Y’see, The Strip Club Will Just Not Do For Your Overlords

Gotta love artists duking it out over a piece. This smells to me like one artist getting some column innches on the back of another’s name, but I could be wrong. I’ll say this, though, this is more real than wrasstlin’ folks.

Well, here’s the scenario: influentia performance artist Marina Abramovic was tapped to create a piece for a cash-begging gala at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. You aren’t a real artist until rich people say you are, and they have said for a long time Ms. Abramovic is. The performance she plans to put on this evening is known to us, thanks to Yvonne Rainer, another artist. Ms. Rainer singlehandedly created a controversy with a letter of protest:

I am writing to protest the “entertainment” about to be provided by Marina Abramovic at the upcoming donor gala at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It has come to my attention that a number of young people will be ensconced under the diners’ tables on lazy Susans and also be required to display their nude bodies under fake skeletons.

This description is reminiscent of “Salo,” Pasolini’s controversial film of 1975 that dealt with sadism and sexual abuse of a group of adolescents at the hands of a bunch of post-war fascists. Reluctant as I am to dignify Abramovic by mentioning Pasolini in the same breath, the latter at least had a socially credible justification tied to the cause of anti-fascism. Abramovic and MOCA have no such credibility, only a flimsy personal rationale about eye contact. Subjecting her performers to public humiliation at the hands of a bunch of frolicking donors is yet another example of the Museum’s callousness and greed and Ms Abramovic’s obliviousness to differences in context and some of the implications of transposing her own powerful performances to the bodies of others. An exhibition is one thing — this is not a critique of Abramovic’s work in general — but titillation for wealthy donor/diners as a means of raising money is another.

Ms Abramovic is so wedded to her original vision that she – and by extension, the Museum director and curators — doesn’t see the egregious associations for the performers, who, though willing, will be exploited nonetheless. Their desperate voluntarism says something about the generally exploitative conditions of the art world such that people are willing to become decorative table ornaments installed by a celebrity artist in the hopes of somehow breaking into the show biz themselves. And at sub-minimal wages for the performers, the event is economic exploitation as well, verging on criminality.”

This grotesque spectacle promises to be truly embarrassing. We the undersigned wish to express our dismay that an institution that we have supported can stoop to such degrading methods of fund raising. Can other institutions be far behind? Must we re-name MOCA “MODFR” or the Museum of Degenerate Fund Raising?

Sincerely,
Yvonne Rainer
Douglas Crimp
taisha paggett

With that lurid description and righteous denunciation of the piece the pubication of which is surely guaranteed to bring out the thrill-seeking ultra rich. (Artist, take note. Coordinate conflict in public like rappers trading diss tracks. It’s good for business. If you can get the LA Times and Artinfo.com to help stir the turds, so much the better.) I can see a statement here on the exploitation of artists and the poor, but it may just be my bias showing.

This is LA, so all that is needed is a Lady to go Gaga at the event:

Someone who attended the audition write to Yvonne Rainer about it, but I can’t find attribution. Remember folks, get your name in there:

So, I spent an hour today at the Abromovic [sic] audition at MOCA. The deal is that the artists/dancers she will hire will spend 3(!) hours under the dining tables of the donor gala with their heads protruding from the tables. They will be sitting on lazy susans under the table and slowly rotating and making eye contact with the donors/diners. Of course we were warned that we will not be able to leave to pee, etc. That the diners may try to feed us, give us drinks, fondle us under the table, etc but will be warned not to. Whatever happens, we are to remain in performance mode and unaffected. What the fuck?! And the chosen performers are expected to be there all day friday and saturday. The hours probably total 15 or more and the pay is $150 (plus a MOCA one year membership!!!). I am utterly appalled. This should be illegal. There is another audition for another role where the performers lie naked on tables with fake skeletons on them. Since I cannot stomach being a turning, severed head while people get drunk in front of me, I am seriously considering taking a naked role and performing an intervention at the gala celebration where I use my body as a surface to communicate the fact that I worked x number of hours for $150. I swear I need to do something…to speak for my community of artists who are being taken advantage of by major museums. sick shit.  God, we need a revolution.

As a wise man once wrote, Rome wasn’t burned in a day. True enough, but any time is good for fiddling.

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/750038/yvonne-rainer-denounces-marina-abramovics-planned-moca-gala-performance-as-grotesque
http://theperformanceclub.org/2011/11/yvonne-rainer-douglas-crimp-and-taisha-paggett-blast-marina-abramovic-and-moca-la/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/11/yvonne-rainer-protests-marina-abramovic-plans-for-saturday-moca-gala.html
http://www.galleristny.com/2011/10/marina-abramovic-recruits-moca-la-gala-performers-through-facebook/
http://fora.tv/2010/11/12/LIVE_from_the_NYPL_Antonio_Damasio_and_Marina_Abramovic

http://animalnewyork.com/2011/11/marina-abramovics-allegedly-kinky-criminal-moca-gala/

Is It Art? Is IT Legal? Is It, Bugger…

Industrial Dissolution

The US stock market was on the receiving end of a real RIMM job yesterday, with the maker of the Blackberry taking a bath with a 25% drop. Pandora, the day after their IPO dipped below their initial $16 stock (shock) value and Morningstar, who usually are content with being the megaphone for the economic propaganda emanating from our owners and masters state that their real value is $5. thus is just the latest in a strange, fractal synechdoche bit of moving sculpture/ performance piece/ electronic installation piece called the market.

Don’t worry, as of noon taday, US markets are up an average of 0.40%. This is on the back of collective wisdom assuring us that Greece will greaze up for the international banks so they can complete the job on them and turn their land and infrastructure into property held by the banks.

Dry stuff for a creature such as this kkoagublogg, dealing as we do with music and art, so here’s a video for some entertainment comfort to cleanse the palate:

Vincent Van Gogh had a hard life, selling merely one of his paintings in his lifetime and that to his brother. His name is now cloaked in glory, with works ending up as wealthy art collector concubines and images of same gracing postcards and posters worldwide. The people and institutions involved in the above shenanigans are the same who decide what is declared important in art, what music is to be a real economic commodity. Also, the law does not apply to them. These are the people who are currently buying and selling Warhol art, in a pass-around similar to the collecting and trading of pokemon cards. This could be a Warhol bubble. Hedge fund managers are in the dual role of Pangenitor and Panphage for all art and culture just as they are for public companies and nation states.

Does anything artists/writers/musicians do matter in the wider culture? Did it ever? Most of the creative types I know prefer to ignore such matters, but this may be a defensive posture in a world that does everything it can to discourage them from the path they’re on. And the ones rewarded end up effectively neutralized. Success in the outlying genres is a nice middle-management descent into stupor at best, or a terrible burden on top of the dayjob and what’s left for home life.

There have been multiple declarations of ART WAR in the last few years, but things rarely update after the manifesto is posted, usually on a free blog platform. Hey, we did that! Well, not declare ART WAR, but post a manifestooo right here. We may be developing more music, now that we broke it, or something entirely different. The process is the product and the conversation will determine what, how where with the who being every living and dead creature…

Trailer for the documentary “What is ART? Inside the Mind of the Artist as They Speak the Truth” by Steven Johnson Leyba featuring H.R.Giger, Genesis P-Orridge, Howard Bloom, Joe Coleman, Richard Metzger, David J, Mark Bode and more answer the difficult questions, what is Art?what is TRUE ART?, what is the difference between art and entertainment?, what is more important the artist or the art? Is art important?  

It’s kind of a bourgeois thing to sit and speculate on w(h)ither art?, declare this form or that form dead, and debating back and forth to estimate the time of death. Hey, it’s all dead and in ruins along with the future, literacy and quite likely the industry currently eating up your time in exchange for the means and permission to stay alive for your natural span and do so in sheltered accomodations, owned or rented. The future is here, the future once promised is dead, long live the future, dead music and all.

Audio addenda:

Doc Hammer @ Dragoncon mp3

Fiction in the Age of Inequality mp3

Textual etceterata:

http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/make-do/27998/0

http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2011/04/04/russias-art-war-an-interview-with-voina/

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/06/17/research-in-motion-a-permabull-bails/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jun/17/hauntology-critical

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/feb/16/featuresreviews.guardianreview17?INTCMP=SRCHpsychogeography

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/164268/20110616/pandora-ipo-analysts-point-to-5-after-shares-drop.htm

Far Flung, the Rose Madder Crowd

The best place for an artist is to not be beholden to anything but the work. Well, that’s the ideal. What is often forgotten is that in the continuum of creation to curation to collection only creation is production. Dealers, A&R people and publishers tend to be more aware of this than the people at either end of the process and keeping that in mind helps one understand the minds and actions of the middle-men who usually end up with most of the capital generated. An artist who is going to enter into that dance has to treat these arbiters as employees. For those who don’t, alternative possibilities are multiplying rapidly.

Yes, public arts funding has been in the sights of politicians here in the US for decades, and in the UK for at least the last ten years. There is much hand-wringing onm some circles, and in the circles in which I move there is certainly an awareness of what’s going on, but for most of us, this funding being available or institutions existing never made a difference.

 For funding individual projects and fundamental organizational efforts one may consider taking it to the crowd. It is not uncommon for even labels to take pre-sale orders for CD releases, though it varies from situation to situation how much of that pre-sales are needed to fund production and manufacturing. Smaller labels rarely give anything for production these days, with the relative affordablility of DAW’s and even digital mastering tools. Another that is becoming more common among independents is crowdfunding through sites like Indiegogo, Wefund, music specific entities like Pledgemusic and Kickstarter.

The latter option presents a two-pronged opportunity for artists, film makers, musicians and cultural organizations. On one hand, appealing directly to their audiences for support diminishes the need to shape the work to fit tastes and agendas of the people holding the money or massage those grant writing skills. And a successful campaign engages thoso who already love the work early in the process even while expanding their reach to new supporters.

The March Violets surely could name their price at any of the larger indie labels for their new release, but they are opting to let the fans help and in return people supporting their effort are let in on the process, through frequent communication from the band and access to free dowbn load of tracks well before anyone gets to hear them. With the two already given to their Pledgtemusic supporters, they are richly rewarded indeed.

Saith The March Violets:

We have always been fiercely independent, and the music industry has changed beyond recognition since the days of “Grooving In Green”, “Snake Dance”, “Walk into the Sun” and Rebirth Records. But WE haven’t really changed, we may be older and wiser and indeed wider, but we still have the desire to push the sonic envelope and show everyone that we are unique and even more relevant now the political climate has gone full cycle back to when we began.

And there are now so many more ways of connecting with our loyal fanbase and indeed making new friends. So we’ve teamed up with PledgeMusic to do just that; to welcome you into our twisted little world and offer you the chance to get your hands on some amazing exclusive offers. There’s signed and hand designed merchandise, exclusive stuff old and new, the chance to spend time with us in the studio and even get drunk with us. We are excited! Join us on this continuing adventure.

Part of the reward for artists is to be part of a direct general cultural dialogue that would be harder to initiate. In the case of The Yes Men Fix the World, there is no way any of the media companies that are essentially mouthpieces of our owners would ever support such a venture. They went to Vodo, which has the advantage of the crowdfunding and expands that with a distribution platform that allows for streaming and bittorrent downloads. And filmmakers are taking to crowdfunding in greater numbers since the major studios dissolved their «independent» subsidiaries.

Art careers traditionally depend on either appealing to the small group of people holding wealth or creating somthing innocuous enough for millions of people to want to buy prints for their living rooms. Alternatives for ennabling creation are dveloping and continued innovation is sure to develop. The next step is creating a distributed culture including dialogue, dissemination of work and support systems outside the establishment. As the real economy is being abandoned and working and middle classes are thrown out as no longer necessary within the developing infernal economic alchemy, the artists and thinkers who haven’t been relevant to their Brave (no longer) New World are there to welcome them. Interesting times lie ahead, and the bits falling off the decaying monolith may be a great place to start gathering building materials.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/culture-cuts-blog/2011/mar/11/crowdfunding-arts-wedidthis

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/culture-cuts-blog/2011/may/16/art-emin

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/themarchviolets

http://vodo.net/yesmen

http://www.publicindividual.com/blog/interstitial-spaces/mobile-social/platforms/04/privacy-and-anonymity-for-creatives-castrproject-crowdsourcing-and-media-production/

Weaponized Episode 2: Aftermath

The dust-devils recede and the silence booms with the voices of those who have left. All is undone but those actions that can never be undone. You are left in the aftermath, the pieces falling are grains too small to pick up. The only way out is through.

Sonic degradation and collation tools used in this episode were built by ccernn and weilded by eemersonn and Eianorange for kkoagulaa:programming-node.

via Weaponized Episode 2: Aftermath.

Podcast

kkoagulaa – Impressions of Ardour DigiEP

kkoagulaa - Impressions of Ardour EP (2010)

Now available from iTunes.

Songs:

1 Impressions Of Ardour
2 Darkpassage
3 Alpha Wave
4 Exaltation Crash
5 Concentration Expansiveness

http://itunes.apple.com/it/album/impressions-of-ardour/id356537617

THE OTHER SOUND: ISSUE #10

The Other Sound #10

Welcome to “THE OTHER SOUND: ISSUE #10“. This is the second issue, and much the same as the 2012 issue (technically Issue 9) this issue is spread out here via blog version – or a print magazine re-deux of the early 1980’s magazine published by John Zewizz – “The Other Sound“. There were 8 issues printed before the magazine stopped being pressed. My goal is to have one of these out every 3 months. I can’t guarantee that I will make it, but I am giving it a shot.

“THE OTHER SOUND: ISSUE #10” picks up where Issue 2012 left off. Inside you will find information about various Inner-X-Musick artists (Batcheeba), as well as Friends on Inner-X-Musick (klanggalerie/Walter Robotka, Rat King), and items that just interest me (Reviews, SexMagick). A Special thank you goes to John Zewizz, Madhav Ravindranath, Walter Robotka, Michael Ford, and Janne Berset for their help and support.

A little about “THE OTHER SOUND“… we are an organized group of people who do believe in musick. Special musick that is… we believe in keeping our musick prersonal. Not for the masses. Our musick is made to satisfy the doubt and demand for obscurity. We aim to fulfill the desires in ourselves and the desires of similar to us.

Our interests fall in the lines of obscurity and obliqueness, be it to look at… to listen to… or to engage in. Bound by a pledge to bind oneself and keep the betroth of cryptic interests alive inside oneself.

And so comes the name “THE OTHER SOUND“, the sound remaining…. remaining from the majority – (the larger number, more than half) – the masses. “THE OTHER SOUND” is our musick, our beliefs, our interests, OURS what belongs to US.

“THE OTHER SOUND: ISSUE #10”  is available as a PDF HERE.

The entire “THE OTHER SOUND: ISSUE 2012” is available in a nice neat package as a PDF available HERE

Thank you,
TBM

Second Review – Aurum Nostrum non est Aurum vulgi :: Imperiumi.net

Levyarviot: Kkoagulaa – Aurum Nostrum non est Aurum vulgi :: Imperiumi.net.

Update with kind assistance from ANDRZ we have this more intelligible translation:

Kkoagulaa is founded by pretty much the same bunch of people who formed the very core of Manes, founded in 1993. Manes´s style was black metal at first, but later on they became more and more experimental with their music. The last Manes album, “How the World Came to an End” presented wide variety of styles from rap to electronica. Kkoagulaas first album “Aurum Nostrum non est Aurum Vulgi” dives even deeper to the same waters, although this album is more coherent and long-lasting than its predecessor.

“Aurum Nostrum non est Aurum Vulgi” consists of one 54-minute long track, including variations from minimalistic Ambient to exploding electronic beats and even squeaks from Niklas Kvarforth of Shining fame. Eventhough Kkoagulaa stretches further away from pop/rock category than for instance the two other Norwegian oddballs, Ulver and In the Woods…, comparisons to those two (especially their subsequent catalogues) are unavoidable. Comparisons to Scott Walker´s experimental body of work, Devil Doll and Aphex Twin are not too farfetched either.

As a whole, the album is confusing and challenging without being pointless or artificial. Aurum Nostrum non est Aurum Vulgi is a unique case for a listener like me, who, aside from The Prodigy, doesn´t know much about electronic music. If the goodness or badness of music are the only criteria of categorizing the album, then Kkoagulaa belongs, without any hesitation, under the good music monicker.

plugin to the kkaotikk source kkore

i can’t do those thought-inspiring posts, not with prose, or lyrics.
(which is pretty obvious when reading my petty blogging efforts)
i can only express myself in audio, in code,
binary zeroes and ones, waveforms, abstract concepts and ideas…
so,
the last year or so, i have been obsessed with coding (c++),
started an(other) opensource project: axonlib.
but now it’s time to merge all that with ‘proper’ musical/artistic projects.
(especially kkoagulaa)
we have a ton of self-produced audio effects/software available now,
and there’s a lot more coming.
software made for our own use, for our own ways of working,
we don’t need to adapt to some other genreric/a4 methodologies,
we can be our own tool-makers.
software inspiring our art, and our art (re-)inspiring the software…
megalomanic dreams, grandiose thoughts, other-worldly ideas.
in repetitive cycles.

fortunately, inspiration has never been a problem of ours, we have almost too much of that, we just need to filter out the realistic ones, the ideas that can possibly be made into ‘real life’.

if you (for any reason) are interested in following a more technological side of kkoagulaa, have a peek at axonlib (source code) or ccernn.audio (software, the binaries, plugins, etc, linux/windows). things are updated regularly…

and finally, if you have any ideas for a plugin or other software, or anything else,
we could try making it happen!
don’t be afraid to get involved! don’t hold back, follow your inner voices. (that’s what we do)
we would like to see the kkoagulaa “kkollektivee” grow!
happily lose some control.
so that things feel exciting and fresh again!

– ccernn

also, there’s too little chaos and confusion on the world, so i gladly contribute what i can to that!

and, btw, ‘i’ might mean ‘we’, and ‘we’ could mean ‘i’

Cultural Blindspots

Using the counter at the diner to chop lines into thirds
( some other tangent entirely; compiled hastily as a just in case shit indemnity )

Barriers left still standing in the wake of the death of The Movement(tm)

With respect to the indefensibly faddish neo-conservative banalities effluenced by closeted-subversives, wannabe agents provocateurs, and failed cultural mutineers who’ve succumb to the trendy obscurantism of pandering connivance and lobby-hopping collusion which infests the most critical arenas of our political super-structure it’s worth mentioning that although societies appear to function with some degree of transitional seamless-ness when it comes to maintaining the various industries and institutions that inevitably engorge the slimy behemoth of finance and commerce there is nothing less stable than the failed sea monkey civilization experiment that we call modern society in so-called first world nations.

We’re talking here about the systemic global monstrosity erected long ago (if even in primitive ideal alone) which prevents the planet from returning to the quest for fire. This offers us a glimpse into the ambiguous meta-narrative dictated by countless tyrannical despots regimes and tirelessly rewritten by innumerable resistances and rebellions.

This cultural blindspot represents a failed attempt to digest some sort of idealistic mystery meat that is all too often excused (or more appropriately diffused) by the sentiment that such acts of utilitarian amalgamation are committed “for our own benefit” lending credence to the notion that information itself can act as the catalyst for such radical change in thinking so as to facilitate widespread panic, and general civil unrest. This brand of information (which possesses quasi-malignant memetic undertones) has the capacity to marginally disrupt transit, commerce, and civil service or perhaps even motivate misguided anarchism with bursts of revolutionary upheaval, rebellion, or sporadic outbreaks of riots that ultimately lead us in circles chasing our own tails only to be rewarded with a tasty nose-dive into the moist chasm of our own asses.

To those parasitic troglodytes whose literary invoice consists of ad hoc attacks on late modernism allow me to recapitulate our platform:

In all hir dealings with this reality matrix, the post-modernist chaosorcerer focuses hir attention on specific local contexts as well as the diversity of human experience in order to render a conclusive dichotomy contrasting the leftover scraps of functional truth with the portent ashes of archaic pseudo-science; wrought with esoteric tricks for split-second survival of the intricate hazards scattered about the course and the insidious etiquette encouraged both in the game green and squatting courtside in college. Hetero-liminal acceptance codes for cultural initiation to follow.

We tend to rely on immediate truths which bare sharp relevance to the unyielding storm of ever-changing circumstance we weather across the itinerant landscape of dictated Real Life(tm) and her multi/parent-subsidiary conglomerates divided amongst the fates and the furies for future furloughs further from fetid freedoms. As opposed to relying on temporal conveniences which bare stark resemblance to the tyrannic patriarchal dogma we’re force fed from infancy.

What you call “formative education” represents an indifferent engine of mandatory cultural programming which has grown larger than the sum of its parts. What you call “patriotism” we see as the induction of mass hysteria utilized to achieve support from the populous majority toward ends which may ultimately serve to benefit the few despite the many.

It seems the post-structuralist arm-chairlings remain dimly conscious of the underlying importance we place on practical applications for use against the widespread authoritarian corruption of civil liberties, the unstoppable erosion of financial securities, and outright degradation of institutional integrity.

This cheap puppet show of cardboard personalities and meaningless celebrity must not drag us into the depths of apathetic compliance with political dispersion. We pay witness to the experiential melee of staged pugilism between spontaneous randomosity and deductive predictability that we (endure) as spectators of the Spectacle’s ontological soap opera.

The fine balancing act we perform daily serves to facilitate our pronounced sense of incredulity towards meta-narratives while failing to insinuate the immeasurable importance of the human element the threshold of our mental fortitude our capacity to obtain societal leverage faculties. So says wiser men:

“According to the advocates of postmodernism, meta-narratives have lost their power to convince – they are, literally, stories that are told in order to legitimize various versions of “the truth”. With the transition from modern to postmodern, Lyotard proposes that meta-narratives should give way to ‘petits recits’ or more modest and “localized” narratives.”

The post-modern chaoist seeks a multiplicity of theoretical standpoints rather than grand, all-encompassing theories which upholds the deluded belief that all problems have solutions. Utter rubbish.

First review of Aurum Nostrum

Artist: Kkoagulaa
Title: Aurum Nostrum Non Est Aurum Vulgi
Type: Album
Label: Aural Music

Having been writing reviews for a number of years, at times I find myself on virtual auto pilot when summing things up and feel I could do so with eyes shut and ears only half open. This I hasten is not an album that such principles can work with and although I profess to loving a challenge and getting stuck into something different from the norm Kkoagulaa have if anything come at me as a divine trial. This is so far from the norm that it virtually beggars belief and this is summed up in the pages of information that accompanied the download. The project is designed to “stretch out beyond genre conventions” and their mission is “to work in an expanded range of media and to even step outside of conventions of what constitutes avant-garde art and music” Alchemy is mentioned as the core behind both artist and work and the way they have turned their music into gold is a fascinating journey to undertake. As far as more background is concerned you can check out the detailed information at the band links below.

Read the rest @

http://www.metalteamuk.net/feb10reviews/cdreviews-kkoagulaa.htm