yet another account of the war for radical computer music.

http://vimeo.com/19593647 [1]

The addressee above links to a short documentary by and about the Danish composer Parl Kristian Bjørn Vester, who is better known by his stage name Goodiepal. The documentary deals with Goodiepals so called War for radical computer music, which is a series of works of performance-art and a conceptual record release. The record release, which I will discuss later in this essay, is the project I find the most interesting, but the video is also worth watching because it portrays Goodiepal, who is quite a character, and presents some of his eccentric and original ideals. The video is also fascinating because, or maybe in spite of, it gives and insight into the visual and audiotive anti-aesthetics[2] pursued by Goodiepal and his affiliates.

In order to discuss the critical / subversive potential of the record release at, I will briefly retell the events which serve as its context. Goodiepal was teaching as a professor at the Royal Danish Academy for Electro-Acoustic Music (DIEM). He taught his bizarre ideas about utopia, time travel, the development of a European robot-mythology, non-linear compositisions and last but not least the concept of Radical computer music (which is not music made with computers and digital instruments, but music made for the pleasure artificial intelligences of the future).

In 2008 Goodiepal was dismissed from DIEM, because the headmaster and schools governing body became aware of the untraditional subjects taught in Goodiepals classes. Goodiepal was apparently stricken with a thirst for vengeance and staged a war against the academy. His first offensive move was to team up with two crooked musicians and steal a very expensive effect-machine from DIEM. The effect-machine was then hacked and modified, and later sold to a Belgian collector, to partly finance the record release mentioned earlier.

The most astonishing about this 45€ vinyl record release was not the 13 hours of experiential music, but the fact that every LP sold had an genuine 500 kroner (70€) bill enclosed: You earned money when buying it! I find this concept amazing because it distorts our conceptions of economic necessity, ignoring the primary principals of capitalism. It has its critical potential in contrast to the dominant political discourse on art (and the humanities), where art is supposed to function and develop under the principals of the market, and to be evaluated by its direct or indirect contribution to the GDP.

An alternative attempt to deal whit these conditions of the arts are currently being made by the Danish Association of Musicians. They have established a research project which is to prove how and to what extent state subsidy of art yields economic growth. In contrast to this, Goodiepal does not accept the premises. He insists that the artist is not the Rational man, that the potential of art is not the generating of profit.

The actual financing of this rather spectacular record release[3], is another strange aspect of the project, and raises a series of questions, which I unfortunately do not have the space to discuses in this essay. But if this has caught your interest, I can reveal that the story is being told in the video linked to above.

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[1] Before watching the video, I will warn you that Goodiepal and SYGNOK uses the swastika-symbol provocatively, but are in fact declared anti-fascists.

[2]Their dismissal of harmony and beauty (both thematic and artistic) closely resembles that of the French picture book printing- and publishing house Le Dernier Cri.

[3] The record was issued in 1000 copies. The total cost of the release was therefore 500.000 dkk (67.000€) plus the production costs of the vinyl and cover.

reading and books.

According to Athur Schopenhauer the phenomena of reading is a process of repeating and reproducing the thoughts of an author; a passive process which barely demands any effort from the reader, except moving the eyes and opening the arena of the mind to the unfolding of sentences’ immanent meanings . In this perspective, the process of reading, and especially reading to an extent, is associated with the danger of stupefying and paralyzing the reader, gradually rendering her unable to think original thoughts on, and of her own. Furthermore Schopenhauer understands the workings of the memory in the same way as Sherlock Holmes[1]: The memory is like a limited storage room: for every unnecessary item one piles in there, the harder do the important things become to find (remember) when needed, and the less room remains for new knowledge. In the light of this understanding of reading, Schopenhauer’s ideal seems clear and reasonable: carefully select what you read[2], read only small amounts of literature, read rarely, spend long hours digesting and reflecting upon what is read, and, first and foremost, think for you self: create, write.

To some extent, I agree with this ideal of studying, but on the basis of alternative understanding of the phenomena of reading. In opposition to Schopenhauer I understand reading as an active and (re)interpreting / hermeneutic process, where the written thoughts of the author might acquire new meanings on the backdrop of a different socio-historical context. In this light, the creation, the independent thoughts, are reflections based on (enabled and limited by) historical, social, cultural, technical and political inheritance, relating to contemporary problems. In contrast to this perspective Schopenhauer presents a view of creation as the result of the solitary working of a genius or an artist: new thoughts conjured into existence from nothing or from the core of the writer’s soul. These thoughts have no preceding connection to anything else, and the language with which they at mediate are seen upon as a transparent and neutral. I find this perspective on innovation, somehow troublesome, since magnificent ideas, even if created in complete isolation, are to be judged upon their relevance to other human beings. When all this is said, I think that a discussion of intellectual limitation associated with too much reading is still worthy of attention. Gilles Deleuze, for instance, claims that his notion of a corpus without organs should be fairly easy to grasp intuitively, if you have not studied at all, but almost impossible otherwise[3]. He might be right; because I, who regard myself as moderately familiar with philosophy, have never had a clue to what it means (apparently, a book is an example of a corpus without organs[4]). Nevertheless, I think, if you are to break with a tradition, you are better off actually knowing it, and therefore capable of reflecting upon why you are abandoning it.

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[1] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1992:21): A Study in Scarlet in The Complete Sherlock Holmes. New York, Barnes & Noble Books.
[2] Schopenhauer would presumable recommend the authorships of Kant and himself, and advice against reading Hegel.
[3] Gilles Deleuze (2006:16): Forhandlinger 1972-1990. Frederiksberg, Det lille Forlag. Danish translation of Deleuze (1990): Pourparlers.1972-1990. Paris, Les Editions de Minuit.
[4] Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guttari (2005:6): Tusind plateauer – Kapitalisme og skizofreni. København, Det Kongelige danske kunstakademis billedkunstskolers forlag. Danish translation of Deluze & Guttari (1980): Mille Plateaux – Capitalisme et Schizophrénie 2. Paris, Les Editions de Minuit.

bag irma.

Klokken er lidt i 10, mandag aften, og jeg er taget hjemmefra for at gå på rov i containerne bag Irma-butikken på Østerbrogade. Jeg har siddet på en bænk, men i det jeg rejser mig for at gå hen og kravle over hegnet, får jeg øje på en gråhåret dame iført pelsfrakke der står og angiveligt skal til låse sig ind i opgangen ved siden af baggården. Jeg har tidligere haft erfaringer med at beboerne opførte sig emsigt og en enkelt gang tilmed har tilkaldt ordensmagten, så jeg beslutter mig for tage en kort runde på min cykel inden jeg bestiger gitteret. Da jeg fem minutter senere vender tilbage står damen fra tidligere foroverbøjet og roder i Irmas skraldespande. Jeg stopper op og stirre et øjeblik. Så spørger jeg hende om der er noget godt at finde. Hun kigger op, smiler og svare så at det har hun ikke rigtig kunne danne sig et overblik over endnu, men jeg er velkommen til at komme ind og selv se efter. Først siger hun: ”Hop du bare over”, men så kommer hun i tanke om at hun har låst porten op og jeg bare kan gå ind. Jeg går ind. Vi falder i snak. Hun har ingen lygte, men det har jeg heldigvis, indbygget i min mobiltelefon. Hun er energisk og venlig og snakker som et vandfald. ”Jeg har ikke så lange arme, så det er nok bedst at du gør arbejdet, så kan jeg holde lygten”. Vi hjælpes ad. Jeg fortæller at jeg er vegetar, hvilket glæder hende fordi hun så kan få kødet. Hun delagtiggør mig i hvor skidt og væmmeligt hun finder det, at al den gode mad bliver sendt til forbrænding. Perspektivet: ”ikke bare er her, men over hele landet, hver eneste dag”. Jeg er rørende enige, jeg er hende ligeværdig i indignation. Mens vi fisker færdigtilberedte gule ærter på pølle og dusinvis af broccoli op fra affaldsspanden fortæller hun mig, at hun i det tilfælde hvor hun var blevet en gammel fattig dame forestillede sig at hun blot ville gå her ned og rode i skraldet. Jeg samtykker: Det er en god gerning i dobbelt forstand. Først og fremmest fordi man spiser mad der ellers ville være gået til spilde og dernæst fordi man spare penge. Efterfølgende fortæller den venlige dame mig, at hun har undervist på det juridiske fakultet på Københavns Universitet, men at hun sagde op fordi hun ikke kunne stå inde for det niveau undervisningen var sunket ned på: ”Når man får mange penge, så har man også ansvar.. og jeg kunne ikke tage ansvaret for den uddannelse af jurister… Jeg kunne have tjent mange flere penge, men det ville jeg ikke stå model til.. jeg gik flere år før jeg behøvede.. de blev forfærdelig forbavsede”. I samme åndedrag spørger hvor jeg bor (Det viser sig at være den samme gade som hendes læge boede på da hun var ung) og hvad jeg laver. Jeg studerer sociologi, siger jeg. Hun svarer: ”Fornuftigt min dreng… Hold fast i det du tror på.” I samme øjeblik tager jeg tre bakker jordbær op af containeren. Stilhed. Øjenkontakt. Replikvekslingen: -”Ihh,, må mor få dem?” - ”selvfølgelig” siger jeg. Hun er også ovenud henrykt for de gule ærter og den forloren skildpadde på pølse fra Steff Hoglberg. Vi fordeler vores fangst imellem os og hun fortæller mig, at hun sidder i forskellige bestyrelser og beretter om hvad hun har lavet i løbet af hele dagen: Ude og besøge et retshjælpen, til middag hos et vennepar og noget jeg ikke erindre med som omhandlede nogle unge jurister. Hun siger: ”I det her land.. rig og rask skal nok klare sig, men de syge og fattige dem er der ingen der tager sig af.. det er væmmeligt, forargeligt” Og igen kunne jeg dårligt være mere enig. Så fortæller damen mig om sin søn der arbejder for Den Internationale Valutafond, i hovedkvarteret i Washington, D.C., hvor han har mødt sin amerikansk-nigerianske kone, med hvem han nu har barn. Men de kan ikke bo i Danmark, fordi ”folk spytter på hende”. Da vi har samlet vores ting sammen, lukker hun mig ud af porten. Vi siger farvel til hinanden. Jeg siger afslutningsvist, at det er virkeligt godt for mig at møde hende her af den årsag at mine fordomme er blevet gjort til skamme. Hun smiler og siger: ”Ja, det er ikke alle de gamle der er sådan”. Vi tager afsked og imens jeg cykler bort råber hun efter mig: ”Husk at børste tænder min søn!” Jeg svarer: ”lover”, vinker og cykler hjem. Imens jeg cykler hjem igennem mørket tænker jeg på det kulturkonservative projekt: En forestilling om en kulturel og økonomisk elite der tager ansvar for det samfund de lever i, i modsætning til Venstreløverne der forestiller sig en økonomisk elite der er fuldkomment uforpligtede overfor andre mennesker. Og jeg skammer mig en anelse, men på en opbyggelig måde. Jeg havde på hårene skuet en snobbet gammel hykler af en dame, der i hemmelighed var nødsaget til at rode i skraldespanden, mens hverken pels eller smykker skulle sælges og mødte i stedet et livskraftigt og progressivt menneske. Da jeg ankommer til min hoveddør, går det op for mig at har været så optaget af hende at jeg kommer hjem med alt muligt underligt i taksen: et pyntegræskar, en pølse gule ærter, to potter med dild og et pund uspiselige støtte kvæder. Og jeg kommer i tanke om at jeg må have haft forfærdelig dårlig ånde.

postmodernity.

Throughout the 20^th century the modern project has become untrustworthy. By the modern project I understand the belief in rationality, objectivity and universality as the fundament of both ethics and science. The doubt in the modern project is partly due to the horrors which occurred in the heart of the enlightened Europe throughout the history of the 20^th century: Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Soviet Communism, environmental crisis. The doubt in the modern project has also been strengthened by the critics of objectivity and metaphysics raised by Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger amongst others. Today we find it impossible to believe in the modern project. We cannot believe in a linear historicity, in the objective truth, in the thought that the rationalization of society and technological advances will necessarily lead to the good society. In the slipstream of the dismissal of the modern project, postmodern philosophy has focused on the particular and the singular instead of the general or the universal. In postmodernity universality and objectivity have been replaced by pluralism and differing perspectives.

                      Nevertheless, the postmodern belief is not unproblematic. It has enormous consequences for the status of ethics and science. Without an ethic provided by either nature or God or reason, how can we then create a good society? If truth is not something we can discover, a riddle we can solve in the great book of nature, how are we to understand the role of science? On the basis of those problems some come to believe that pluralistic thinking implies a total nihilation of values. Indeed some of the thinkers who had in the first place accepted the postmodern critics of the modern endeavours to make objective descriptions and grasp universal norms, abandon the postmodern belief in particularity and pluralism because they conclude that ethics is no longer a possibility within the postmodern way of thinking. Here, I especially think of Richard Rorty and Slavoj Žižek, who both, but in different ways, end up by completing a cycle; suggesting that we are to universalise a particular ontology or ethic.

To reflect upon this problem of the postmodern: How is it possible at the same time to take the critique of universality and objectivity serious, and still believe in the value of ethics and science? To formulate a thinking of plurality that does not entail a – in Gianni Vattimos words – negative nihilism, where nothing has any value, where ethics and truth has been sucked out of the world. How is it possible to conceive ethics and science without unreserved confidence in rationality, objectivity and universality? How is it possible to hold a critical perspective without a universal and objective fundament?

a project proposal: a history of ideology.

My general field of interest is the historical development of notion and ideal of objectivity, and inseparable from this, the exclusion of certain types of knowledge as subjective, in the meaning with the connotations: false, biased, illusory or simply myth. Within this broad field, I am specifically interested in the role of objectivity in history of socialist theory.

As I understand it, orthodox Marxist cosmology, operates with a dichotomist distinction between the recognition of objective interests and false consciousness (being the result of the workings of bourgeois ideology). In this light, a strategy of emancipation must simply enlighten the unenlightened: tear off the veil of ideology. When this have been done, the proletariat, now realizing there objective interests (the access to objective knowledge is through the dialectic method of scientific socialism), will unquestionable revolt against their suppressers (this also being a historical necessity).This has nevertheless not happened.

Since the days of the dawn of industrialism where Marx did his writings, socialist theory has developed in different directions, and it is the history of the concepts of objectivity and ideology in these traditions and their role in the different strategies of emancipation, I wish to undertake a genealogy of.

Concerning the point of departure of this genealogy I consider to stroke down on Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer and their thesis of the Dialectics of Enlightenment. Here, the ideal of enlightenment is somehow defiled: Enlightenment, in itself containing its opposition (myth) and consequently relapsing into barbarity. I also consider drawing on the works of Antonio Gramsci: who expand the notion of ideology and introduces the concept of struggle for hegemony.

Concerning the late history of objectivity and ideology, I propose working with socialist theories, which in accordance with the linguistic turn; have completely abandoned the idea of an objective world outside of the discourses / outside the ideology (Laclau & Mouffe, Žižek, Vattimo, Hard & Negri). This development introduces a series of intellectual problems I find especially interesting: How are we to understand the concepts of enlightenment and emancipation, if the ideology is at the same time the structures of suppression and that which enables humans to understand and navigate in life? What is the role and status of ideology critique and how are we to evaluate changes in the light of the lack of objectivity?
Different Authors have suggested different answers and it is a discussion of these, as well as their different understandings of the problem in question, I wish to investigate.

skitse til en kriminalroman af en gammel skuffe.

Kronologien, begivenhedernes gang:

Vores hovedperson, lad os kalde ham Charlie ind til videre, er violinist. Imidlertid er han temmelig middelmådig på sit instrument og han går derfor, på ugentlig basis, til timer hos den midaldrende og gigtplagede Kornelius. Historien starter den tirsdag eftermiddag hvor Charlie burde være til violintime, men ikke er det. Han har nemlig et forhold til en ung dame, hvilket Kornelius, der selv engang har været ung, har fuld forståelse for. Han har tilmed så stor forståelse for ungdommen at han har indvilget i en gang imellem at dække over Charlie når hans strenge og ambitiøse forældre forventer at han øver under kyndig vejledning.  Hvad Kornelius dog ikke er klar over er at Charlies bekendtskab er hans ældste datter Viola. Charlie er altså formelt set til violinundervisning, men realt set står han forgæves og ringer på Violas dørklokke. Hun er tilsyneladende ikke hjemme, på trods af at de havde aftalt han skulle komme forbi.

Slukøret vader Charlie ned på kaffebaren skråt over for Violas opgang, for at låne toilettet og måske endda lige få en lille forfriskning. Hvad Charlie ikke bider mærke i er at ham glemmer sin, ellers kostbare, violin på trappeopsatsen foran Violas dør. Mens Charlie sidder på caféen og nyder en espresso bliver Kornelius myrdet i sin herskabslejlighed med en violinstreg. Charlie rejser sig og skal til at begive sig hjem af, i det det går op for ham at han har glemt sit instrument. Heldigvis finder han den hvor han havde efterladt den, så han bevæger sig derfor upåagtet mod sit hjem. Alt imens Charlie cykler hjemad låser Cornelius´ kone, Karen Elizabeth, sig ind i sin lejlighed. Her finder hun sin mand stranguleret med førnævnte violinstreng. Han er helt mørkeviolet i hoved. Karen Elizabeth, der er en fåmælt, men handlekraftig dame, begiver sig staks mod morderens bopæl hvor hun myrder Cornelius’ morder i varmt blod (Hun ved noget vi ikke ved). Nu er både Cornelius og Viola døde. Efter at have myrdet sin ældste datter tager Karen Elizabeth et koldt bad i hendes hjem, hvorefter hun henter sin yngste (stadig hjemmeboende) datter fra en sportsgren, muligvis svømning. De ankommer sammen til bopælen. Karen forbereder sig på at foregive en forfærdelse over Cornelius død, men (et fedt plot twist kunne også være hvis liget var væk) hendes yngste datter, Margarita, griber chancen og kvæler sin mor. Hun bruger en violinstreng, med henblik på at kunne tørre skylden af på faderens morder (imidlertid aner hun intet om at Cornelius blev dræbt af den nu afdøde Viola). Derefter ringer hun til politiet og anmelder ”dobbeltmordet” af hendes forældre. Naturligvis mistænkes Charlie i udgangspunktet. Han fortæller sandheden: han ville have været hos Viola. Lige inden Politikommissæren skal til at tage ud for at afhøre Viola, ringer Charlies far. Han har fundet Viola død i hendes lejlighed (han havde nemlig også en affære med hende). 

freedom.

If politics are understood most narrowly as the parliamentaristic practices of making up and disagreeing about the laws of nation states and deals between same, freedom from politics is pretty much the case for many if not most, and defiantly an opportunity for all in western society. As a matter of fact you do not even have to vote, even though most people do so occasionally. On the other hand they do talk a lot about politics and politicians on TV. They even broadcast live from the pseudo-debates in the chamber of the Danish parliament on national television, but if it bothers you or you are just not into politics, you can always change the channel and will most likely find a nice and entertaining program about celebrating celebrities or real-life cops on patrol between commercial breaks. This is without doubt some sort of freedom, but even though a concept of freedom which is defined negatively is necessary it is simply not enough. To phrase it polemically: What good is it to be free to leave if you have nowhere else to go?

 
When all this is said, I don’t believe that the legitimate possibility of not giving a fuck about the doings of our representatives is what comes first into the mind of postmodern man when asked about his desire for freedom. To unblatantly put my prejudices on display I am afraid that many of my peers link the idea of a higher degree of freedom directly and intimately with the task of obtaining and then spending more money: accumulating items, frequenting cafes and the like. The thing I find most stunning about this, is how rarely the people I meet seem to reflect upon how expensively they buy their money, so to say. For instance, the cash needed to acquire a pair of brand jeans from a firsthand-shop would cost me 16 hours of washing dishes or calling strangers about newspaper subscriptions. Of course not all jobs are as lousy as the ones I have had, but I think a lot of the smartphone and flat screen consumption of western society would vanish if everybody made these kinds of calculations before reaching for their credit card. Furthermore I do not believe it is only when it comes to the process of mentally linking the numbers on their bank statements with the labour for with they were traded that leaves many estranged. The other part of the bargain – the objects you receive when performing the ritual of giving away the pieces of colored paper and metal disks we usually refer to as money – are equally strange to us. An IPod, for example. How did this object come into existence? How and why did it end up on this shelf with hundreds of identical twins right next to it? Most of us know when asked, but few seem to be conscious when navigating in everyday life. Never the less we a living in the midst of a remarkably short period of human history in which technology enables us, and the decreasing amount of natural resources allows us, to produce, transport and consume at this astonishing level. This also takes us to the heart of the present day question of freedom. We are, in western society, so wealthy that my grandmother (living in preindustrial rural Iceland) would simply not be able to understand our way of life. My generations fight for emancipation is not the struggle to overcome our need and poverty, but the struggle for freedom of people we might never meet. Amongst others the people who builds our items.