My
\nnext piece for BiLE is a large-scale piece called The Death of
\nStockhausen<\/I>, which will be approximately an hour long. I’m
\ncalling the piece a \u201claptopera,\u201d although there are not currently
\nany singers. Although this may stretch the opera genre a bit, it’s
\nnot unprecedented, as Gino Robair’s opera in real time, I, Norton<\/I>,
\nlists singers as an optional part: \u201cA
\nperformance can be done without actors, singers, or even musicians.\u201d
\n(\u201cFAQ\u201d)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The
\ninspiration for my opera largely comes from the Adam Curtis
\ndocumentary All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace<\/I>,
\nwhich discusses how individuals stopped feeling like we are in
\ncontrol of society or the future. A review of the series in the
\nGuardian describes the premise as,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[W]ithout Curtis The Our The This However, I’ve 8 2 3 1 The Act The I From This Act Other This Rules Intro:<\/p>\n \tStart A:<\/p>\n \tThen B:<\/p>\n \tThen C:<\/p>\n \tThe \tPlayers \tOnce \tWhen \tBlank I Act In I Act I My next piece for BiLE is a large-scale piece called The Death of Stockhausen, which will be approximately an hour long. I’m calling the piece a \u201claptopera,\u201d although there are not currently any singers. Although this may stretch the opera genre a bit, it’s not unprecedented, as Gino Robair’s opera in real time, I, Norton, … Continue reading Dissertation Draft: BiLE – The Death of Stockhausen<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112,76,124,122],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-bile","tag-celesteh","tag-opera","tag-thesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2386,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/2386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nrealising it we, and our leaders, have given up the old progressive
\ndreams of changing the world and instead become like managers \u2013
\nseeing ourselves as components in a system, and believing our duty is
\nto help that system balance itself. Indeed, Curtis says, \u201cThe
\nunderlying aim of the series is to make people aware that this has
\nhappened \u2013 and to try to recapture the optimistic potential of
\npolitics to change the world.\u201d (Viner<\/A>)
\n
<\/p>\n
\nlays much of the blame for the current state of affairs at the feet
\nof computers, or at least the mythology of stable systems which was
\ninspired by computer science. (All Watched Over by Machines of
\nLoving Grace<\/I>) I thought it would be interesting to do a
\ncomputer-based piece that addressed his documentary. While I don’t
\nbelieve that computers or anything else are a neutral platform, I
\nthink a large part of the problem comes from the way in which we are
\nusing computers and allowing ourselves to be used by technology
\ncompanies. Any solution will certainly have to involve computers, so
\nit seems useful to think about how to deploy them positively rather
\nthan under a politics of invisible corporate control.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nCurtis documentary is also appealing because he addressed some issues
\nthat had been coming up in conversations I have been having with
\nfriends. When we think of the future, we think only of better
\ngadgets, not a better world. For example, when describing a new
\niPhone app Word Lens, techCrunch breathlessly stated, \u201cThis
\nis what the future, literally, looks like.\u201d
\n(Tsotsis<\/A>)
\nThey were not alone in this pronouncement, which was widely echoed
\nthrough major media outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle
\nwho imagined a consumer reaction of, "holy cow, this is the
\nfuture." (Frommer)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nenvisioned future is thus one of hypercapitalism. More and more
\nthings to buy while at the same time, less and less money with which
\nto buy it. Consumers economise on food, but still buy expensive
\niPhone contracts, presumably because they want to own a piece of the
\nfuture. Meanwhile, they have less and less control of even that as
\nApple’s curatorial role prevents most consumers from being able to
\ninstall apps not approved by the corporation. Smart phones
\ndisempower their users further by collecting their private
\ninformation. (Angwin and Valentino-Devries) The future is passive
\nconsumers under greater control from the state and from corporations,
\nsuch as Google, Apple and Facebook, who win us over with appealing
\ngadgets. An online contact described this as a "totalitarian
\npleasure regime." (Dugan) Thus we envision Huxley’s Brave New
\nWorld<\/I> for those who can afford it and Orwell’s 1984 <\/I>for
\nthose who can’t.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nleft seems to have no widely articulated alternative idea of what a
\nbetter world would even look like. The Guardian quotes Curtis on
\n2011 protests, \u201c’Even
\nthe \u201cmarch against the cuts\u201d,’ he says, referring to the
\nTUC march in London in March<\/A>,
\n‘it was a noble thing, but it was still a managerial approach. We
\nmustn’t cut this, we can’t cut that. Not, \u201cThere is another way.\u201d’\u201d
\n(Viner<\/A>)
\nCurtis does not hand us a vision for what this other way might be,
\nbut calls on us to imagine one.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nopera will restate the problem outlined by Curtis and go on to link
\nthe end of the future with the current apocalyptic concerns.
\nOriginally, I want to focus mostly on the American preoccupation with
\nthe Apocalypse and Rapture. If all the future will be just like now,
\nbut with better gadgets, then we are only waiting for the end of the
\nworld, which might as well come sooner rather than later. However,
\nvarious recent secular events seem to also bear inclusion. The New
\nYork Times described a possible outcome of the US debt crisis as a
\n\u201cG\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung,\u201d describing a far right wing hope for a
\n\u201cpurifying\u201d fire. (Posner and Vermeule) As the stock market
\ntumbled, looters set fire to high streets in the UK. Zoe Williams,
\nwriting in the Guardian, noted that the consumer-oriented nature of
\nthe riots is something \u201cwe’ve never seen before.\u201d (Williams)
\nRather than battle with the police, looters focused on gathering
\nconsumer goods. Williams quotes Alex Hiller, \u201cConsumer
\nsociety relies on your ability to participate in it.\u201d
\n(Williams) Even their ability to be passive consumers was thwarted.
\nThey had minimal access to what we’ve deemed to be the future.
\nHowever, setting large, destructive fires seems to imply that there
\nis more than just this going on. All of these things from religious
\nbeliefs, to economic disaster to civil unrest share a sense of
\nhopelessness and feeling of things ending.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nrather than end on a negative note of yearning for oblivion, and the
\nend of the avant-garde, I do want listeners to consider a better
\nworld. All of us have agency that can be expressed in ways other
\nthan acquiring consumer goods. I do not present a view of what a
\nbetter world might look like, but do hope to remind them that one is
\npossible. There is another way.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nbroken the opera up into four acts with connecting transition
\nsections. The durations are based on the fibonacci series. The
\nstructure will be as follows:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nmin:\t\tAct 1 – The
\nPromise: Cooperative Cybernetics<\/I><\/p>\n
\nmin:\t\tTransition 1
\n21
\nmin:\tAct 2 – The
\nReality: The Rise of the Machines \/ Hypercapitlaism<\/I><\/p>\n
\nmin:\t\tTransition 2
\n13
\nmin:\tAct 3 – The
\nApocalypse<\/I><\/p>\n
\nmin:\t\tTransition 3
\n5
\nmin:\t\tAct 4 \u2013 A
\nBetter World is Possible: Ascension to Sirius<\/I><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\ndurations will probably vary slightly from performance to performance
\nand may evolve with our practice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n1 explores the idealistic ideas of self-organising networks. Every
\nplayer in BiLE, as is normal, will create their own sound generation
\ncode which will take no more than five shared parameters plus
\namplitude to control their sounds. These parameters may be:
\ngranular, sparse, resonant, pitched. Each player would have a slider
\ngoing from zero to one where zero means not at all and one means
\nentirely. Players will not control their sliders directly, but
\ninstead vote for a value to increase or decrease. Their sound will
\nthus change in response to their own votes and votes of other
\nplayers. They can control their own amplitude at will. There is
\nalso another slider, individual to every player, which controls how
\nanti-social they are. A value of zero will follow the group
\ndecisions entirely and as the value increases, they will deviate more
\nand more from the group. A value of one should be actively
\ndisruptive. All players should start with anti-social values of zero
\nand increase that number in a non-linear fashion until at the end the
\ngroup is, in general, very anti-social. The idea of group following
\nin this piece is also present in my earlier piece Partially
\nPercussive<\/I>
\nbut the users have much less agency in carrying it out in this act.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nopera will be accompanied by video projections from Antonio Roberts.
\nI would like the start of this section to visually reference Richard
\nBrautigan’s poem \u201cAll Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace\u201d
\nfrom which the curtis documentary takes it’s name. The second stanza
\nis<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nlike to think
(right now, please!)
of a
\ncybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer
\nstroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with
\nspinning blossoms.
\n(Brautigan<\/A>)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nthere, I would like there to be archival images of advertising and
\nassembly lines. As anti-social disorder increases, I’d like to see
\nmore archival images of rioting and property destruction.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nact will not begin rehearsals until October 2011.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n2 is included in my portfolio. It is the most operatic of all the
\nacts in that it includes live vocals. Players sample themselves first
\nreading common subject lines of spam emails, then common lines from
\nwithin spam emails and finally start reading an example of \u201cspoetry\u201d
\n– machine generated text that is sometimes used in an attempt to fool
\nspam filters. The players manipulate these samples to create a live
\npiece of text-sound poetry. In order to get material, I mined the
\nspam folder of my email account. I broke the material into sections
\nand assigned every line a number. (See attached)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\ncomposers, such as Yannis Kyriakides in his piece \u201cScam Spam\u201d
\nhave used spam emails as source material. However, Kyraikides does
\nnot include a vocal line in his piece. In 2008, composer\/performer
\nPolly Moller approached me to improvise live on KFJC radio in
\nCalifornia. She played flute and pitched noisemakers and read a
\n\u201cspoem\u201d called \u201cNice to See You\u201d and I did live
\nsampling\/looping of her sounds and vocals. (No More Twist) I felt
\nsatisfied with the results of this improvisation. Afterwards, I was
\ninterested to keep working with spoetry and to look at doing more
\nstructured text-sound pieces with a greater live component than I had
\npreviously.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nact builds on my experiences with Moller, using a larger ensemble,
\nand asking every member of BiLE to develop programmes specifically
\nfor the manipulation of text sounds. They also manipulate artificial
\nsounds, which are recordings of my analog syntheiser. The score is
\nexpressed as rules:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nfor playing:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nimmediately with the artificial sounds. You may play these throughout
\nthe piece.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nstart recording and playing from the A section. These can go
\nthroughout the piece.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\ngo on to the B section. These can also go throughout the piece, but
\nshould be used more sparingly once this section is passed.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nC section takes up the largest section of the piece. You do not need
\nto get to the end of all the lines provided.<\/p>\n
\nshould announce what line they are recording via the chat.<\/p>\n
\na line is recorded, other players may record that line (or fragments
\nof it) again, but cannot backtrack to a previous line. Players can
\nalso choose to advance to the next line, but, again, backtracking is
\nnot allowed.<\/p>\n
\na player is picking a soundfile to process, she can pick from any
\nsection. If she picks from section C, it should be normally a recent
\nline, however you can break this rule if you have a good reason, ie.
\nyou feel a really strong attachment to a previous line or think it
\ncan exist as a counterpoint \/ commentary to the current line.<\/p>\n
\nlines in the text should be interpreted as pauses in making new
\nrecordings.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nhave not yet thought about videos for this section.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n3 will also have text sound, but as a collage on top of other
\nmaterial. I was originally planning to have this section concentrate
\nsolely on people’s religious or spiritual beliefs surrounding the
\nrapture, the apocalypse or 2012. I’m hoping to do telephone
\ninterviews of Americans who believe the end is neigh. I’m hoping the
\npromise of being able to witness to new audiences will be enticing
\nenough to persuade them to participate. I have not yet found any
\nrapture believers to record, but as we are not going to start working
\non this until October or November of 2011, it’s not yet urgent.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\naddition to rapture believers, I hope to do in-person recordings of
\npeople who have New Age beliefs about the winter solstice of 2012. So
\nfar I have interviewed one person and another has agreed to
\nparticipate also. I plan to have the piece organised so that the
\nrapture believers come first in the piece and the 2012 believers, but
\nas I have not yet acquired much material, this is subject to change.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nplan to ask interviewees about current events, like rioting, economic
\nturmoil and climate change and include those things in the text by
\nhow they correlate to religious and spiritual beliefs. The collage
\nwill also be made up of samples referencing these also, such as fire
\nsounds, windows breaking, sirens, etc. This does present a risk of
\nbeing overly dramatic, but appropriate use of heavy processing will
\nturn the sounds into references that are more indirect. Also drama is
\nnot inappropriate to the medium. The collage should become less and
\nless alarming towards the end, as the text switches to the generally
\nmore hopeful New Age respondents.
\n
<\/p>\n
\n4 will have a graphic score, in the style of Cornelius Cardew’s
\nTreatise. <\/I>I recently participated in the first all-vocal
\nperformance of that piece, at the South London Gallery on 16
\nSeptember 2011. The group I sang with did not have a lot of
\nexperience with free improvisation, and it was interesting to see how
\nexposure to such open material challenged and inspired them. I hope
\nthat similarly, BiLE will go places we would not have otherwise
\nwithout the graphic score. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\ndo want it to move from a spiritual hope of the previous act to
\nsomething more inclusive. My hope is that the audience will leave
\nnot with a sense that the apocalypse is coming in one form or
\nanother, but that it is possible to avert disaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"