[NewMusic] matmos lecture: the re-dematerialization of the art object

[Barry Threw]

 > - Barry the genius wrote:

Genius?  Thanks.  You want to be my valentine?

> - Why is it necessary to make any art or music?

The difference is, when you make other kinds of art or music, you 
actually make something. I do see this as important, and not as simply 
an issue of craft.

> - No. 

Why not?  Is it my intention? Is that really what makes an art work? 
Given, it can't be ignored...but there was a real point which got 
glossed over in my statement; does this conceptual artwork have value in 
itself, or simply contextually in proving   a point, that this kind of 
thing can exist, that the concept is as "physical" and valid an object 
as any "real" object.  This is pretty much a foundational building block 
of any digital practitioner.  However, in the event that the concept is 
as valid as a physical art piece, I re-ask the question,  Why is it 
necessary to make any art or music?

Its rhetorical for me; Because we live in an actual world.

Side question, what is the role of the artist if we accept purely 
conceptual art?  I would think, ideally, there is no more artist.  In 
the future no one will be famous. Everyone has equal ability to make 
this kind of work, and is limited only by their distribution channels. 
Channels that are limited to the privileged.  In this since the 
conceptual artist has not eschewed the object oriented materialist art 
world paradigm any more than anyone else.

> - Besides, that's invariably been done.

Eh.  Prove it.  I think I was the first.

> - No, you're the equivalent of someone playing the preset song on the Casio
> mini-keyboard I got for Christmas when I was 9.

And there are some people who would see that as a valid art statement. 
Hell, by these conceptual art precedents, the act of you pressing the 
button to play that preset song was in itself some kind of statement 
about technology and music in the age of mechanical reproduction.  I 
could see it now.  Some asshole goes up on stage, presses a button on a 
casio, and looks very austere.  By sheer hubris and wordplay they 
convince an audience that it is a worthwhile statement.  Where does it 
stop?  With what amount of verbal jacking-off do we finally say, 
"enough, this is ridiculous".

Haven't gotten to the article.  Will peruse.

b

> While we're on the subject, here's a link to something I wrote about local
> conceptual artists, including Mr. Jon Brumit and Matt Volla, whom some of
> you know.
> 
> http://www.atasite.org/zine/issue4/lockhart/
> 
> sl
> 
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-- 
barry threw
composition : sound : programming
http://www.barrythrew.com
bthrew(at)gmail(dot)com
857-544-3967

Today, Noise is triumphant and reigns sovereign over the sensibility of men.
- Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises