate series of boundary trees and methodical chance. Vitus. You would next have us believe that the sky was full of sound! You are nothing but an empty lump of body my boy, and our ears dance to your nothingness. Each one of those holes you might call teeth, that help, what a word to use here, to form the words that contain those letters that somehow make up the words in some kind of a gargantuan, hurtful sequence, they - 11 - form, when they fall out of your mouth! And what a noise they make when they hit the ground! They are parts of that ground, you see, just look at it, all you need is a partner who does not know any better, to partake in this rutting idea of a soiree. Not getting it? Down Down Down Down Down. You remind me of the sounds of a disgruntled, or perhaps he’s terribly happy, who knows, sparrow, having had to peck the semen of another, out of his mate, and knowing he will full well have to do it again. Look at him, just sat there, his face all crackly. Settembrini. Nocturnal butter churners send a puffball inwards to staunch the tears, catching alight, it quiets the bees. Konrad. Hideous! Battery hen vernacular! Death in the gills! Conceived in the mine! Ulrich. You’re not wearing anything on your feet? Konrad. I’m cursed by my lack of imagination. Ulrich. We’ll see to that. You see this door? Konrad. Ever so. Ulrich. Exactly. And two hours from now. Konrad. Who’s to say? I had an inactive youth you see.

- 12 - - 13 - Ulrich. They didn’t move to pass you by? But you can’t show me. Konrad. I couldn’t stop moving to give them a chance. Or to know I even existed, I suppose. Ulrich. No. Ulrich. You’re spoiling me. Konrad. Your door reminds me of getting old. Ulrich. Being. Always being. Do you hear that? Konrad. Never. Ulrich. Well, why don’t you have a look at me having heard it? Konrad. Heard what? Ulrich. I can’t see it to show you. Konrad. But you can hear it. Ulrich. Yes. Konrad. Konrad. Because you can’t see it. Ulrich. Yes. Konrad. Can you hear it now? Ulrich. No. Konrad. Then what does it matter? Ulrich. It matters all the more now I can’t hear it. It’s louder than ever. Oh, infinite detail! Pitches of friction. I am endless gratitude. Konrad. You’re not listening to me! Ulrich. I can’t simply turn it on and off! Inevitable though. I’m not even listening to myself if that’s the case. Konrad. What are you?

- 14 - Ulrich. Trying, that’s it for now. Vitus. And insular, horrifying! Konrad. Give me a hand with this would you? Vitus. This is the matter. What have we in our hands? Konrad. We are undoing for it to die. This head in all our hands, this head that has nothing, moving from idea to idea, waves within waves of soil as soil churns in the bodily world, the bodily word, the world of ideas, the ear is one of many attentions, one of many illegitimate offspring. Parts of ourselves drowning ourselves in part. Vitus. You promised to record yourself whistling and dancing at me! Konrad. Now you suddenly remember? You asked me to document my mad dreams, you said, you’d thought about, your mad branches and my mad dreams, mad stumps, mad frost, sat on a stump covered in frost covered in madness dashed with frost and the hardened ground. Settembrini. I haven’t cleaned my ears in months. - 15 -

- 16 - - 17 - some point, the limited political potential of a niche practice linked to the avant-garde tradition became clear. This was one of the key elements for the dissolution of the Scratch Orchestra,3 and why people like Cornelius Cardew stopped improvising and became members of the Communist Party of England.4 To speak of the product is to suppose that a result of human activity appears cu"Ýpkujgf"kp"tgncvkqp"vq"cpqvjgt"tguwnv." or amongst other results. We should not proceed from the product, but from activity. In communism, human activity ku"kpÝpkvg"dgecwug"kv"ku"kpfkxkukdng0"Kv" has concrete or abstract results, but these results are never “products”, for that would raise the question of their appropriation or of their transfer under some given mode. —Théorie Communiste, SelfOrganisation Is the First Act of the Revolution; It Then Becomes an Obstacle Which the Revolution Has to Overcome We could see improvisation as a type of music making that takes activity as a starting rqkpv"tcvjgt"vjcp"hqewukpi"qp"c"Ýpcn"rtqfwev0" Improvised practices anticipate some of the problems in regard to their appropriation— especially if we take into account its collaborative nature and the way it deals with the relationship between the self and the collective. With this text I intend to look at urgekÝe"eqppgevkqpu"dgvyggp"kortqxkucvkqp" and communisation in order to reconsider the notion of freedom in improvisation today and its potential to generate a collective agency beyond individual expressions. How can improvisation be a “praxis of freedom” in conditions of unfreedom? Currently, improvisation and the type of subjectivity it proposes has more in common with contemporary capitalism than ever before, through its emphasis on risk taking, adapting quickly to unexpected situations, selfcuuwtcpeg"kp"fk♪ewnv"ukvwcvkqpu."cpf"eqokpi" wr"ykvj"fk♭gtgpv"crrtqcejgu"cpf"godtcekpi" a constant sense of fragility and crisis.1 Free improvisation emerged in the ’60s in Europe and the United States out of free jazz and modern classical music and is supposed to be without idioms, rules, or hierarchies between the players, as opposed to the relationship between performer and composer. Its production and reception happens simultaneously without any preparation phase. Because of this, it was thought that improvisation could challenge its own eqooqfkÝecvkqp"oqtg"vjcp"cp{"qvjgt" type of music making. In those times, culture was breaking away from bourgeois values, and there was the possibility of a revolution in the atmosphere. In the ’60s improvisers linked these qualities to a radical political potential,2 but at Let’s take a look at some of the similarities between the communisation discussed by Théorie Communiste and improvisation: for both are against the notion of prescriptive programs, emphasize activity rather than product, question representation, and strive toward unmediated social relations. Both perspectives challenge property relations by proposing a collective human activity beyond the capitalist subject–object relationship. I am aware of the problems of bringing together an artistic practice and a revolutionary theoretical work, but we also have to take into account the kind of political questions and engagements that improvisation has been going through since the ’60s. Théorie Communiste’s theories around communisation resonate with certain aspects of improvisation, while also problematizing and questioning improvisation’s agency today. By learning from these theories we could reinject the political awareness that was once more present around improvisation but this time, without its utopian connotations. Communisation, as used here, is the production of communism by the abolition of all capitalist social relations and the mediations that they entail: commodity, exchange, class, property, divisions of labor, the State, wage labor, and gender relations, as we understand them today. Communisation is the revolutionary process that abolishes these forms as part of the logic of the revolutionary process and the expansion of the revolution. To take into account the ideas of communisation would mean to understand improvisation neither as a form of prescription qt"rtgÝiwtcvkqp."pqt"cu"cp"gzgornct{"xcpiwctf" of activity in the present. This is precisely the opposite of improvisation as it is historically understood by the people who have theorized it as the praxis of freedom in the present. The Instability of Improvisation Kh"yg"ecp"urgcm"qh"kpÝpkvg"jwocp" activity in communism, it is because the capitalist mode of production already allows us to see—albeit contradictorily and not as a “good side”—human activity cu"c"eqpvkpwqwu"inqdcn"uqekcn"Þwz."cpf" the “general intellect” or the “collective worker” as the dominant force of production. —Théorie Communiste, “Communisation in the Present Tense” Improvisation by itself might not directly question property relations but it does pose some crucial problems—for example, with regard to intellectual property. In the United States, if you want to copyright an improvisation with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), you have to transcribe all the material to music scores (keep in mind the level of abstraction in improvised music) and divide up the ascription of authorship. For example, if the group is a trio, you have to credit 33.3 percent to each member. This conceptual problem points out the contradictions behind intellectual property and its necessity for authorship and the divisions of labor. Improvisation takes activity as its starting point, but it is a self-negating activity

- 18 - in that it tries to constantly undermine its own conventions. The language of improvisation is cnuq"fk♭gtgpv"htqo"qvjgt"ctv"rtcevkegu"vjcv"pggf" vq"tgn{"qp"vgtou"uwej"cu"uvcdknkv{."Ýzkv{."ctvyqtm." piece, and project, which inevitably presuppose an author behind the work, and a product of the work, however elusive these might be. These terms envisage an enclosed framework where there is a projection of what the work will look like, or become. This resembles a transitional mode of production, which communisation is opposed to. Instead, improvisation tries to abolish hierarchies and divisions by repudiating scores and the notion of the composer. Tony Conrad has written about his collaborative improvisations with Marian Zazeela, La Monte Young, and John Cale, between 1963 and 1965—particularly that in contrast to other types of music, what they wanted to do “was to dispense with the score, and thereby with the authoritarian trappings of composition, but to retain cultural production in music as an activity.”5Improvisation, by emphasizing activity as radical performativity—as collective extreme attention to the last instance in which every moment can change the state of things— also proposes an anti-programmatic approach that questions moments of mediation. It does not have any transitional moment before its realization (rehearsal, composition, or preparation); its realization is immanent to its production, and there are no distinct stages in between the two. Historically, improvisation has also been very conscious about its own eqooqfkÝecvkqp0"Cv"vjg"dgikppkpi"qh"vjg"3;92u." Cornelius Cardew talked about the impossibility of improvisation being recorded: “improvisation ku"kp"vjg"rtgugpv."kvu"g♭gevu"okijv"nkxg"qp"vjg" souls of the participants, both active and passive (i.e. audience) but in its concrete form it is gone forever from the moment that it occurs, nor did it have any previous existence before the moment that it occurred, so neither is there any historical reference available.”6 What one hears about most in improvisation is an implied sense of agency and self-containment, which is extremely questionable today as an alternativist perspective. For example, Conrad, with Dream Syndicate, conceived of what they were doing cu"c"rtciocvke"cevkxkv{"vjcv"ikxgu"itcvkÝecvkqp" in the realization of the moment.9 From a eqpvgorqtct{"rgturgevkxg."Dtweg"Twuugnn"iqgu" much further when he frames his Improvised Sound Work (ISW) as an autonomous creative praxis that could generate forms of consciousness that are counter-ideological and anticapitalist.8 Writing on the Situationist practices of the dérive and détournement, he explains: “The virtue of these practices depends on the form of consciousness that they engender; the aim was to produce a new type of person to inhabit a new society. I believe that these same uwdlgevkxg"g♭gevu"okijv"hqnnqy"htqo"vjg"cwfkq" art practices of ISW, arising from the invention of a new medium. In particular these practices are anti-hierarchical, networked, improvised cpf"nkokvgf"vq"vjg"Ýgnf"qh"tguvtkevgf"rtqfwevkqp." acting like Debord’s anti-Spectacular cinema as an immanent critique of culture itself.”9 Under today’s conditions, the claim that improvisation has a critical purchase over capitalism and can produce autonomous moments that are counter-ideological not only seems to feed the idea of this practice as a self-satisfying avant-garde niche, but could also be seen an act of self-investment in the form of cultural capital. We have to take into account that improvisation is also complicit with the culture industry like any - 19 - other type of music making, through concerts, tgeqtfu."hguvkxcnu."cpf"ocic¦kpgu0"Tcvjgt"vjcp" fetishizing its claims on producing unmediated experiences, improvisation should question its own mediations both by looking at the informal habits and rules that has developed through the years and their relations to present material conditions. Communisation Vjgtg"ku"pqvjkpi"vq"c♪to"kp"vjg" capitalist class relation; no autonomy, no alternative, no outside, no secession. —Endnotes, “What Are We to Do?” Today, ultra-left political groups have diverse ways of dealing with the notion of communisation. The term has been around for a very long time and has become more developed by ultra-leftist Frenchpolitical groups in the wake of May ’68. There are two main strands that take the politics of the Situationist groups as a starting point but then diverge greatly. One perspective is theorized by the post-structuralist kpÞwgpegf"oknkgw"ctqwpf"Vksswp"cpf"vjg" Invisible Committee: they strive toward direct action and exodus, and want to start the process of communisation right now by seceding from society. Their insurrectionist approach contains residues of the post-Heideggerian critique of technology. This strand is strongly criticized by groups like Théorie Communiste, Endnotes, Dncwocejgp"cpf"Tk♭"Tc♭.10 who deem this approach to be, what they call, an “alternativist perspective.” Théorie Communiste’s emergence kp"vjg"3;92u"kp"Htcpeg"ujqygf"vjg"kpÞwgpeg"qh" Louis Althusser, and thus are more structuralist and less utopian and moralistic than Tiqqun and the Invisible Committee. With a refreshing dose of antihumanism, they strongly question the possibility of subjective agency and do not claim that secession from society is possible. Théorie Communiste take a close look at the fk♭gtgpv"ejcpigu"kp"ecrkvcnkuo."cu"ygnn"cu"vjg" struggles against it, and make assessments in understanding what the revolution of today could be. Less suggestive and more descriptive, Théorie Communiste are very careful to not to prescribe how the revolution should proceed as this would bring back “programmatism.” In their analysis of the failures of previous revolutions, Théorie Communiste has come to the realization that previous workingclass movements did not abolish themselves as workers nor did they destroy the valueform,11"dgecwug"vjgkt"cigpfc"ycu"vq"c♪to"ncdqt." not to abolish it along with capital. Théorie Communiste calls this kind of politics programmatism.12 They claim that capitalism was never seriously challenged by it, and that the historical moment of programmatism has long since passed. For them, programmatism refers to any ideology that proposes measures to be taken for and after the revolution. Here you can think of unions, parties, and organizations that embrace the identity of the workers. It also refers to ideologies that prescribe a vtcpukvkqpcn"rtqitco."uwej"cu"Ýtuv"igvvkpi"vjg" means of production and then you take the State and gradually you achieve the results of the revolution, or those ideologies that put forward demands for better wages and work conditions. According to Théorie Communiste, the end of programmatism came about with the capitalist recuperation of the struggles of the ’60s and ’92u."gurgekcnn{"yjgp"uqog"qh"vjg"fgocpfu" made by the Autonomia movement in Italy (like breaking away from Fordist rigidity) helped

- 20 - to shape the strain of neoliberalism we have today. “Ugnh/qticpkucvkqp"ku"vjg"Ýtuv"cev"qh"vjg" revolution; it then becomes an obstacle which the revolution has to overcome”: this subtitle from their booklet synthesizes the problem pgcvn{0"Cp{"rtgÝiwtcvkqp"qh"jqy"c"rquvecrkvcnkuv" society might look gets neutralized, absorbed, and valorized, thus helping capitalism to overcome its own internal contradictions. This is even more acute for artists when we have internalized the law of value in our brains to such a point that even if we do not know exactly what we are doing; we can already speculate on rqvgpvkcn"xcnwg"kp"kvu"fk♭gtgpv"hqtou"*ewnvwtcn." experiential, economical). By now it is clear that we cannot anticipate the revolution by having an agenda. We will have to improvise, as we really do not know what the world would look like without value-form. Under today’u"Ýpcpekcn"ecrkvcn."vjg"tqng" of the worker is losing prominence. As Michael Hudson argues, the circuit no longer appears as money-commodity-money but money-money,13 which means that that the proletariat is no longer as important for the creation of value as it once was. We also have the production of a surplus population, which cannot be integrated into the circuit of commodity production. The process of individuation and fragmentation that capitalism is generating through debt also helps to annul the programmatist view that we can strive toward the revolution (and ultimately communism) through a process of the appropriation of the means of production. Under this rubric we can also take Théorie Communiste’s theory as a strong critique of the notion of the commons. Often, the discussion of the commons resembles the alternativist perspective, as if it was a possible to have an ongoing balance between private property and the commons. As Karl Marx, chvgt"Fcxkf"Tkectfq."ujqyu"wu<"“The subjective essence of private property, private property as activity for itself, as subject, as person, is labor.”14 Following this, Théorie Communiste’s reply to the commons argument would be that unless you abolish labor and the valueform of capitalism completely, they will keep reproducing themselves. The abolition of the value-form would also imply a process of self-abolition, as our subjectivity—as we conceive it today—is, to a great degree, produced by capitalism. This is not pessimism or a catastrophic perspective, but a realist one that comes from an analysis of the failures of previous class struggles. There is no ethical or responsible way of dealing with capitalism. Taking into account Endnote’s quote above, we cannot assert ourselves positively under today’s conditions, and, without abolishing the valueform, we cannot abolish property. Periodisation Another key term to understanding Théorie Communiste’s work is their use of the notion of periodisation.15 According to them we are living kp"urgekÝe"jkuvqtkecn"vkogu"kp"ecrkvcnkuo."yjkej" makes the alternativist and programmatist position obsolete. This historical rupture emerges from the distinctions between what Marx called “formal and real subsumption,” and, oqtg"urgekÝecnn{."yjcv"vjg{"vgto"vjg"“secondphase of real subsumption” in the ’60s and ’92u0" In his drafts for Capital."Octz"fk♭gtgpvkcvgu" formal subsumption, in which capitalism appropriates old forms of production and integrates them into the circuits of capital, - 21 - from real subsumption, which no longer relies solely on labor processes but also produces the conditions for it through technological innovation and the social organization of labor. In real subsumption, capital no longer formally subsumes labor into its valorization process, but reshapes the whole process entirely for its own interests. In this process, the reproduction of the proletariat and the reproduction of capital become increasingly interlocked. Through real subsumption, capital “integrates the two circuits (of the reproduction of labour-power and the reproduction of capital) as the selfreproduction (and self-presupposition) of the class relation itself.”16 Debt accelerates this process in a feedback loop, a cannibalizing un-reproductive process where“we only create value for capital through the extraction of our debt (which is to say, we create no value—not because of massive, if unorganized, waves of defaults and bubble deflations, but because that’s not where value comes from).”17 Currently, this neverending abstraction of capitalism is reaching a universality that we have never seen before. However, today this is done negatively through the increase of debt, which is shaking the labor theory of value. That is, labor is expressed in value, and the measurement of labor duration is expressed in the magnitude of the value of the product. The traditional understanding of commodity fetishism—as the inversion where humans are dominated by the results of their own activity— might well be translated today as the notion that humans are dominated by the needs of their own self-investment. This clearly goes in hand with Théorie Communiste’s understanding of real subsumption as ever-evolving and always in crisis: “The real subsumption of labour (and thus of society) under capital is by its nature cnyc{u"wpÝpkujgf. It is in the nature of real subsumption to reach points of rupture because real subsumption overdetermines vjg"etkuku"qh"ecrkvcn"cu"cp"wpÝpkujgf"swcnkv{"qh" capitalist society.”18 These are two key assertions: (1) that the reproduction of the proletariat is linked increasingly with the reproduction of ecrkvcnkuo."cpf."*4+"vjg"wpÝpkujgf"swcnkv{"qh" real subsumption, which constantly pushes the expansion of capitalism, questions our personal and collective agency more than ever. Dwv."qwt"qyp"eqooqfkÝecvkqp"ku"pqv"qpn{" happening at the supra-personal level (sociocultural and economical), but also at the infra-personal level. As with the eqooqfkÝecvkqp"qh"eqpuekqwupguu."jkuvqtkecn" materialism meets eliminative materialism. Jqygxgt."vjg"rjknquqrjgt"Tc{"Dtcuukgt"ocmgu" urgent the necessity of agency, even if we would need to reconsider what the self is. Brassier expands on private conversation: “The point is that the manufacturing of consciousness and hence of selfhood—i.e. the objectivization of subjectivity—can only be challenged via a correlative objectivation of subjectivity; one that reinscribes the latter in the objective realm but as a pivot between reason-less processes and conceptual norms: rationality is a collectively instantiated and distributed capacity which can be funneled into agential vectors at crucial sensitive points—the point at which an intervention is required—only insofar the constitution of an agent is not subordinated to the activity of a self or group of selves.”19

- 22 - Negative Improvisation Arika, an organization in Scotland that has dggp"rtqfwekpi"gzrgtkogpvcn"owuke."Ýno."cpf" art events since 2001, has become increasingly wary of the supposedly self-inherent critical potential of improvisation and experimental music in general. They rightly claim that music is not just music and that is always a product of rich and complex social philosophical, political, and economic factors. Some of their ideas point toward this negative improvisation in the sense that they not only question how the notion qh"xcnwg"jcu"rtqfwegf"c"urgekÝe"eqpvgzv."dwv" cnuq"jqy"qwt"qyp"rtqeguu"qh"uwdlgevkÝecvkqp" is part of this valorization. In order to counter this, they suggest artists should “cultivate processes of uncreativity so as to guard against the production of selves as commodities. […] Actions that seem to lack in any artistry whatsoever: uncreativity, unoriginality, illegibility, appropriation, plagiarism, fraud, vjghv."cpf"hcnukÝecvkqp"cu"{qwt"ctv"qt"{qwt" own province and precepts; information management, databasing, and extreme process as methodologies; and boredom, valuelessness, and nutritionlessness as an ethos.”20 Following non-philosopher François Laruelle, Jarrod Fowler is a musician and scientist who extremized Arika’s suggestions even before they were formulated.21 Scheduled to perform cv"vjg"Ýpcn"eqpegtv"qh"CtkmcÓu"Mknn"[qwt"Vkokf" Notion festival in Dundee, Scotland (2010), Fowler did not disclose his methods either before or during the festival. On the day of vjg"Ýpcn"eqpegtv."Hqyngt"uvtwem"jkougnh"htqo" the event by suspending spatiotemporal conditions of performance, while inconsistently maintaing attendance as a member of the general audience. Thus, Fowler’s performance was a non-performance. My guess is that many audience members were entirely unaware of the non-performance. However, for the attendees who were aware, the non-performance opened a can of worms. Fowler drastically undermined not only concert conventions, but also himself as a performer—he did not provide concert-goers with sounds, but instead with his identical absence and presence. From traditional improvisation, this does not give much to experience: perhaps ambient and bodily sounds, or an anecdote that one might share with friends. However, Fowler’s nonperformance expands improvisation, and directly and radically questions equivalent forms of value.22 While Fowler’s non-performance may be problematic in its accessibility and risks descent into obscurantism, his strike challenged established roles of performer and audience, and brought fragility to the situation—both in terms of the organizers and the audience—while proposing alternate methods for hypothesizing about what experimental music production might mean today. Artists or musicians engaged in negative improvisation deal in the dialectical process between being human capital on the one hand, and being a subject on the other. This functions in a similar way to communisation’s insistence on abolishing identities in the world qh"ecrkvcn"kpuvgcf"qh"tgÝpkpi"vjgo0"Vjku"pgicvkxg" improvisation is no longer based on individual freedom; rather it is based on a questioning of freedom while also reconsidering what individuality and collectivity could be. All this is being done while subverting the artist’s role as a musician or improviser (i.e., no longer being a specialist). Following Brassier, if improvisation wants to claim some agency it will need to: (1) - 23 - distinguish agency from selfhood; (2) distinguish rational “hetero-autonomy” from freedom in the spontaneist/libertarian sense; (3) materialize cognitive labor in such a way as to expose the eqooqfkÝecvkqp"qh"koocvgtkcn"ncdqt023 First published on the book Undoing Property? Improvisers embody the precarious qualities of contemporary labor—both in their practice and in their everyday life. The question would be how to incorporate them into a practice of improvisation Vjcpmu"vq"Octkpc"Xkujokfv."Cpvjqp{"Kngu."Tc{"Dtcuukgt." Edited by Marysia Lewandowska and Laurel Ptak Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2013 This version has been updated with corrections by Jarrod Fowler Liam Sprod, Marysia Lewandowska, and Laurel Ptak for their comments and suggestions. 1 For a detailed argument on the connections between that could materialize our anxieties. Today, our crisis is not only an economic one but also a cultural one. If there is a practice that should acknowledge this, and be able to take this crisis as potential in its extreme fragility, it is improvisation. Out of this it will need to generate a form of agency that goes beyond the improviser’s self. It could resemble the general intellect that Théorie Communiste mentions, but one that it constantly questions its own parameters and undermines its own conventions without shying away from confrontation. Tcvjgt"vjcp"gzrgtkogpvkpi"ykvj"kpuvtwogpvu" it would be experimenting with our own selves, material conditions and broader social relations. This negative improvisation would accelerate situations to the point of mirroring our impossibilities and our limitations by producing situations where one is confronted with the negativity of our times. Out of this negativity this improvisation will try to generate a form agency that would link freedom with collective rationality rather than with individual expression. improvisation and contemporary capitalism see Matthieu Saladin, ÐRqkpvu"qh"Tgukuvcpeg"cpf"Etkvkekuo"kp"Htgg"Kortqxkucvkqp<" Tgoctmu"qp"c"Owukecn"Rtcevkeg and Some Economic Transformations,” in Noise & Capitalism, eds. Anthony Iles and Mattin (Donostia: Arteleku Audiolab, 2009); available for download at http://www.arteleku.net/audiolab/ noise_capitalism.pdf 2"Htgfgtke"T¦gyumk."c"ogodgt"qh"Musica Elettronica Viva *c"itqwr"hqtogf"kp"Tqog"kp"3;88"vjcv"eqpegkxgf"owuke" as a collective, collaborative process, with improvisation and live electronic instruments), puts it neatly: “Free music was not merely a fashion of the times, and not merely a form of entertainment. It was also felt to be connected with the many political movements that at that time set out to change the world—in this case, to free the world from the tyranny of outdated traditional forms.” Htgfgtke"T¦gyumk."ÐNkvvng"Dcpiu<"C"Pkjknkuv"Vjgqt{"qh" Improvisation,” in Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, eds. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner (New York: Continuum, 2004), 268. 3 The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental music ensemble with an emphasis on improvisation. No musicianship was necessary and anybody could join. It was formed in 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Rctuqpu."cpf"Jqyctf"Umgorvqp."cpf"gpfgf"kp"3;96" mainly because of political disagreements between Anti-Copyright fk♭gtgpv"hcevkqpu"vjcv"fgxgnqrgf"kp"vjg"itqwr0"Vjg" Cardew’s Ideological Group was more inclined toward party politics, while the Slippery Merchants had more of cp"ctvkuvke"cpf"cpctejke"crrtqcej0"Jcppg"DqgpkuejÓu"3;93"

- 24 - - 25 - Ýno"Journey to the North Pole documents some of the 14 Karl Marx, “Third Manuscript: Private Property and discussions and tensions that emerged in the orchestra. Labor,” available from http://www.marxists.org/archive/ marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm 4 As Anthony Iles mentioned to me while reading this text, they did not want to be thought as “softies” or “hippies,” 15 For a critical account on periodisation see “The History so they went for the most authoritarian branch of leftist of Subsumption,” Endnotes 2 (April 2010), http:// politics at the time! endnotes.org.uk/articles/6 5 Tony Conrad, “LYssophobia: On Four Violins,” in Audio 16 Ibid. Culture, 316. 39 Marina Vishmidt in exchange with Neil Gray, 6 Cornelius Cardew, “Towards an Ethic of Improvisation” “The Economy of Abolition/Abolition of the *3;93+."kp"Cornelius Cardew (1936–1981): A Reader, ed. Economy,” Variant 42 (Winter 2011), http://www.variant. Edwin Prévost (Harlow: Copula Press, 2008), 126. org.uk/42texts/EconomyofAbolition.html 9 Conrad, “LYssophobia.” 18 Théorie Communiste, “Théorie Communiste Tgurqpfu.Ñ Aufheben 13 (2005). 8"Dtweg"Twuugnn."ÐGzrnqfkpi"vjg"Cvoqurjgtg<"Tgcnk¦kpi" vjg"Tgxqnwvkqpct{"Rqvgpvkcn"qh"Òvjg"Ncuv"Uvtggv"Uqpi.ÓÑ" 19Tc{"Dtcuukgt"kp"cp"g/ockn"vq"vjg"cwvjqt."Hgdtwct{"42350 in Reverberations: The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Politics of Noise, eds. Michael Goddard, Benjamin 20 Arika and Glasgow Open School, “Collective Manifesto Halligan, and Paul Hegarty (London: Continuum, 2012), Attempt 1,” handed out at Instal 10 in Glasgow, 2010. 245. 21 Fowler runs the website http://www.nonmusicology. 9 Ibid., 252. com. Since 2010, Fowler, in collaboration with Masafumi Ezaki, Kieran Daly, Moe Kamura, Taku Unami, etc., has 10 Vjfiqtkg"Eqoowpkuvg."Gpfpqvgu."Tk♭"Tc♭."cpf" “performed-without-performation” indistinguishable Blaumachen publish Sic – International Journal for non-musical experiments in Japan, France, Norway, and Communisation. See http://sic.communisation.net the United States. 11 “For Marx, the value-form is an expression of the 22 Benedict Seymour points out the connections between dual character of labour in capitalism—its character vjgug"v{rgu"qh"rtcevkegu"cpf"Ýevkvkqwu"ecrkvcn0"Kp"qrrqukvkqp" as concrete labour appearing in the use-value of the to previous improvisational practices, Fowler makes commodity, and its character as abstract labour appearing you aware of today’s crisis. The point then would be in the value-form.” “Communisation and Value-Form how to take it further in a collective way. See Benedict Theory,” Endnotes 2 (April 2010), http://endnotes.org. Seymour, “Short Circuits: Finance, Feedback, and uk/articles/4 Culture,” Mute 3, no. 1 (July 2011), http://www.metamute. qti1gfkvqtkcn1ctvkengu1ujqtv/ektewkvu/Ýpcpeg/hggfdcem/ 12 For a detailed explanation of programatism see Théorie and-culture Communiste, “Much Ado About Nothing,” Endnotes 1 (October 2008), http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/13 23 In an e-mail to the author from February 2013, Brassier expanded on this: “Cognitive labour retains the capacity to 13 Michael Hudson, “From Marx to Goldman Sachs: The expose its own commodifying mediation. This is not to say Fictions of Fictitious Capital, and the Financialization of it can miraculously undo it; but if the necessity of linking Industry,” Critique 38, no. 3 (2010); available at http:// theory to practice means anything it means that the need okejcgn/jwfuqp0eqo142321291htqo/octz/vq/iqnfocp/ to understand and explain capitalism already presupposes uceju/vjg/Ýevkqpu/qh/Ýevkvkqwu/ecrkvcn31 c"etwekcn"nkpm"dgvyggp"eqipkvkxg"cpf"rtcevkecn"g♪ece{0Ñ

- 26 - - 27 - the acoustics of wonder is a FINICKY THING two waves of chants propagating normally audible heard may if the listener is so positioned cancel each other out one wave approaching --------------------- the other receding // a clash // creates a rip (O) the sound is (drowned) what’s needed is a move either side an attune- ment to “hear again”

- 28 - - 29 - 1 Lqjp"DgtigtÓu"ÒHkgnfÓ"ecp"dg"tgcf"dqvj"kp" conjunction with the essays alongside which it ycu"Ýtuv"rwdnkujgf"kp"About Looking (1980), and as a stand-alone text. Vjg"Ýtuv"tgcfkpi"pqv" qpn{"rncegu"vjg"guuc{"ykvjkp"c"rtqnkÝe."ukpiwnct" writing practice and an associated art historical context but also, when considered in relation to Berger’s texts on Jean-François Millet and Ugmgt"Cjogv."uwiiguvu"vjcv"kv"ecp"dg"urgekÝecnn{" understood in relation to landscape painting. Yjknuv"kv"ku"kpvgtguvkpi"vq"eqpukfgt"ÒHkgnfÓ"kp"vjku" way I would argue that more can be discovered if it is read as an analogy for the porous and often tautological nature of a research process. Ð[qw"ctg"dghqtg"vjg"Ýgnf."cnvjqwij"kv"ugnfqo" happens that your attention is drawn to the Ýgnf"dghqtg"{qw"jcxg"pqvkegf"cp"gxgpv"ykvjkp" it. Usually the event draws your attention to vjg"Ýgnf."cpf."cnoquv"kpuvcpvcpgqwun{."{qwt" qyp"cyctgpguu"qh"vjg"Ýgnf"vjgp"ikxgu"c"urgekcn" ukipkÝecpeg"vq"vjg"gxgpv0Ñ1 Berger’s description of his encounter with a Ýgnf."rctvkewnctn{"jku"gorjcuku"qp"tgegrvkqp"cpf" attention, will be familiar to those who have spent time looking at paintings, particularly those displayed in large galleries and museums – undoubtedly where Berger encounters many of the works he writes about throughout his ectggt0"Vjg"ÒÝgnfÓ"cpf"ÒgxgpvÓ"fguetkdgf"kp"vjg" essay call to mind the occasions when one is ftcyp"vq"urgekÝe"rckpvkpiu."kuqncvkpi"vjgo"htqo" cnn"qvjgtu"dgecwug"qh"c"urgekÝe"hgcvwtg"eqpvckpgf" ykvjkp"kv<"vjg"ickv"qh"c"Ýiwtg."vjg"crrnkecvkqp" of the medium, an unintended reference, perhaps a subject out-of-time - any number qh"ukpiwnctkvkgu"ceegpvkpi"vjg"Ýgnf"qh"eqooqp" gzrgtkgpeg0"DgtigtÓu"ÒHkgnfÓ"rtgugpvu"cpf" articulates a method – what could be termed a research strategy – for processing this situation in relation to singular events, relating how the cognition of their reception relates them to other gxgpvu"ykvjkp"c"eqooqp"eqpvgzvwcnkukpi"Ýgnf0" K"ycu"tg/tgcfkpi"ÒHkgnfÓ"*cu"rwdnkujgf"kp" About Looking) in 2009, around the time that Compost and Height was co-curating Michael Pisaro’s Only [Harmony Series #17] and it proved instrumental in deciding the location and parameters for my realisation of the composition. My approach to Pisaro’s score was further informed by the numerous parallels I found between it and Berger’s essay – parallels that correlate with and inform my interpretation of composition, recording, reception and research. Some of these correlations are presented here and organised in the order in which they occurred to me before, during and after the realisation of Only: """"DgtigtÓu"ÒHkgnfÓ"cpf"RkuctqÓu"Only share a similarity in tone. Berger’s description of the reception of an event sits well with Pisaro’s general approach to composition, what could dg"vgtogf"cu"jku"ÒcguvjgvkeÓ"cpf"vjg"urgekÝekvkgu" and provenance of this particular score. One ujqtv"ugpvgpeg"kp"ÒHkgnfÓ"q♭gtu"c"mg{"vq"jqy"K" associate the two. Berger describes the qualities cp"gxgpv"owuv"jcxg"kp"qtfgt"hqt"kv"vq"g♭gevkxgn{" ftcy"{qwt"cvvgpvkqp"vq"vjg"uwttqwpfkpi"Ýgnf0" He tells us it must not be overly dramatic for “you would run into it from the outside”.2 This complex approach to the relations between event cpf"Ýgnf."yjgtg"fkuvkpevkqpu"ctg"engctn{"ocfg" between the two yet the vantage from which the distinction is encountered remains immanent, is central to both the score and the text. Only is written to be performed by one musician. Given its appearance in Pisaro’s Harmony Series, the seeming contradiction of the title (itself a juxtaposition of the singular and the multiple) provides an interesting position from which to approach the realisation. The full instruction: “For one musician - Outdoors, or in a large, resonant space. For a long time. Sitting quietly. Listening. Once in a while, playing a long, very quiet tone”, makes clear that the only opportunity for harmony is in response to environmental sound, whereby the performer harmonises (as one) with their surroundings. 3 As such, they are themselves assimilated into the Ýgnf"cpf"cp{vjkpi"oqtg"vjcp"c"Ònqpi."xgt{"swkgv" tone’ would, as Berger points out, “immediately dtgcm"vjg"ugnh/uw♪ekgpe{"qh"vjg"ÝgnfÑ04"ÒHkgnfÓ" and Only are here found to be equivalent. 2 A further parallel is to be found in the role of external references in both the score and the essay. Berger is clearly aware (and ecwvkqwu+"qh"vjg"tgncvkqpujkr"dgvyggp"vjg"Ýgnf" he describes and its references to painting. Jg"enctkÝgu"vjg"cuuqekcvkqp"d{"uwiiguvkpi"vjcv" vjg"Ðkfgcn"Ýgnf"yqwnf"crrctgpvn{"jcxg"egtvckp" qualities in common with [...] a painting — fgÝpgf"gfigu."cp"ceeguukdng"fkuvcpeg."cpf"uq"qp" […] I believe, however, that suggestions like this are misleading, because they invoke a cultural context which, if it has anything whatsoever to do with the experience in question, can only refer back to it rather than precede it”.5 This Òpqp/rtgegfkpiÓ"eqpvgzvwcnkucvkqp"eqwnf"cnuq"dg" crrnkgf"vq"vjg"rtgugpeg"qh"Mgppgvj"TgztqvjÓu" poem Void Only"*3;96+"kp"RkuctqÓu"ueqtg0"Kv" would be misleading to read the poem, which is included in full, as an instruction for what the performer should do for the piece. In a 2009 interview with John Lely, Pisaro comments vjcv"ÐkvÓu"gpqwij"vjcv"]TgztqvjÓu"rqgo"ku̲"lwuv" there as a central feature of the score itself”.6 This suggests that the poem does not function prior to, nor precedes, the realisation in any direct way. Instead the performer is invited to refer back to it or, as Pisaro states in the same interview, come across it “[...] right there in the midst of [the realisation] so that at some level you’re encountering it again and again.”9 The quoted poem’s presence in the score is complicated by this possibility of repetition or return, further distancing it from a purely preparatory operation. Just as what Berger fguetkdgu"cu"vjg"Òkfgcn"ÝgnfÓ"tghgtu"dcem"vq" painting, the realisation of Only refers back to, but is not predicated on, Void Only. As such, the 3""""Dgtigt."L0"*422;d+"ÓHkgnfÔ"kp""About Looking. 4th"gf0"Nqpfqp<" 4""""Kdkf0"*Dgtigt"*422;+."3;8 7"""Dgtigt"*422;+.3;7/3;8 Dnqqoudwt{"Rwdnkujkpi0"ri"3;8 5"""Rkuctq."O0"422"."Only [Harmony Series #17], 8"""Ngn{."L0"("Ucwpfgtu."L0"*4234+Word Events: Perspectives on Wprwdnkujgf."Owuke"ueqtg 6"""Qr0"ekv0"*Dgtigt"422;+.3;8 Verbal Notation0"Nqpfqp<"Eqpvkpwwo."ri"542 9"""Kdkf0

- 30 - exclusivity implied in Pisaro’s title does more than echo the title of the assimilated poem, denying it a role as an epigram. It asks, as Pisaro does in his comments about the score, “what, in the sum of things occurring now, do I hear, and how do these things harmonise themselves?” and, crucially, “how can I express my relation to this harmony as a tone?”8 How does the composer or performer (as much as the painter) situate his- or herself between the coordinates of Ýiwtg"*gxgpv+"cpf"itqwpf"*Ýgnf+A"Kpvgtguvkpin{." Rkuctq"iqgu"qp"vq"cum<"Ðyjcv"g♭gev"fqgu"vjku"jcxg" on my continued listening?”, a question that cickp"tgncvgu"dcem"vq"vjg"tgcfkpi"qh"ÒHkgnfÓ"cpf" Berger’s recognition of continuation9<"Ðvjg"Ýtuv" event — since every event is part of a process — invariably leads to other, or, more precisely, invariably leads you to observe others in the ÝgnfÑ010"Vjg"eqpvkpwwo"qh"vjg"Ýgnf."kp"dqvj"vjg" essay and the composition, is central to how they are experienced. - 31 - another analogy in relation to how the work of many contemporary composers functions: """C"vjktf"rctcnngn"dgvyggp"DgtigtÓu"ÒHkgnfÓ" and Pisaro’s Only concerns the implications hqt"Ýgnf/tgeqtfkpi"kp"tgncvkqp"vq"dqvj"guuc{" and composition. The continuum of an event kp"c"Ýgnf"*yjgvjgt"kv"dg"c"nkvgtcn"ugiogpv"qh" the landscape or a sonic situation) highlights the problematic act of recording (or otherwise ektewouetkdkpi+"vjcv"Ýgnf."gkvjgt"vjtqwij"xkuwcn" or auditory means. If there is a parallel history qh"ecrvwtkpi"c"Ýgnf"qh"xkukqp"kp"vjg"xkuwcn"ctvu"/" where a landscape painting is considered a form qh"tgeqtfkpi."cndgkv"ykvjkp"cp"kpÝpkvg"eqorngz"qh" interpretation - it could be argued that many of vjg"guuc{u"vjcv"rtgegfg"ÒHkgnfÓ"kp"About Looking function to rejoin these excised images with a continuum of discourse that activates them for individual and collective viewers. It is arguably oqtg"fk♪ewnv"vq"ecrvwtg"vjg"jqnkuvke."jcrvke" swcnkvkgu"qh"c"Ýgnf"vjtqwij"cp"cwfkvqt{"tgeqtfkpi" cpf"qhvgp"vjg"qdlgevkÝecvkqp"qh"fwtcvkqp."kp" cpf"qh"kvugnh."ecp"dg"fk♪ewnv"vq"gpicig"ykvj0" However, the proposed engagements with Ýgnf"kp"dqvj"Only"cpf"ÒHkgnfÓ"ctg"kpfkecvkxg"qh" approaches found not only in the work of Berger and Pisaro, but many other practitioners whose wug"qh"Ýgnf/tgeqtfkpi"ku"gzvgpfgf"dg{qpf"vjg" capturing of sound or image. Berger makes this rqkpv"engct"cpf"tg/gphqtegu"vjg"Ýgnf/cu/cpcnqi{" kp"vjg"Ýpcn"ugpvgpeg"qh"vjg"guuc{<"ÐVjg"Ýgnf" that you are standing before appears to have the same proportions as your own life”.11 This revealing conclusion underlines the notion that gxgt{"kpvgtrtgvcvkqp"qh"c"Ýgnf"ku"kortgipcvgf" with the predispositions of each viewer / performer / composer / writer. In Berger’s case the interpretation of an image may be infused with a more or less explicit liberal political stance or the traces of Marxist humanism. It may seem obvious to state that what we vcmg"htqo"vjg"Ýgnf"cpf"ejqqug"vq"kpvgtrtgv"ku" dependent upon our own disposition, yet there is c"oqtg"ukipkÝecpv"rqkpv"vq"dg"ocfg"eqpegtpkpi" the mode of interpretation and the ability vq"etgcvg"cp"gogtigpv"Ýgnf0"Vjg"tgcuqp"vjcv" Ýgnf/tgeqtfkpi"ku."kp"cpf"qh"kvugnh."rtqdngocvke" is precisely the break or cut that it makes in vjg"eqpvkpwwo"qh"gxgpvu0"Kp"vjku"tgurgev"Ýgnf/ recording is additionally problematised by Pisaro in his dedication to Manfred Werder, whose compositions often take the form of a simple framing of duration within a given eqpvgzv0"Kh"yg"vwtp"cickp"vq"ÒHkgnfÓ."Dgtigt"q♭gtu" :""""jvvr<11yqnhpqvgu0yqtfrtguu0eqo1rtqlgevu1jctoqp{/ugtkgu/39 33""Kdkf0."3;: 34""""Kdkf0.3;9 36""""Ngn{."L0"("Ucwpfgtu."L0"*4234+"Word Events: Perspectives 35""""Kdkf0 on Verbal Notation0"Nqpfqp<"Eqpvkpwwo"ri"548 3 """"""]ceeguugf"39"Qevqdgt"4235̲ ;""""Kdkf0 32""Qr0"ekv0"*Dgtigt"422;+.3;8 ÐKv"ku"pqv"qpn{"vjcv"vjg"Ýgnf"htcogu"vjgo." it also contains them. The existence of vjg"Ýgnf"ku"vjg"rtg/"eqpfkvkqp"hqt"vjgkt" occurring in the way that they have done and for the way in which others are still qeewttkpi0"Cnn"gxgpvu"gzkuv"cu"fgÝpcdng" events by virtue of their relation to other gxgpvu0"[qw"jcxg"fgÝpgf"vjg"gxgpvu"{qw" have seen primarily (but not necessarily exclusively) by relating them to the event qh"vjg"Ýgnf."yjkej"cv"vjg"ucog"vkog"ku" literally and symbolically the ground of the events which are taking place within it.” 12 Of course there is a danger in relating Berger’s ÒHkgnfÓ"vq"Ýgnf/tgeqtfkpi."pqv"ngcuv"kp"vjg" temptation to assume the relation purely on the face on a linguistic similarity. The term ÒÝgnfÓ"ecp"ogcp"ocp{"fk♭gtgpv"vjkpiu"kp"c" variety of contexts and it is worth remembering vjcv"Dgtigt"ku"pqv"qpn{"vcnmkpi"cdqwv"c"urgekÝe" Ýgnf"ykvj"c"igqitcrjkecn"nqecvkqp."dwv"cnuq"cp" kfgcnkugf"qpg0"Wnvkocvgn{."jqygxgt.""ÒHkgnfÓ"ku" vq"dg"kpvgtrtgvgf"vjtqwij"vjg"gxgpv"/"kvu"Ýgnf"ku" something that is both a space waiting for an event and an event in itself. As Berger makes clear, “this inconsistency parallels exactly the apparently illogical nature of the experience.”13 “this is someone really performing. This is not casual any longer, at this moment the person is embedded in some process”.14 This sense of being embedded is not simply a process of listening and harmonizing with an auditory environment but is also part of a wider process of research, interpretation and understanding of the wider implications of what, for Pisaro, is listening and, for Berger, is looking. Bibliography Berger, J. (2009) About Looking. 4th ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Dgtigt."L0"*422;+"ÒHkgnf"kp"About Looking. 4th ed. London: Bloomsbury Dgtigt."L0"*422;+"ÒOknngv"cpf"vjg"RgcucpvÓ"kp"About Looking. 4th ed. London: Bloomsbury Dgtigt."L0"*422;+"ÒUgmgt"Cjogv"cpf"vjg"HqtguvÓ"kp"About Looking. 4th ed. London: Bloomsbury Lely, J. & Saunders, J. (2012) Word Events: Perspectives on Verbal Notation. London: Continuum Pisaro, M. 200 , Only [Harmony Series #17], Unpublished, Music score Pisaro alludes to a similar mode of engagement ykvj"vjg"Ýgnf"yjgp"fkuewuukpi"vjg"vygpv{/qpg" realisations of Only curated by Jason Brogan and Compost and Height in the aforementioned interview with John Lely. He observes that

- 32 - - 33 - Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 14:01 : cars on osloer straße, water dripping, baby screaming, men talking, wind through leaves, dog barking, aeroplane, tram horn, people talking far away, metal hitting the ground, glass hitting the ground, siren, people talking close by, siren, siren, car horns. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 14:45 : cars on osloer straße, aeroplane, metallic squeaking, wind in the trees, water dripping, wind chimes, aeroplane, car horn, plastic rustling, metallic squeaking, tram, aeroplane, coughing, door slamming. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 22:21 : water dripping, cars on osloer straße, far-away bang, aeroplane, people talking in the distance, child yelling, thump, car horn. place time (sounds) Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 14:44 : metal creaking, vacuum, baby crying, cars on osloer straße, distant voices, slowly descending high pitched sound, banging, coughing, aeroplane, metallic clank, coughing, car horn, crow, dog barking, aeroplane, car horn, siren, metal scraping on ground, two car horns, aeroplane, coughing. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 00:03 : siren, cars on osloer straße, water dripping, door closing, man yelling, rain, car horn, siren, people talking far away, bang, tram doors beeping closed. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 21:55 : water dripping, cars on osloer straße, thump, tram, dog barking, tram, aeroplane, siren. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd"gvcig."nkpmu."Dgtnkp/Ygffkpi="3:<23"<""ejwtej"dgnnu."Ýtgyqtmu." cars on osloer straße, aeroplane, wind in the leaves, door squeaking open, car horn, aeroplane, footsteps, children talking, door squeaking open, car horn, aeroplane. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 21:00 : rain, wind in the leaves, woman’s voice, crunching sound, dry squeaks, wind chimes, cars on osloer straße, splat, squeaks, hollow wooden sound, metallic clunk, aeroplane, plastic rustling, wind blowing dry leaves around, bicycle bell. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 2:02 : strong wind, high pitched squeal, thumping, wind chimes, wind through trees, car on osloer straße, plastic rustling, large gust of wind, low pitched horn, wooden slapping sound. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd"gvcig."nkpmu."Dgtnkp/Ygffkpi="39<3;"<""vtco."rgqrng"vcnmkpi"kp"vjg" fkuvcpeg."ectu"qp"qunqgt"uvtčg."ycvgt"ftkrrkpi."ݦ¦kpi."cgtqrncpg."hct"cyc{"dcpi."enkemkpi."hct"cyc{" bang, loud music from car driving past, aeroplane, squeaking. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 3:46 : rain, cars on osloer straße, wind chimes, splat, tram. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 22:32 : rain, cars on osloer straße, car horn, tram, descending high-pitched sound, man singing, aeroplane, crack, aeroplane. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 13:59 : rain, cars on osloer straße, thump, child yelling, car horn, door closing, children talking, aeroplane, children yelling, baby wailing, car horn, metallic clinking, tram, loud engine, child screaming. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 16:30 : thump, tram, high pitched squeal, window closing, cars on osloer straße, car braking, child talking, water dripping, far away bang, door closing, child talking, dog barking, aeroplane, footsteps, siren. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 16:58 : cars on osloer straße, rain, car horn, door closing, people talking loudly, car horn, tram, door slamming, coughing, tram, child screaming in the distance, car horn. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 19:06 : cars on osloer straße, water dripping, tram, man’s voice, small crunching sound, people yelling, aeroplane, woman shouting, small crunching sound, tram, brakes squeaking, people yelling far away, metallic clank, distant bang, soft high-pitched squeak, loud motor. Grüntaler Straße 31, Hinterhaus 2nd etage, links, Berlin-Wedding; 21:10 : rain, cars on osloer straße, tram, people yelling far away, thud, grinding sound, whistling, door closing, tram. Tkujkp"Ukpij."Fgegodgt"4235

- 34 - - 35 - Sleeping brain activity data translations: left- 2D visualisations, right - 3D sculpture, centrefold - 3D visualisation Sound practice in modern times often deals ykvj"cp"kpvgteqppgevgfpguu"qh"fk♭gtgpv"ogfkc0" Many artists whose practice originates in sound are choosing to explore a spectrum of relational structures, dealing with conjunctive functions between image, sound and space. The powerful capabilities of digital processing found in modern computers provide a multitude of paths for cross-wiring, allowing signal and data to Þqy"eqpewttgpvn{"dgvyggp"fk♭gtgpv"rtqeguugu"cv" the point of creation, resulting in a more open synaesthetic perceptual relationship. As Deleuze writes in Frances Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, the digital synthesis system is integral, the media ku"ÐkpÝpkvg"kp"rtkpekrngÑ."rtqfwegf"cu"vjg"tguwnv" of conversion and translation between data, all qh"yjkej"jcu"dggp"jqoqigpk¦gf"cpf"eqfkÝgf0" Vjku"uvcpfu"kp"fk♭gtgpeg"vq"cpcnqi"u{uvgou" which are modular and establish connections between similar elements but create only within c"Ýpkvg."ugpukdng"urceg0 Within this discussion, data can be taken as an open term, referring to any information that can dg"tgcf"cpf"kpvgtrtgvgf"d{"c"eqorwvgt."g0i0"Ýzgf" fcvc"kp"vgzv"Ýng."fcvcdcug"qt"urtgcfujggv"hqtocv." input of sound or image converted into number data in realtime, media or variables constructed through synthesis, or algorithmically-generated data created by computation, simulation or randomisation. This information can then be used as a creative impetus - it can be readily converted, transformed or translated into either sound or image, or used as a form of control- or meta-data in the manipulation or synthesis of sound and image. In my practice, I am working with computer programming and data to produce sound synthesis, video generation, and more recently, computer-generated sculpture. My current work involves creating computer program systems that generate these results when being fed varying structures of data. These works explore the perceived link between sound and vision occuring at simultaneous time points in order to create relational structures between the concurrently occurring media. These works deal with synaesthetic concepts on several levels: the cross-wiring of digital-code that is able to utilise data in the generation and control of multiple ogfkc."vjg"godgffgf"tguwnv"kp"vjg"Ýpcn"rtqfwev" of the work, and the perception of the viewer interpreting simultaneously occuring stimuli as coming from the same origin. Digital Data Structures The formats and dimensionality used in digital sound and video make translation between media fairly simple once the basics of size and rate have been understood. Sound and image in the digital realm are held in somewhat simple uvtwevwtgu."cpf."vq"c"eqorwvgt."vjg"fk♭gtgpeg" between video and sound data is only a matter of scale, rate and dimension. Sound data is often stored and recalled at a relatively fast rate of 44,100 samples per second

- 36 - (or faster) and contains only a single value at each sample, this corresponds with a speaker eqpg"dgkpi"rwujgf"vq"c"urgekÝe"rqukvkqp"66.322" vkogu"rgt"ugeqpf"kp"qtfgt"vq"c♭gev"c"ejcpig" in air pressure. This rate of digital audio is capable of producing the highest frequencies that humans are generally able to hear - around 20,000 Hz. Video appears to a computer as a comparatively slow sequence of frames, generally around 30 samples per second but each sample with a much greater quantity of information. For instance, in a small video window there may be a grid of 640 x 320 pixels, or 204,800 total blocks of information. Each of these is likely to have a red, green and blue colour values which are normally represented separately, or 204,800 x 3 = 614400. This relates to the way that digital displays present light as combinations of frequencies and to the way in which humans perceive light. Changes more rapid than 30 times per second are unlikely to be perceived dwv"c"4/fkogpukqpcn"cttc{"qh"fk♭gtgpv"eqnqwtu" will translate to something akin to the human perception of vision. In my work I am using a combination of 2and 3-dimensional graphics. When creating 3-dimensional animations, the rate of the video remains the same, but the size is reduced to a Þqcvkpi"rqkpv"xcnwg"dgvyggp"2"cpf"3."yjkej"ku" later scaled to the dimensions of the screen. The additional 3rd dimension represents depth. Simple means of visualisation in 3-dimensional spaces yknn"wug"vjgug"z."{"cpf"¦"xcnwgu"vq"fgÝpg"uvtwevwtgu" of points, lines, shapes and polygons. This digital information can be converted to analog by the wug"qh"5F"rtkpvgt"fgxkegu"yjkej"cnnqy"cp"g♭gevkxg" conversion into a physical realm. Several Examples of Data Translation Throughout my series of works, Invisible and Visible Systems of Networks, I have used data that describes the brain activity levels qh"ugxgtcn"fk♭gtgpv"rcvkgpvu"yjkng"unggrkpi0" These datasets are in the format of consecutive values representing an amount of activity at urgekÝgf"vkog"kpvgtxcnu0"Vjgug"ctg"xkgycdng" qp"vjg"eqorwvgt"cu"c"vgzv"Ýng"qt"urtgcfujggv" of consecutive values, or when using medical data visualiser software the data appears as a waveform representing the peaks and troughs of sleep cycles. This data can be processed by eqorwvgt"rtqitcou"kp"ugxgtcn"fk♭gtgpv"yc{u"vq" eqphqto"vq"fk♭gtgpv"ogfkc"qwvrwv"hqtocvu0" - sound: the waveform is read at a speed of 44,100 samples per second, the computer is able to produce sound directly from reading the data. This can be manipulated by changing the rate of tgcfkpi."yjkej"kp"vwtp"c♭gevu"vjg"jgctf"htgswgpe{" of the sounds produced. A smooth result is achieved by allowing the computer to interpolate the samples to complete any missing values - video: time is plotted on the x axis and the values are read as height above or below a centre point, the data can be animated as a scrolling visualisation, such as that found in waveform visualisers - 3D animation: three datasets (from three fk♭gtgpv"vguv"uwdlgevu+"ctg"ceeguugf"cpf"gcej"fcvc" set is read concurrently. For any given sample number the three data sources are assigned to the x, y and z axis of the 3D space. If 5000 samples of the data are read consecutively, this results in a 3D mesh that contains 5000 vertices, each with c"z."{"cpf"¦"xcnwg"vjcv"nkpm"vqigvjgt"vjg"fk♭gtgpv" data sources. These 3D objects can then be - 37 - reduced into a 2D plane for video presentation, used as a model for architectural construction or printed using a 3D printer Digital technologies and computer programming open up the possibilities of data manipulation in a way that means any form of data can be manipulated and utilised to control any parameter. Manipulation of time scales can be achieved by either freezing moving data sets into urgekÝe"egnnu."qt"d{"kvgtcvkxgn{"tgcfkpi"vjtqwij" Ýzgf"fcvc"cv"c"urgekÝe"tcvg0"Cp{"fcvc"xcnwg"ecp" have mathematical operations applied or be scaled to any required value. Data sets can be averaged, re-organized, or re-assembled, and can then be utilised as synthesis or control data for an unlimited number of factors. The possibilities of connections is limitless when combined with all possible methods of sound and image synthesis. Vjku"crrtqcej"jkijnkijvu"vjg"Þqy"qh"fkikvcn" data from one collection of digital code to another, not necessarily achieving the crosswiring sensation of signals directly converted from sound to light. Examples of this direct translation can be found in such works as in Ectuvgp"PkeqnckÓu"Vgnghwpmgp."T{qlk"KmgfcÓu"Vguv" Rcvvgtp"qt"Tqdkp"HqzÓu"Ncugt"Ujqy0"Kpuvgcf." the aim of an approach based on data interconnectedness is a molded and shaped representation of data, illustrating how digital media is so closely linked and how the structure of programming can be manipulated to translate and reform data in a myriad of ways, enabling the creation of complex, tiered relationships of interactivity between interconnected media.

- 40 - - 41 - Act I WLNT XPRS I hadn’t heard Architecture or not this little chapterette just exhausts “A genuine eighty-two-year-old " yjq"uf"iqqf"igpgvkeu"qt"Ýv/qwv."yjq"uf"iqqf"RT Sweet air no caps Yum enemies line up to hack the workshop in networked compulsion fury Someone’s gifted x no vibes or else Someone’s gifted pecans Someone’s gifted sugar bananas Someone’s gifted apple set Radical Closure: Our Work is Complete.

- 42 - - 43 - Qwt"Rtqdngou"Ecp"dg"Tguqnxgf"ykvj"Dcf"Uqnwvkqpu"vq"Tgcn"Rtqdngou So, jgtg"kp"vjg"Ýgnf Arendt’s distinctions here are in order to consider an earlier (philosophical, historical) distinction between active life and contemplative life: that is, an assumed cleavage between doing and thinking. Jgt"encko"ku"vjcv"rjknquqrj{1jkuvqt{"cu"c"uvwf{"qh"Òeqpvgorncvkxg"nkhgÓ"kpgxkvcdn{"qxgtgorjcukugu" labour or work, whereas philosophy/history imagined as the networks of active life allow for the conceptualisation of the distinctive modes. we work but where the non-human animals are our workers If I can try to break this into its distinct/related modes: In Key the walnuts, the communication (this I don’t know about but Ed suggests that the object of the quickly consumed/consumable communication is life itself and so labour?), the sleep when I go home / the dinners that Ed cooks for me, the walk to and from Central and then Marrickville Stations, the writing (in one sense) + After Pressing Play a gust of analysis w/ our media performs the work of equitable form we know, Our Problems have the recourse to discourses of philosophy, literature, science, the demonstration of a certain kind of eqookvogpv"vq"vjg"ÒetchvÓ"qh"ytkvkpi."vjg"kpuvkvwvkqpcn"htcogyqtmu"qh"vjg"icnngt{"cpf1kp"vjg"wpkxgtukv{" (and so the writing in a other sense) anti negative determination; vjg"Ýgnf"qh"cevkqp"qt"uqnwvkqpu"ykvj"vjg"Ðytqpi"uvcvg"qh"vjkpiuÑ then stop” the decisions, the approach, the face-to-face, the considerations, the acknowledgement of witness, the publicness of a body, the translations of social encounters, the address of others, overheard nuggets, the sense of correspondence, resonance, or association with that what else there is (invited qt"wpkpvgpfgf.+"*vjgtghqtg"vjg"ytkvkpi"kp"vjku"Ýpcn"ugpug"qh"ogvjqfqnqi{."qt"pgiqvkcvkqpa plays along in key a persistent/all-enveloping To which of these (as a rhetorical question or open up_

- 44 - - 45 - Upw♭"pqrg"" if for no other reason than to speak to sign awf the temperature of an air conditioned room Thickened w/ dotpoints Cu"owej"cu"K"nqxg"vjku"fgÝpkvkqp"*cpf"K"fq+ how did any of a day come to include these small unrun or fragrant? nineteenth C nineteenth C narratives in which a woman is a conduit) nineteenth C nation building typologies nineteenth C small chalk dust compote or light imagined as symphonies Fgpqvkpi"EjcÝpi for what in a sixteenth C medical context was everything On a phone line the physical act of pushing matter around ringing out and down thru Boston into and out of phlegmatic highways We of the small hushed buzz thatd be a gap in my knowl " dgvyggp"c"dqf{"kp"c"uvcktygnn"cpf"kvu"octejÞ{

- 46 - - 47 - Flanked by the horse of measurement physics (15th C China_ sty you and remembers you what no in oil, in glycerine, nose the corridor percolating loam or lentil soup see-saw Shoulders of putty, chest airs glue in my arms wanting nothing taken as half an hour of a frost-cake like he is having green oxen cold onyx beads 100,000 uniforms great melon forty but I’ve got my 50 shirt on and dki"hcv"Þwz killer water ultimate rebirth you now on the far side bl probably an inner state nghv"ku"c"Ýpigtpckn like shoals 39"ycujkpiuvqpgu"cpf"ikcpv"t{g ngvvweg"qdlgev"c"ÒswkemÓ food pi brilliant metal families or trying to remember

- 48 - - 49 - 4-part ox words, barley ÐO[."COGTKECP."VQPIWGÑ but wheat and barley WPKXGTUCN"KPUVTWOGPVU uttering strike We all have plant names like a perverse gift dirty, but of a 20 sec delay, like the one who has an awareness of transition better as a chamber basket of clams unfort this photo is of When I Loud Sad Grains Change order An announcement 2 out of 2 of an asthma tablet More submarines than anything P excerpt pf a standard K"nqxg0"Dkpfkpi"uvw♭0"Vjg"ytqpi"yc{"ctqwpf0" There: that’s a book. hqt"g♭wukdg

- 50 - - 51 - nees to be published Hevy And: — Sig eve O come in; igg"wr"cpf"Þqiikpi"ykvj"itcuu radium translates as a sandwich plumlum Tqng"qh"vjg"Cdugpeg"qh"vjg"Uvcvg 1. + 2. ribeye w/ cuke snack

- 52 - - 53 - damnable portent had had a material basis after all - there had been some horizontal stratum of ice-dust in the upper air, and this shocking stone survival had projected its image across the mountains according to the simple laws of tgÞgevkqp. Of course the phantom had been twisted and exaggerated, and had contained things which the real source did not contain; yet now, as we saw that real source, we thought it even more hideous and menacing than its distant image.’3 I. The Clarity of Noise " Yjgp"jg"Ýtuv"ukijvu"vjg"xcuv"wpmpqyp"oqwpvckp"tcpig"htqo"vjg"ykpfqy"qh"cp"cktetchv"ykvj" jku"uekgpvkÝe"vgco"kp"vqy."igqnqikuv"cpf"cecfgoke"Yknnkco"F{gt."vjg"rtqvciqpkuv"qh"J0"R0"Nqxgetchv’s At the Mountains of Madness, is intensely troubled by the vision that confronts him. Like his counterpart Professor Lake before him, Dyer struggles to determine the image’s verity. Lake attributes the queer g♭gevu"vq"vjg"Òrtg/Ecodtkcp"uncvg."]È̲"wrjgcxgf"uvtcvcÓ"cpf"xqnecpke"swcnkv{"qh"vjg"jkijguv"rgcmu."dwv" Dyer is not so sure.1"Hqt"vjku"rctvkewnct"kocig"*kp"yjkej"jg"fkuegtpu"c"Òuggvjkpi"ncd{tkpvj’ housed in the range’s uppermost slopes+"Òjcu"c"ogpcekpin{"pqxgn"cpf"qduewtg"swcnkv{’ cdqwv"kv."ikxkpi"vjg"g♭gev."F{gt" tgeqwpvu."qh"Òc"E{enqrgcp"ekv{"qh"pq"ctejkvgevwtg"mpqyp"vq"ocp"qt"jwocp"kocikpcvkqp000’.2 Of course, vjg"Rtqhguuqt"ku"tgnkgxgf"yjgp"vjg"xkukqp"Ýpcnn{"dtgcmu"wr."fkuuqnxgf"d{"vjg"ujkhvkpi"okuvu"vjcv"uetggp" vjg"oqwpvckpu."eqpÝtocvkqp"qh"kvu"knnwuqt{"uvcvwu0 But this relief does not last for long. As is the case for many an unfortunate Lovecraftian protagonist, Dyer’u" uekgpvkÝe" ¦gcn" eqorgnu" jko" vq" tgvwtp." qpn{" vjku" vkog" jg" vtcxgtugu" vjg" rgcmu" cpf" discovers that the distorted image he originally perceived has an origin that is irrevocably real and disturbingly inhuman: ÒVjg"g♭gev"qh"vjg"oqpuvtqwu"ukijv"ycu"kpfguetkdcdng."hqt"uqog"Ýgpfkuj"xkqncvkqp"qh" known natural law seemed certain at the outset. Here, on a hellishly ancient tableland fully 20,000 feet high, and in a climate deadly to habitation since a pre-human age... there stretched nearly to the vision’s limit a tangle of orderly stone which only the desperation of mental self-defence could possibly attribute to any but a conscious cpf" ctvkÝekcn" ecwug. We had previously dismissed, so far as serious thought was concerned, any theory that the cubes and ramparts of the mountainsides were other than natural in origin. How could they be otherwise? Yet now the sway of reason seemed irrefutably shaken, for this Cyclopean maze of squared, curved, and angled dnqemu" jcf" hgcvwtgu" yjkej" ewv" q♭" cnn" eqohqtvcdng" tghwig0" Kv" ycu." xgt{" engctn{." vjg" blasphemous city of the mirage in stark, objective, and ineluctable reality. That 1""""J0"R0"Nqxgetchv."ÒCv"vjg"Oqwpvckpu"qh"Ocfpguu.Ó"kp"Tales, ed. Peter Straub (New York: Library of America, 2005) 492. 2 Lovecrat, ‘At the Mountains of Madness,’ 508. " Cu" F{gt" crrtqcejgu" cpf" Ýpcnn{" etquugu" vjg" oqwpvckpu" qh" ocfpguu." uvtc{kpi" qxgt" vjg" vjtgujqnf"vjcv"gpektengu"Òvjcv"o{uvgtkqwu"hctvjgt"tgcno"wrqp"yjkej000"pq"jwocp"g{g"jcf"gxgt"ic¦gf’ his relationship to the image of the alien city and the verity he accords to it shift dramatically.4 What he Ýtuv"kpuvkpevkxgn{"vqqm"vq"dg"tgcn"ku"fgoqvgf"vq"vjg"uvcvwu"qh"cp"knnwukqp."c"tgxgncvkqp"vjcv"ku"hqnnqygf"d{" jku"fkueqxgt{"qh"kvu"tgcn"uqwteg."c"fkueqxgt{"vjcv"kp"vwtp"tguvcvgu"vjg"knnwukqp"cu"c"rtqdngo"qh"tgÞgevkqp" and an epiphenomenal imprint of a very real thing - but a noisy, distorted one. If one were to diagram this in a cybernetic key following the models of classic communications vjgqt{"vjg"hqnnqykpi"eqpÝiwtcvkqp"yqwnf"gogtig< Here, the real city acts as a transmitter, the ice-dust, mist and most importantly, the Antarctic light, constitute interference to the transmitted signal, and Professor Dyer occupies the position of the receiver. The clear signal is scrambled as it passes over the mountains, but Dyer is, at ngcuv"cv"Ýtuv."eqpvgpv"vq"ecnn"vjg"fkuvqtvgf"kocig"jg"tgegkxgu."tgcn0"" Cu"ygnn"cu"dgkpi"cp"knnwuvtcvkqp" of cybernetic noise, this image schematises the basic cognitive operation of Enlightenment subjectivity, cp"qrgtcvkqp"qh"Òkpjkdkvgf"u{pvjguku’ to put it in the vernacular of Nick Land, who goes on to clarify this notion in one of his early essays on Kant, where he writes: Ò]Oqfgtpkv{̲"nkxgu"kp"c"rtqhqwpf"cpf"wpgcu{"tgncvkqp"vq"cp"qwvukfg"vjcv"dqvj"cvvtcevu" and repels it, a relation that it precariously resolves within itself from a position of wpkncvgtcn" ocuvgt{0" ]È̲" Vjg" rctcfqz" qh" gpnkijvgpogpv." vjgp." ku" cp" cvvgorv" vq" Ýz" c" stable relation with what is radically other, since insofar as the other is rigidly positioned within a relation it is no longer fully other. If before encountering otherness we already know what its relation to us will be, we have obliterated it in advance. This aggressive logical absurdity (the absurdity of logic itself) reaches its 3 Lovecrat, ‘At the Mountains of Madness,’ 522; 523 (emphasis added). 4 Lovecrat, ‘At the Mountains of Madness,’ 522.

- 54 - ¦gpkvj"kp"vjg"rjknquqrj{"qh"Mcpv."yjqug"dcuke"rtqdngo"ycu"vq"Ýpf"cp"ceeqwpv"hqt"vjg" possibility of what he termed “synthetic a priori knowledge”, which is knowledge that is both given in advance by ourselves, and yet adds to what we know.’5 Modern subjectivity, forged in the cool climes of Kantian critique and Enlightenment tcvkqpcnkv{."tgrtgugpvu"vjg"qdlgev"d{"rcuukpi"kv"vjtqwij"vjg"uwdlgev0"Kv"ku"kp"vjku"yc{"vjcv"Mcpv"Ýtuv"ugvu"kp" place the epistemological limit that would outlaw metaphysics - that is - by installing a representational one. Human subjectivities, of course, may vary wildly, but the objectivity of their experience, as rqkpvgf"wr"d{"Ncpf."ku"cuuwtgf"d{"xktvwg"qh"c"wpkxgtucnn{"cvvtkdwvgf"c"rtkqtk"rwtkÝecvkqp"qh"cnn"vjcv"ku" kprwvvgf"kpvq"eqipkvkqp0"Hqt"Mcpv"urgekÝecnn{."vjku"Òukipcn"htqo"vjg"qwvukfg’ is cleaned up by the pure forms of intuition and the twelve categories, which obtain in all human creatures (Kant explicitly notes that his deduction does not hold for the non-human) thus underwriting the homogeneity and the intelligibility of the world as it for us. This constitutes the nub of what Kant would call transcendental conditioning. We no longer discover the order of phenomenal nature; we make it. Modernity’s unprecedented capacity to breed the individual arises from and feeds-back into the constitution of objective reality and the truth of being by means of intersubjectivity. The proper hwpevkqpkpi" qh" qwt" ukipkÝecvkxg" tgikogu" ku" wpkocikpcdng" ykvjqwv" vjku" kpvgtuwdlgevkxgn{/eqpuvkvwvgf" qdlgevkxkv{0" Tgictfnguu" qh" yjgvjgt" yg" uwduetkdg" vq" c" rtqrgtn{" Mcpvkcp" vjgqt{" qh" eqipkvkqp" qt" pqv." kv" is important to recognise that Kant’s badly named Copernican revolution continues to determine the eqpÝiwtcvkqp"qh"qwt"uwdlgev/qdlgev"tgncvkqpujkru."cpf"vjwu"qwt"wpfgtuvcpfkpi"qh"tgrtgugpvcvkqp."tkijv" up until the end of the twentieth century, surreptitiously informing, in turn, standardised notions of aesthetic representation. " Cu" Pkem" Ncpf" yknn" vgnn" wu." cnoquv" Ýhvggp" {gctu" dghqtg" c" ukping" vjgqtkuv" wvvgtgf" vjg" yqtf" Òeqttgncvkqpkuo’, the ontological condition of the moderns comes down to the following fundamental rtgokug<"Òvjg"qwvukfg"owuv"rcuu"d{"yc{"qh"vjg"kpukfg’.6 To this I will append that claim that the inside is a condition known in cybernetic theory cu"Òpqkug’. What Kant sees as a clarifying process, Land sees cu"c"rtqeguu"qh"kpvgthgtgpeg."vjg"fk♭gtgpeg"ku"c"ukorng"ocvvgt"qh"rqukvkqpkpi0 II. The Noise of Clarity " Kp" Htgpej" vjg" yqtf" Òrctcukvg’ has several meanings. It refers, as it does in English, to an qticpkuo"vjcv"uwdukuvu"d{"hggfkpi"q♭"c"jquv"kp"c"pqp/tgekrtqecn"tgncvkqp="kv"ogcpu"static, interference, or noise; and it denotes a point that is beside another, more integral one: para-site - beside the site. Michel Serres, in his book of the same name, The Parasite, uses these various meanings to frame a nqike"vjcv"ku"cp{vjkpi"dwv"Òabsurd’ kp"vjg"ugpug"kpvgpfgf"cdqxg"d{"Ncpf0"Tcvjgt."kp"c"Þcitcpv."yjqngucng" rejection of a priori thought-structures, Serres’ elaboration of his logic takes the form of a series of interrupted meals.9 5 Nick Land, ‘Kant, Capital and the Prohibition of Incest,’ in Fanged Noumena, eds. Robin Mackay and Ray Brassier (Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2012), 64. 6 Nick Land, ‘Machinic Desire,’ in Fanged Noumena, eds. Robin Mackay and Ray Brassier (Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2012), 320. 7 Michel Serres, he Parasite, trans. Lawrence R. Schehr (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2007) - 55 - Each meal is a message transmitted to a receiver - an act of consumption, digestion and ukipkÝecvkqp0" Jqygxgt." oqtg" qhvgp" vjcp" pqv." vjg" tgegkxgt" ku" fgrtkxgf" qh" vjg" oguucig" d{" ogcpu" qh" an uninvited guest - a parasite, who para-sites or eats-next-to"vjg"jquv."g♭gevkxgn{"kpvgttwrvkpi"vjg" transmission, only to be interrupted in their interruption (which is a message being transmitted in its own right) by another message or guest. It suits Serres’ purposes that the words for guest and host are kfgpvkecn"kp"Htgpej<"Òhôte’. The message here - although Serres makes sure it doesn’t come through clearly - is that there is always an alternative position from which a guest may suddenly appear as a jquv."c"oguucig"cu"c"rctcukvg."ukipkÝecvkqp"cu"pqkug0 Borrowing Serres’s method of using cybernetics as a means of articulating complex relationships between elements that are both internal and external to a system, we can diagram Kantian cognition from both the position of the human subject and the position of the non-human object:

- 56 - The advantage of transcribing a philosophical description of consciousness into a cybernetic register is that it allows us to move from a transcendent structure to an immanent one, and once within the latter, to move from one observer position to another. Looking from the inside out (the viewpoint of the human), the transcendental conditioning of experience establishes clarity by admitting certain contents of an unknowable site of primary production; yet from the outside in, the transcendental conditioning of experience is itself a degenerative noise that degrades the clarity of its external input, rendering it unintelligible and ultimately inaccessible to internal modes of apprehension. What, for the observer-as-subject is clarity, for the observer-as-object is noise. As the signal passes through the human - by virtue of this processing which ultimately renders it intelligible to the human - it dgeqogu"fkuvqtvgf0"UkipkÝecvkqp."vjgp."tguvu"qp"c"hwpfcogpvcn"kpvgttwrvkqp"cpf"fghqtocvkqp0"Jgtg." vjg" Òqdlgevkxkv{’ of intersubjective experience is reconceivable as interference in a primary signal that originates beyond the human in the unexperienceable (and unknowable) world of things-inthemselves. III. Xenoaesthetics In At the Mountains of Madness as it is elsewhere, the perpetual Lovecraftian lesson is, qh" eqwtug." vjcv" vjg" eqpfkvkqpu" wrqp" yjkej" qwt" Gpnkijvgpogpv" uwdlgevkxkv{" *Ýiwtgf" kp" vjg" jcrnguu" man of science) is founded and by which it is maintained, constitute a fundamental repression of something else, which, as is always the case in Lovecraft’s prose, inevitably returns to invade the human from a point outside of it. I want to suggest that we take the Lovecraftian lesson here just as seriously as we take our Enlightenment genealogy and interpret it as a call to interrogate human representations of self and world from the far side of the mountains of madness in order to cultivate a properly inhuman notion of representation with which to reconsider certain moments of twentieth egpvwt{"cguvjgvke"ÒproductionÓ0"Vjku"ykfgpkpi"qh"rgturgevkxg"vq"c"rqkpv"dg{qpf"vjg"jwocp"c♭qtfgf"d{" e{dgtpgvke"fkcitcookpi"*cpf"rgtjcru"qpg"eqwnf"gxgp"uc{."Òd{"machining thought’) brings with it new tools for the critique of Critique, and, thereby, the critique of representation in art and poetics insofar as aesthetic representation is the representation of a representation that we can now grasp as a noisy one. If Enlightenment subjectivity is constituted in this jamming of a signal from the outside, can we, by negating human noise - that is to say: the a priori, the rational - reconstruct a vision of this alien source? - 57 -

- 58 - listen to my song listen again, more quickly - 59 - !"#$%&#'&()&"'%* !"#$%&+*+!%,&('-$&./!01 ) 555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 ! "#$ ! 555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 %# ! &#$ ! !"#$%&#'&!#&+*+!%,&#4!"&#!($&+"&./!01 )&+"&6'""!8 $ listen to it again, this time as quickly as possible kp"c"Þcuj !%&+&5 +"4 2'/ 3&)'/& !1$&#'&4$+-&+&-$0'-3!%*&'5&#4!"&6!$0$7 555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 ' # ! '"#$ ! 555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 '%# ! '&#$ ! would you like to hear a recording of this piece? 2'/ 3&)'/& !1$&#'&+66-$0!+#$&#4$&8$+/#!5/ &6-'6'-#!'%"&!%&-$+ &#!($7 would you like to appreciate the beautiful proportions in real time? +-$&#4$&"'/%3"&5-'(&()&8'3)&('-$&8$+/#!5/ &#4+%&#4$&"'/%3"&!%&)'/-&(!%37 are the sounds from my body more beautiful than the sounds in your mind? 555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 " # ! ""#$ ! 555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 "%# ! "&#$ ! !"&9:&(!%/#$"& $""&8$+/#!5/ &!%&;&"$0'%37 is 45 minutes less beautiful in 1 second? why must you perceive so slowly? 555555555555444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 24)&(/"#&)'/&6$-0$!<$&"'&" '2 )7 $ # ! $"#$ ! 44444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 $%# ! $&#$ ! 44444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 ( # ! ("#$ ! (%# !

- 60 - What are the conditions for “free improvisation”? We need to get clear on these two concepts: “free” and “improvisation”. First freedom. We must distinguish freedom from voluntarism. Voluntarism understands freedom as the property of an act of will exercised by a self. In order for an act to qualify as free in the voluntarist sense, neither the self nor its act can be determined by antecedent causes. In this regard, the free act of will erupts ex-nihilo: it is supposed to be un-determined, whether by psychological dispositions or physical processes. It is the product of a “will” that voluntarism absolutizes into an occult force exercised by a sovereign self. Freedom is construed as the attribute of the determination generated by this self. Freedom in this sense is objectionably metaphysical insofar as it invokes entities and forces that are dubitable, at the very least. The alternative is to view freedom as an act of self-determination where it is not the self that exerts a determining power through its act, but rather the act that determines itself. In order to make sense of this, it is necessary to understand vjg"tgÞgzkxkv{"cv"yqtm"kp"vjg"pqvkqp"qh"Ðugnh/ determination” not as that of the self acting on itself but instead as that of the act acting on - 61 - itself. I will use the word “act” to mean this act acting on itself. The ability to act is composed out of two distinct strata of behavior: that of pattern-governed behavior on one level, and that of rule-conforming behavior on the other. The act results from the superimposition of these two levels; i.e., from the superimposition of rule-conforming behavior onto pattern-governed behavior. It is the product of the intrication of these two levels, but it cannot be reduced to either. Pattern-governed behavior is ubiquitous in the biological and physical realms. Physical systems realize complex patterns without intending them. The pattern is incarnated by the components of the system, each part of which eqpuvkvwvgu"kv."dwv"vjg"eqpuvkvwvkqp"ku"g♭gevwcvgf" by something as mindless as a wiring-diagram. The latter mechanism codes for the pattern, without the structure of the pattern having to be represented by any part of it. Thus the turns and wiggles performed by a dancing bee occur for a reason—to communicate information about ÞqygtuÏykvjqwv"vjku"tgcuqp"dgkpi"kpvgpfgf<" the bee has no mind with which it can intend to realize the dance: What would it mean to say of a bee returning htqo"c"enqxgt"Ýgnf"vjcv"kvu"vwtpkpiu"cpf" wigglings occur because they are part of a complex dance? Would this commit us to the idea that the bee envisages the dance and acts as it does by virtue of intending to realize the dance? If we reject this idea, must we refuse to say that the dance pattern as a whole is involved in the occurrence of each wiggle and turn? Clearly not. It is open to us to give an evolutionary account of the phenomena of the dance, and hence to interpret the statement that this wiggle occurred because of the complex dance to which it belongs—which appears, as before, to attribute causal force to an abstraction, and hence tempts us to draw upon the mentalistic language of intention and purpose—in terms of the survival value to groups of bees of these forms of behavior. In this interpretation, the dance pattern comes in pqv"cu"cp"cduvtcevkqp."dwv"cu"gzgornkÝgf"d{"vjg" behavior of particular bees.1 What does it mean to say that the bee’s wiggling is part of a dance? Or to explain its wiggling by saying that each wiggle occurs because of the dance? To say this is to say that organic movement happens for a reason—it has an adaptive function—but this reason (or function) is not represented in the brain of the organism motivated by it. This is to distinguish between doing something for a reason and doing something because of a reason. The ability to do something because of a reason arises from the capacity to do something for a reason. Yet it should not be confused with it. The capacity to be motivated by a reason is a disposition rooted in more rudimentary dispositional mechanisms. Both rule-governed and pattern-governed behavior are generated 3"""Yknhtkf"Ugnnctu"ÓUqog"Tgàgevkqpu"qp"Ncpiwcig"IcoguÔ."42:0 by conditioning: just as pattern-governed behavior is the relaying of biologically determined dispositions, so rule-conforming behavior is the relaying of culturally acquired dispositions. Insofar as behavior is dispositionally conditioned, one must have acquired the relevant dispositions to be able to act. But although both are dispositional, neither biological habit nor social custom is rigidly deterministic. They are adaptive mechanisms, capable of re-calibrating when confronted with un-anticipated circumstances. This kind of adaptive improvisation is common throughout the biological and cultural domains. It is pgeguuct{"dwv"pqv"uw♪ekgpv"vq"eqpuvkvwvg"cp"cev0" But it is not free. Yet the free act is not opposed to biological habit or social convention; these provide its enabling conditions—but only if the tgngxcpv"fkurqukvkqpu"ctg"rtqrgtn{"eqpÝiwtgf0" Instinct and conformity are biological and social dispositions respectively. They correspond to the levels of pattern-governed and rule-governed behavior. Just as rules are a sub-species of patterns, conventions are a sub-species of instinct. But one must acquire the ability to conform to a rule before one can become able to act because of a rule: the ability to obey is the prerequisite for the ability to command. Where these are absent, the tyranny of instinct holds sway. Selfhood is tyrannical precisely insofar as it is merely a congerie of drives. The act supplants the tyranny of the impulsive self with the rule of the subject. But it is the act itself that is subject. It is no-one’s. Through its selfdetermination, subjective compulsion takes over htqo"ugnÝuj"korwnug0"Vjku"fg/rgtuqpcnk¦cvkqp" is the condition for action. It compels it. For this self-determination to occur, mechanisms must acquire the ability to represent the rules governing their own behavior in such a way

- 62 - as to perceive the governing pattern as such. There is a transition from the level of rulegoverned dispositional response to the level where the rule is recognized as a rule. This recognition changes the rule from a constraint into a motivating reason for action. Through this transformation, mechanisms learn to perceive vjg"eqpÝiwtcvkqp"fgvgtokpkpi"vjgkt"dgjcxkqt" cu"c"tgcuqp"hqt"cevkpi0"Tgeqipkvkqp"tgswktgu" an involution wherein the code-generating pattern is responded to as code by a sequence qh"vjg"rcvvgtp"kvugnh0"Tgeqipk¦kpi"vjg"eqfg"vjcv" generates rule-governed conformity converts mechanical impulse into the compulsion to act. The involution that grounds recognition is c"rwtgn{"ogejcpkecn"tgÞgzkxkv{0"Ceswktkpi"vjg" appropriate recognitional capacities is a matter of possessing the right sorts of competence. This involution of competences is the key to the vtcpuhqtocvkqp"vjtqwij"yjkej"ugnÝuj"korwnukqp" gives way to anonymous compulsion. This is the key to a materialistic understanding of autonomy. Autonomy is badly misconstrued when it is castigated as an individualistic or libertarian fetish. Autonomy understood as a self-determining act is the destitution of selfhood and the subjectivation of the rule. The “oneself” that subjects itself to the rule is the anonymous agent of the act. To be subjected is to act in conformity with a rule that applies indiscriminately to anyone and everyone. One does not bind one’s self to the rule; the subject is the act’s acting upon itself, its self-determination. The act is the only subject. It remains faceless. But it can only be vtkiigtgf"wpfgt"xgt{"urgekÝe"ektewouvcpegu0" Acknowledgement of the rule generates the condition for deviating from or failing to act - 63 - in accordance with the rule that constitutes subjectivity. This acknowledgement is triggered by the relevant recognitional mechanism; it requires no appeal to the awareness of a conscious self. The ideal of “free improvisation” is paradoxical: in order for improvisation to be free in the requisite sense, it must be a self-determining act, but this requires the involution of a series of mechanisms. It is this involutive process that is the agent of the act—one that is not necessarily human. It should not be confused for the improviser’s self, which is rather the greatest obstacle to the emergence of the act. The improviser must be prepared to act as an agent—in the sense in which one acts as a covert operative—on behalf of whatever mechanisms ctg"ecrcdng"qh"g♭gevkpi"vjg"ceegngtcvkqp"qt" confrontation required for releasing the act. The latter arises at the point of intrication between rules and patterns, reasons and causes. It is the key that unlocks the mystery of how objectivity generates subjectivity. The subject as agent of the act is the point of involution at which objectivity determines its own determination: agency is a second-order process whereby neurobiological or socioeconomic determinants (for example) generate their own determination. In this sense, recognizing the un-freedom of voluntary activity is the gateway to compulsive freedom. Written for a performance with Mattin at Arika’s festival episode 4 “Freedom is a Constant Struggle”, 21 April 2013, Tramway, Glasgow Thanks to Barry Esson and Byrony McIntyre

- 64 - - 65 - Composition for harp and photograph by Clare Cooper, 2013 “Brand Haus” photograph by Uta Neumann, 2013 Cp"gngevtq/ceqwuvke"eqorqukvkqp"tgswktkpi"c"jctr."ocnngv."iwkvct"cornkÝgt"cpf"6/8"eqpvcev"okeu0 Protected trash. Debris within debris. On the verge of being compacted, converted into something of use. Between storms. The harpist is to re-create the photographic landscape over 5 minutes. Consider the proximity of the element to the camera lens. Storm clouds, wet and heavy Partially bombed building. Crumbling, shifting in function from original service Mountain of colourful, collapsed clothing, wholes and shreds A truck Sheet metal fencing Dwnngv"jqng/tkffgp"rcpgnu"tgÞgev"uvtqpi"uwpnkijv Concrete curb Man-holes and puddles in the street Mallet drumming metallic bass strings, space, breath Adjusting harp pedals, contact mic on pedal box to pick up structural friction Bowed metallic bass strings, swift attacks Occasional full tones, every 3rd tone muted by wrist Drumstick attacks on muted bass strings Clean high register harmonics Thighs brushing against soundboard, contact mic on wood Aggitated woven drumstick through mid-range strings

- 66 - Ray Brassier Tc{"Dtcuukgt"ku"c"ogodgt"qh"vjg"rjknquqrj{" faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, known for his work in philosophical realism. He is the author of Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction and the translator of Alain Badiou’s Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism and Theoretical Writings and Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. He is currently working on a book tentatively entitled That Which is Not. Patrick Farmer Patrick Farmer is an artist working with composition. He is a founding member of the Set Ensemble, a group based in the UK dedicated to the performance of experimental music, especially that of the Wandelweiser group, and co-founded the online record label, Compost and Height, and Wolf Notes journal, with Sarah Hughes in 2008. As of October 2012 patrick began studying towards his Ph.D at Oxford Brookes. Andrew Brooks Andrew Brooks is an artist and curator who lives in Sydney. He is interested in conceptual approaches to the sonic arts and works with performance, music and installations. He is a co-curator of the NOW now and a post-graduate student at the College of Fine Arts. negativespaces.net Sarah Hughes Sarah Hughes is an artist and musician whose work is concerned with approaches to composition and series, materiality and objects. Together with the musician Patrick Farmer, she is co-director of Compost and Height, and editor of the journal Wolf Notes. She plays zither and piano and is a founding member of The Set Ensemble, a group dedicated to the performance of contemporary composition, she also plays in long-term collaborations with Farmer, Stephen Cornford and Daniel Jones. Hughes has performed and exhibited internationally. sarahhughes.org | compostandheight.com Clare Cooper Cooper co-founded the NOW now festival and series in Australia and is also the co-founder of the Splinter Orchestra, Splitter Orchester, Hammeriver ensemble, Germ Studies and Smack/Bang. She plays the harp and guzheng and has been neck-deep in the Australian improv scene since she was 19. gutstring.net patrickfarmer.org Amy Ireland Amy Ireland is writing a PhD on philosophical realism, noise, and the avant-garde at UNSW. She co-convenes Aesthetics After Finitude and makes experimental poems that you can throw. cguvjgvkeuchvgtÝpkvwfg0dnqiurqv0eqo0cw - 67 - Astrid Lorange Astrid Lorange is an associate lecturer at COFA. Her poetry books include Eating and Speaking and Minor Dogs. A book-length study of Gertrude Stein is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press. Rishin Singh Born (1985) Kuala Lumpur. Lived in Sydney for a long time. Creates minimalist music using the trombone, text, scores and performance. rishinsingh.com astridlorange.tumblr.com/poetry Mattin Am I happy with who I am? Am I happy with the people around me? Am I happy with what I’m doing? Am I happy with the way my life is going? Do I have a life or am I just living? Do not let these questions strain or trouble you just point youself in the direction of your dreams Ýpf"{qwt"uvtgpivj"kp"vjg"uqwpf"cpf"ocmg" your transition. Kynan Tan Kynan Tan is an artist who works through digital means to create audio-visual works, electroacoustic compositions, installations and improvised live performances. These works investigate the use of computer technologies and the manipulation of data through the output of digital sound and image. The majority of works question the role of the computer in the creation of art – as an instrument, mediator, processor and creative tool. mattin.org kynantan.com | negativespaces.net Nicola Morton Nicola Morton is part of a new psychedelia, she is a musicologist/artist researching the energy between new media artists and their machines. Brett Thompson Brett Thompson is a guitarist-improvisercomposer currently residing in Melbourne. nicolaisgreat.com Miro Sandev Miro Sandev is a poet and critic based in Sydney. His poems have been published in many literary journals and anthologies. His essays have appeared in Arena Magazine and New Matilda and he is a theatre critic for Arts Hub. brettthompsonmusic.com

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- 74 - - 75 - A list of places to eat, drink and be merry! 30" 7 " 8 5 9 4 1 3 40" U[FPG["PQP"QDLGEVKXG"*UPQ+"ICNNGT[ " " Ngxgn"31397"Octtkemxknng"Tf *Ýpf"vjg"PQY"pqy"itqwr"uhow here) 50" OCTTKEMXKNNG"DQYNKPI"ENWD " " " ;3"U{fgpjco"Tf."Octtkemxknng *Ýpf"vjg"qwt"Òkp"eqpxgtucvkqpÓ"ugtkgu"jgtg"qp"Ucv"("Uwp" -"ÒQffu"("KpÞwgpegÓ+ 4. NOM PIZZA " " 427"Xkevqtkc"Tf."Octtkemxknng *mknngt"yqqfÝtgf"rk¦¦cu+ 70" FQWDNG"TQCUVGTU " 3;;"Xkevqtkc"Tf (super cafe) 6 2 TGF"TCVVNGT 6 Faversham St, Marrickville (main festival venue) Nqqm"qwv"hqt"vjg"XGIIKG"RCVEJ"XCP"qwv"vjg"htqpv"qh"vjg"Tcv." serving delicious treats at the festival doorstep. 80" HQTCIG " 3:3"Octtkemxknng"Tf."Octtkemxknng (no idea, maybe it’s ok) 90" VJG"JGPUQP " ;3"Knncycttc"Tf."OCttkemxknng (beer garden. awesome.) :0" DQWTMG"UVTGGV"DCMGT[ 2 Mitchell St, Marrickville (incredible baked goods) 9. " BLUE SIGN VIETNAMESE 4:9"Octtkemxknng"Tu."Octtkemxknng (fast, cheap, yummy vietnamese food)