via Vague Terrain:
Inevitable Improvisations
Submitted by Ben Neill on Sun, 10/11/2009 - 12:00
[Ben Neill & LEMUR / The Stone, New York City, 2008 / Photo: Joy Garnett]
Over my years of experience as a composer and performer I have often felt that the discourse of digital/electronic art has been too strongly focused on technical issues. While digital music will always be at least somewhat defined by the parameters of the systems being utilized, my attention has been more geared toward the aesthetics of digital art and particularly the relationship of the aesthetics to technology. The feedback loop is a good metaphor for this relationship; as new technological possibilities emerge, artists are influenced by those developments, while at the same time new aesthetic ideas influence the creation of new technologies. The question for me has been what are the most important aesthetic tendencies to emerge out of the recent landscape of digital musics and media?
While early electronic music was informed by the aesthetics of the classical avant-garde, the invention of synthesizers by Moog and Buchla opened the door to the broader realms of jazz and popular music, which frequently utilized improvisation.
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