(con)juncture was lawson fletcher's thought pile. Now blogging at soundofruins.net
"stay critical or die!" | email | (con)temporary


31.1.09

aesthetics and history

Despite a sense of rigur mortis in its theorising, as if it were a static and pervasive phenomenon, the digital aesthetic has a history. Compare the compact disc and the mp3, for instance, both built upon the digital, but carrying very different forms of coding, sound, tactility, look. The fact that sound has 'detoriated' or at least been compressed in the 'advance' of the mp3 is interesting - whereas digital imagery is all about approaching 'reality' or at least something like 'clarity' or relief; more megapixels, sharper flat screen tvs, etc. etc. The disjuncture expressed in the progression of visual versus sonic digitality shows that there is no teleology in this history, but it at least gives rest to pre-digital nostalgia as if herein was petrified.

11.1.09

thrashed

I'd really like to write something substantial one day on the phenonemon of 'thrashing' or 'killing' a particular piece of music, when one has played it so much that you get 'sick' of it. Does this fact mean that such a way of listening is inherently consumerist? Or that all musics (mainly popular music) we find bring on this condition are necessarily or fundamentally consumables?

"Activities of self-realization are subject to increasing marginal utility: They become more enjoyable the more one has already engaged in them. Exactly the opposite is true of consumption. To derive sustained pleasure from consumption, diversity is essential. Diversity, on the other hand, is an obstacle to successful self-realization, as it prevents one from getting into the later and more rewarding stages."
(Jon Elster, philosopher)

Hmmm...