Tuesday, May 5, 2009

....a paper?

do you guys wanna' read my mid term paper about luigi russolo and neubauten? keep in mind i'm no writer.
Posted by andrewfansler at 3:01 PM

6 comments:

  1. sqrt (Brian)May 5, 2009 at 4:38 PM

    post that shit cracka

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  2. IannnnnnMay 5, 2009 at 7:07 PM

    Yes we want to read it. Yes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. a. g. l.May 6, 2009 at 12:11 PM

    use more overblown prose/wistful rememberings/ improvised) ADD _ shorthand///notation



    done

    agl.

    ReplyDelete
  4. andrewfanslerMay 6, 2009 at 3:16 PM

    alright well...here's a draft. crits welcome



    Luigi Russolo is undoubtedly one of the most influential characters in music of the 20th century. His work facilitated the move of music to within a view of limitless horizons. Russolo was not a trained musician yet he understood that expansion of possibilities in the field of sound and music was a necessary step for the survival of fresh aesthetic experience. There’s a certain place where, looking beyond influences of the past one faces fear and doubt of the progress to come. Musicians before Russolo had prodded at this field, but his contributions, embodied in the intonarumori, lead us beyond conventions of sound and standard philosophical stances on music. When we look at music as an extension of our connection to nature, Russolo understood that the industrial mechanical age was redefining our concepts of nature, environment, and aural orientation in this new landscape. The turn of the century was the realization of the dramatic curve upward in speed of progress. At this point, development of technology, spreading of culture, and realization of our own demise were growing so fast that we could no longer afford to build upon a past of self-indulgent tradition. One manifestation of this idea takes place in Russolo’s work and the waves of influence that radiate outward. Looking at the ideas behind the intonarumori we can uncover connections to our own time that emphasize a need to continue in his footsteps of shunning preexistent methods of listening and production for our own artistic salvation. Though many artists worked towards similar goals, I wish to explore the relationship between Russolo’s endeavors and the works of Einsturzende Neubauten, a music group with origins in a divided 1980’s Berlin.
    The Futurists saw unexplored territory and defined a way to express it through depicting motion and light, speed and electricity. Ideas developed by F.T. Marinetti, chief theorist of the Futurist movement, were the catalyst for Russolo’s endeavors. Futurism looked to the new age of speed and technology, warfare and violence as it affected the social psyche (Taylor 10). At the point when Russolo, formerly a painter, decided that he would embark on a journey in music, Marinetti had already written treatises on how these new elements would logically develop into sound and music. His ideas on the use of “free words” and “noise poetry” built a foundation upon which Luigi Russolo would construct his instruments and compositions (Marinetti 46). True forms of dissonance (in opposition to contemporary composition) could be generated through these new methods of working. The music Russolo would define came to be the perfect confluence of medium and concept. The need for instruments that defied the standards of harmony and virtuosity was a result of the Futurist desire to depict the modern day with all its grimy underbelly. These were volatile times. Through mechanical advantage humanity had given itself new power, strength beyond the individual, wielded by those in power to maintain their positions of authority. A crucial and often overlooked point of the Futurists goals was to create things that were accessible; with the rejection of tradition new ways to absorb cultural production were being established. To damn tradition was to build new rules that related directly to the modern consciousness. Consciousness itself was changing with our environment. The Futurists admired the endeavors of such work as Eadweird Muybridge’s photographs depicting motion, we could no longer think of the static nature of things. Futurist paintings evoked this sense of movement and connection (or disconnection). Russolo himself made images evoking the possibility of music as a tangible environmental force. In his “Music” of 1911 waves of sound emanate from a player at a keyboard, creating objects flowing through space from the instrument. Humans were inextricable from their environment and a true portrait could only be constructed through consideration of the surrounding atmospheres (Taylor 12). This concept was well defined by the Futurist painters, but the lack of a musical analog remained. Russolo would fill this gap. The use of noise for music was a manifestation of this realization.
    Despite his familial ties to music, Russolo had no formal music training. His father and two brothers were all musicians, his brothers attending conservatory. Luigi’s lack of education may have been what saved him from a trajectory within tradition. His association with fellow Futurists and experience of witnessing a concert by Balilla Pratella prompted him (with undeniable help from Marinetti) to write a letter later titled “The Art of Noises.” In this treatise he describes man’s move from quiet nature to a world filled with noise (Russolo 30). He describes the origins of man-made musical sound as mystical and removed from the natural world which were later forced into a regiment of logic that further removed sound from human connection to our surroundings. He states, “The evolution of music is comparable to the multiplication of machines, which everywhere collaborate with man,” and continues, “Today, the machine has created such a variety and contention of noises that pure sound in its slightness and monotony no longer provokes emotion (Russolo, 24)” He goes on to define contemporary music as limited in its palate, constricted and confined to repetition which no longer excite our aesthetic sensibilities. Noise sounds were an unlimited resource that could reinvent the way we listen. Russolo’s ideas were as much about generating music as they were about our terms of engagement with sound. With the new sound, we must find new ways to listen that would reconnect us to a continually changing world. Through these new ways of generating sound, it is no surprise that the ones wishing to uphold tradition were the most resistant. “At the Dal Verme Evening (the first performance of the new noise music) it was principally the professors of the Royal Conservatory of Milan and some musicians who started the disturbance and who were the most violent in invective and insolence! (Russolo 33)” This secures the validity of the move to noise, if those upholding tradition were so reactionary, a true threat to their status must be embodied in Russolo’s music..
    Working through his conceptions of a new music, Russolo began working on instruments that would bring them to realization. The resultant intonarumori would have a profound effect upon the way in which we listen to music and the future of sound making. They had the ability to achieve any microtone with infinite variables through at least a full octave. The instruments were classified into different categories of sound production: howlers, roarers, cracklers, rubbers, hummers, gurglers, hissers, whistlers, bursters, croakers, and rustlers. These were the new noises exploring timbre as criteria for music as opposed to traditional musical constructs of harmony through manipulation of scale. Incorporated into Russolo’s definition of music these instruments opened a new way of conceiving sound that defied standards of instrumentalist virtuosity. Though he wished for the people playing these instruments to learn them and be proficient in execution, there was delineation between this and the old ways of playing traditional instruments. “…It may be possible to have performers that are capable of [virtuosity] which is so detestable when it has artistic pretensions but so very useful in an orchestral performer. (Russolo 83)” With the development of these new sounds one would assume a need for new musical structure as well. Played to its end this logic could only result in the absence of structure, as the nature of sound in our environment adheres to no static relationship dictating the congruence of sound. Russolo imposed a pretty straight forward compositional method on his new instruments though, simple scores of ascending and descending tone and amplitude, weaving the different sounds together much as they would be experienced outside. Sveglio Di Una Cita (Awakening of a City) illustrates exactly as its title suggests, a city coming to life and its life of noises through the day. Critics made accusations of the new compositions in noise music as being mere representations of the outside world. Russolo rebuts by stating in New Acoustical Pleasures:
    These noise timbres become abstract material for works of art to be formed from them. As it comes to us from life, in fact, noise immediately reminds us of life itself, making us think of the things that produce the noises that we are hearing. This reminder of life has the character of an impressionistic and fragmentary episode of life itself. And as I conceive it, The Art of Noises would certainly not limit itself to an impressionistic and fragmentary reproduction of the noises of life. Thus, the ear must hear these noises mastered, servile, completely controlled, conquered and constrained to become elements of art. (This is the continual battle of the artist with his materials.) Noise must become a prime element to mould into the work of art. That is, it has to lose its accidental character in order to become an element sufficiently abstract to achieve the necessary transformation of any prime element into an abstract element of art. (Russolo 86-7)
    Here it is evident that Russolo wanted not only to create new sound but to deploy them in a methodical manner that would be coherent to their form.
    From this point, with an opening up of medium and tactics, those producing music h felt obligated to this pursuit of a new aesthetic. If the possibility lie out there for an avante garde approach, turning to tradition was surely death (Marinetti 112). Artists are constantly reinventing the creative process and thus re-imagining sound and its associations. John Cage used the I-ching to introduce chance into his method, freeing him to consider other elements of composition and sounding to a higher degree. Stockhausen flew a string quartet up in a helicopter; an incorporation of the new sound landscape and technology into the work directly. Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet is a prime example of integrating content, form, and performance. Through integrating the sounds of the helicopters and the act of the quartet being contained within the helicopters, he successfully produces a work that redefines the musical field and breaks down limitations between music, performance, and other characteristics of aesthetic production. The sound itself is important, but the act of the performance is intertwined into the whole.
    Einsturzende Neubauten, on the same path, have incorporated elements of chance, creation of their own instruments, performative acts, and defiance of traditional music structures into their practice. Blixa Bargeld has continually used chance method and intuitive practices to generate lyrical structures for Neubauten's songs. The partly improvisational method their performances embody also rely on chance event to generate new musical structures, or rather, to break them down. Repeatedly the group has espoused concerns for "destroying the very structures of traditional music (Dax 2002)." Neubauten follow closely in the footsteps of Russolo in a very basic fact that most of their instruments are built from machinery parts, power tools, scrap metal, and other such dissonant material, even to great lengths of performing with a jet turbine whirring on stage. Their mixture of concrete sound and electronics makes available a wide array of sound divergent from conventional methods of intonation. The associations made from these instrument materials links directly to the performative acts so tightly bound with their practice. In 1998 at the London ICA, Neubauten, performing with cement mixers, jackhammers, and other power tools attempted to break through the stage into the tunnels that ran beneath the museum. Ideologically, this act was inherent in the conception of the performance, a destructive urge to excite new aesthetic pleasure (Broadhurst 161). The site of this performance was also crucial in their concept as they strove to break music out of an institutionalized setting. Einsturzende Neubauten’s work has been, as has Stockhausen’s, an attempt to breathe new life into art. Through a direct engagement with the site of the ICA, as opposed to merely performing in a space, they summon the political engagement of art versus establishment. Throughout the body of Neubauten’s work there has been a thread of this discontent with power structures. Having their start in 1980 in West Berlin, the seeds of threat from the quiet presence Cold War and its repercussions have fueled their disengagement from canonical practices. Also, Germany’s character as defined through their acts in World War II created a sense of retaliation from tradition. Everything German, tainted with the sins of their past, was to be denied, Neubauten needing to create a unique approach to their craft. Blixa Bargeld, Neubauten’s lyricist, states, “German culture is gone. We hate our culture and our language. All our philosophy and music was appropriated by the Nazis…We cannot redeem that tradition. We can only re-invent. (Laddish)” Through a re-invention of their own culture, Neubauten approach their art much as the Futurists came to see their own endeavors, as the creation of a new folk art, ultimately revitalizing the cultural milieu of their homeland (Dax 2002). As Neubauten developed much of their practice turned to methods of ritual and mysticism. Performing became a way to lose control and explore an aesthetic that comes from somewhere outside the self. Bargeld again, “the reason I want to play live is because I want to lose control to experience something outside my normal consciousness. When I walk off I want to feel different than I did before. That’s ritual I would say. (Broadhurst 161)” It’s not terribly surprising that in his later years, Luigi Russolo, without the ability to continue his endeavors in music making (mostly due to economic constraint) turned to mysticism as an outlet (and inlet) for aesthetic experience. This is a realm where, today, we can see the fruition of new aesthetic experience.
    Russolo’s endeavors were an attempt to reconnect with our world. The sounds or our environment abstracted for aesthetic experience function as a route to invigorate our metaphysical existence. Neubauten as well have attempted to manipulate this experience through performance to awaken the soul to new possibility of enjoyment and connection. Here is a road less traveled. Music and performance have always considered the phenomenological experience, but there remains territory beyond mere physical manifestation that is dense with material and new excitations. The Futurists and some of their followers including Neubauten understood the possibilities for this extra-sensorial experience and what it meant to flow into unknown aesthetic territory; that fear of the new was a powerful force to utilize. During Russolo’s time, the psychological terrain was changing at rates that made it hard to understand. The desire to create new ways to relate to that aspect of society was the impetus for his reactions and creations. There was a specific truth to be grasped. The futurist outlook was a position of being on the threshold of some critical mass. The collective psyche was turning back to what it knew in fear of the unknowable future, a paralyzing fear that doomed artistic production to repeat its tricks over and over. The Futurist way was to “destroy things to make room for the new. (Marinetti)” Society was creating its own demise by not clearing out the ways of the old. Einsturzende Neubauten translates to “tearing down new buildings” an indicator of the same psychological/metaphysical feeling. Walter Benjamin theorized that destruction was ultimately an uplifting activity. Russolo’s intonarumori were harbingers of this idea, the sounds of destruction and power of violence and electricity would ultimately lift our souls to a new aesthetic plane.



    Russolo, Luigi. The Art of Noise. Pendragon Press, New York. 1986.
    Marinetti, F.T. Critical Writings. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. 2006.
    Broadhurst, Susan. Liminal Acts. Cassel, New York. 1999
    Payton, Rodney Johns. The Futurist Musicians: Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi
    Russolo. The University of Chicago. 1974.
    Dax, Max. Interview with Alex Hacke. 2002
    Taylor, Joshua. Futurism. Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1961.
    Laddish, Kenneth. “Blixa Einsturzende: Bareld Harassed,” Mondo 2000, 1993

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  5. adam "adam hollis" hollisMay 6, 2009 at 3:53 PM

    TLDR...j/k

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  6. IannnnnnMay 7, 2009 at 3:19 PM

    Not to critique your argument, exactly, but I've always thought of Neubauten as being sort of traditionalists/revivalists of early 20th century avant-garde practices... The earliest stuff is so clangy and nihilistic (read: Futuristic), but as they get older and begin to mellow out, chance and nonsense start to supplant violence and dissonance as central strategies (kind of a Dada phase, still violent, but less resolute[I forget-they didn't play Headcleaner in Asheville, did they?]), until you get to the post Silence is Sexy recordings that are all lush and dreamy and Surrealistic. I always found it kind of ennobling to have my,like, counterculture subculture positioned in a continuum with Dada and Surrealism because it enlarges the struggle from this dumb-and-quickly-over adolescent battle with suburban conformity into a much longer standing bout against cultural complacency. it means we get to be the art-and-music equivalent of, I keep wanting to say Zionists, but really some longstanding struggle that's a little more chilled-out and easy to get behind, but also old and revolutionary as fuck. Socialism? Oh god what was I talking about how did I get here?
    Good night.

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