x For y Hours - Music's Ontological Status After the Internet

随着我们的注意力越来越分散，音乐变得支离破碎，转瞬即逝，它无处不在，构成了日常生活、网络和现实空间的背景噪音。越来越多的人使用互联网，软件也变得越来越容易获取，这导致了音乐的持续时间、呈现方式和体验都在适应其传播的在线平台的形式。这导致音乐的物质载体（cd, mp3）被移除，这意味着与材料相关的持续时间和形式已经变得短暂且在本体论上不确定，因此它的固定媒介已经转移到基于云的存储，现在是不固定的。现在出现了一种“不听”的做法，即同时体验多种媒体（社交媒体，视频等），而正如Eldritch Priest所说，音乐是“听到但不听”（Priest, 2013）。我的项目试图引导音乐的本体论地位如何在互联网时代受到根本性的挑战和转变。实践输出旨在将音乐概念化为一种无形的，非周期性的艺术形式，而不是在一段时间内完全体验。项目的副标题x For y Hours，其中x（材料）的存在是为了调解y（不确定的时间），将作为一个总体概念标题，用于探索广泛的媒介，如“音乐会装置”，特定场地的表演装置，以及一个不断产生音乐的网站。我推荐x For y Hours作为音乐在互联网上的存在方式的陈述，与肯尼斯·戈德史密斯（Kenneth Goldsmiths）对挪用的定义一致，即“在数字时代重新利用”。这个项目是在质疑“新”的背景下进行的，在过去的十年里，“新”在新音乐和实验音乐的话语中占有重要地位。自21世纪初诞生于互联网上的音乐颠覆了人们对未来的看法，认为未来是进步的、新的，而且没有固有的“新”声音的说法已经变得司空见惯。通过艺术世界中主张摧毁“旧”和删除过去的传承，再加上被描述为未来的终结（Berardi, 2011, Fischer, 2014），挪用的重新出现，曾经属于现代主义传统的先锋企业，形成了不同流派的关键组成部分和美学，如概念音乐和电子音乐微流派蒸汽波。巨爪音乐的超现实主义和丹尼尔·洛帕丁早期的蒸汽波微采样都体现了这种挪用的数字方式，这无疑与概念艺术家道格拉斯·胡伯乐的说法相呼应：“世界充满了物体，或多或少有趣；我不想再增加了”（Huebler, 1969），同时也为“新概念主义”在实验音乐实践中的出现铺平了道路（即Johannes Kriedler）。

As our attention is increasingly divided, music has become fragmented and fleetingly viewed, something that is ever-present, forming background noise to the everyday, online and in physical space. Increasing use of the internet and software becoming more accessible has resulted in music's duration, presentation, and experience adapting to fit the format of the online platforms with which it is disseminated. This has resulted in music's material carrier (CDs, MP3s) being removed, meaning duration and form--linked to material--has become transient and ontologically indeterminate, and so it's fixed medium, which has shifted to cloud-based storage, is now unfixed. A practice of 'unlistening' now emerges, where multiple media (social media, video, etc.) is being experienced simultaneously, and music is, as Eldritch Priest states "heard but not listened to" (Priest, 2013).My project attempts to navigate how music's ontological status has been fundamentally challenged and transformed in the internet age. The practice output aims to conceptualise music as an intangible, non-periodised art form not completely experienced in a set period of time. The project sub-title x For y Hours, where x (material) exists to mediate y (indeterminate time), will serve as an overarching concept title for the generation of musical works exploring broad mediums such as 'concert-installation', site-specific performance-installation, and a website continuously generating music. I propose x For y Hours as a statement of how music now exists on the internet, aligning to Kenneth Goldsmiths definition of appropriation as 'repurposing in the digital age'. This project sits within the context of questioning the 'new' which has foregrounded in New and Experimental music discourse over the last decade. Since the early 2000's music born on the internet has subverted ideas of the future as being progressive and new and the claim that there are no inherently 'new' sounds has become commonplace. Through the lineage of claims in the art world to destroy the 'old' and delete the past, coupled with what has been described as the end of the future (Berardi, 2011, Fischer, 2014), a re-emergence of appropriation, once a vanguard enterprise belonging to modernist tradition, forms a critical component and aesthetic of disparate genres such as conceptual music and the electronic music microgenre vaporwave. This digital take on appropriation, as exemplified in the hyperrealism of Giant Claw's music and the early vaporwave micro-sampling of Daniel Lopatin, certainly echoes conceptual artist Douglas Huebler's statement "the world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add anymore" (Huebler, 1969), whilst also paving the way for 'New Conceptualism' to emerge in experimental music practice (i.e. Johannes Kriedler).