Hi Elisabet my mail address is: benjamin.vossler@gmail.com
Hi Ben my email address is: elisabetcurbelo@gmail.com
"Medium is the message"
a quote of Marshall McLuhan
Bens' thoughts:
- the medium influences the way we interact and communicate
- there's a difference between writing by using a typewriter, a laptop or a pencil
- „Unser Schreibzeug arbeitet mit an unseren Gedanken / Our writing tools are also working on our thoughts“ Friedrich Nietzsche
- the structure of a medium influences the understanding on the receivers' site
in our transcontinental context
- our communication media and devices influence the quality of our communication
- misunderstanding leads to new interpretation of the submitted content
- the quality of the connection affects the esthetic of the experience -> a "glitchy memory"
- the latency forces to slow down (if a Hi-Fi perception of San Diego is wanted -> need the upload on a video hoster)
-> creates new "space" -> virtual Space
If I will remember San Diego, while a realtime connection via internet, I only have a destructive image in memory.
Ideas to work with
1. using the latency time as a metronome
-> waves from Weimar to San Diego
2. using the artifacts of the sound-transmission for the esthetic of an impulse response
-> Live-Electronic improvisation
3. collect sound spaces
-> sending claps to open spaces in San Diego and use them to convole with sounds of Weimar and vice versa
Elisabets' thoughts:
As a composer I think that there are two different ways of creating: The message is the primary element and we should find the best medium to create it. The medium is limited and we have to be creative using it in a way that the message could be interesting.
I think that the sentence "Medium is the message" refers to the second way of creating I wrote above. It makes sense to use the characteristics of the tools as inspiration to create a message in our transcontinental context because we are using a limited medium. I think It does not make sense for us to try to improve some that seems impossible in 3 month but we can create a message using the defects of the medium as part of the message .
Updated Elisabets' and Bens' thoughts after the Skype discussion:
1. How does the sentence “The medium is the message” by Marshall McLuhan applies to your practice? Comment on this quote in the context of your own work and in regards to this transcontinental collaboration, etc.
-> The medium influences, changes the content that is submitted. -> Offers a new way of watching/ hearing.
2. American sound artist Bill Fontana made several pieces in which he transfers sound from one location to another. How does this locational switch change our understanding of a the space(s) in question? What new aspects of a sonic environment might emerge? What happens to our perception of a location once it is stripped from its original sounds and these are replaced by sounds from another location?
-> You dive places into other sonic environment. ->- If you don't know the place you can accept everything.
3. How does an instrument through which sound is transmitted shape our expectation and the perception of it (loudspeaker, telephone, alarm-clock), in other words, what if the expectation is not met, what impact can this have on our perception?
-> cognitive prototypes (helmut rösing) -> As a child you learn to assemble an image with a sound and vice versa, to interact in your environment without distraction.
-> We can make the difference between nature sounds and reproduced sounds (e.g. in a concert piece).
Fred Frith-Morning Song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx5RPHoR0A4